<![CDATA[Testing Land]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/https://blog.testing-land.com/favicon.pngTesting Landhttps://blog.testing-land.com/Ghost 2.5Thu, 29 Jul 2021 16:41:16 GMT60<![CDATA[4 Tips For Staying Engaged With Your Professional Self During Maternity Leave]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/tips-for-staying-relevant-during-your-maternity-leave/5ff210d29cb8de108808df9eTue, 05 Jan 2021 20:48:51 GMT

Oh well, my beloved moms and "moms to be" readers, this one is for you. I'm sorry, gentlemen.

For many women, maternity leave is the best time of their lives as you're spending your whole time pampering, caring, loving, snuggling your little human. And the feelings that come with these can hardly be put into words. But let's not dig into too many details, we'll become too emotional, shall we?

But putting your professional life on hold, even just for a short time, can cause you huge anxiety. And it's normal to be that way, as you've spent years in crafting your career, prioritizing, creating your professional profile, looking for the best professional opportunities to grow when you're suddenly facing a big change in your life and you'll have to put all these on pause.

It's like a major turn out that you have to make in your well-known duties, as with your newborn child, a newborn YOU says "hello world".

During the first two trimesters of pregnancy you usually don't think quite a lot about the changes you're going to face, but more about how to effectively do your job. And as you're approaching the due date, you might start documenting your responsibilities, make a hand over to the one taking your responsibilities, help with setting up some objectives.

So, you've made it through 9 months of pregnancy, you gave birth, sleepless nights and hazy days just become your new routine. Even it looks like you don't have too many things to do (some would think that your arms and some milk might be enough for the baby) it takes a bit of time until you get used to this "new normal".

And once you've got used to it, your mind starts wandering to work. You might feel that caring for your little human it's not enough for your thinking brain. It might be for the feeling brain, but the thinking brain is looking for new challenges. At least that was my case. (If you're not feeling that way, it is perfectly fine, it's nothing wrong with you!).

But how to remain relevant during maternity leave?

Here are my tips.

Socialize. Stay connected to people.

Once you left the office, don't leave your workmates too. I encourage you to meet them personally, or if not possible (due to the pandemic's social distancing) you can join their after-hours calls, online beers on Fridays, you name it, all kinds of social gatherings that your company has put in place during the pandemic time. If this is not possible, have quick chats with your work-mates, give them a call once in a while, ask about their health, their plans, their job.

This kind of activity helps you a lot as gives you the feeling that you're still part of the team.

Make use of all your friends that are working in the same industry as you do, getting news from them on what's new in the industry or how things are evolving.

Read. Practice.

During maternity leave, time is no longer your friend. You have to say thanks if you find time for a shower, but more than ever, your mind needs to wander, your brain needs some new stuff to digest, other than diapers and milk. Can be a good moment for you to start practicing or learning something you just put on hold for many years - some new management skills, drawing illustrations, dig into some new ways of writing test cases, you name it.

Books, e-books, blog posts, newsletters, articles, Twitter posts, the options are endless.

You can also become a friend with podcasts. There are plenty of podcasts covering various topics and areas where you can learn a lot of stuff.

Socially connected

As a new mom, I'm not encouraging you to spend too much time on social media, especially scrolling for babies' pictures and being envious about how one of your ex-colleague got her body shape back after giving birth.

But looking more on social platforms like LinkedIn, figuring out which are the trends in your industry, follow relevant people, content creators, bloggers.

Passion project

Having your mind being decluttered by all the job's responsibilities, but being driven by the will of doing something for yourself, you can use your little time that you have working and growing a passion project. That passion project might teach you new skills, get you outside of your comfort zone, now is the perfect time to invest in your passion.


Dear mom,

If you are interested in how to stay relevant in your career during maternity leave, that's perfectly fine. But that's not making you less of a mom.

If you're not interested in how to stay relevant in your career during maternity leave, that's perfectly fine too. But that's not necessarily making you a better mom.

Love, M.

Photo credit: Obed Esquivel on Unsplash

<![CDATA[7 Things I Have Learned In The Past Year]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/7-things-i-have-learned-in-the-past-year/5fef85ab9cb8de108808df3bFri, 01 Jan 2021 21:09:57 GMT

In 2018 I've written a blog post illustrating all the good things the previous year (2017) had taught me. Yeah, I know, it's been a while, here we are in the first day of 2021 and meanwhile a whole pandemic thing hit us.

But, looking back and reading again that blog post, oh well, it kinda felt that I was talking about 2020 as being the "past year" and not 2017. All the things and memories were so vivid... so I thought would be useful to share these on my blog too as they have never been published here.

I am leaving you below the content of that blog post and adding comments on how all those things applied to 2020. Enjoy!

"The past year was a truly year of exploration and lots of questions and doubts found their answers. There is no secret that the biggest achievement for me in the past months was activating my state of mindfulness. I’ve heard and read a lot about it, but wasn’t been able to define it and less able to understand it. I have spent hours and days trying to understand how to carefully observe my thoughts and feelings.

All these being said, here is a list of 7 things I have learned in the last year.

Complain less

Complaining is becoming one of the most common things I’m hearing all day long. Life is not perfect and we all know it. Why do we want to keep an infinite loop of reminding ourselves about how imperfect life is?

We like to complain about the weather, the traffic, our neighbours, our bosses, our jobs, the politicians that are ruining our country, about the big taxes, about how busy we are.

Complaining all day long does not help things change, is totally unattractive and gives us the victim look. Instead complaining, I would suggest you to take action and repair what you see is broken or if this is not possible, move away. Close that Facebook feed full of political stuff if you’re not a political fan and focus more on something that brings you satisfaction."

2020 was the year of complaining about all the COVID-19 pandemic thing, right?

Stop taking things personally

Oh, it would be so good if all drama around us would suddenly stop!

We have to understand that many people are not conscious about their unconscious thoughts and sometimes their observations or comments might affect us. Never make other people’s opinions of you more important than your own opinion of yourself.

2020 - with all the COVID-19 stories, many people can get easily offended by anything is said or written

Stop overthinking

We all face problems. Bigger or smaller. But sometimes even the smallest problem become big when we tend to spend too much time thinking of it. I have observed people tend to overthink a certain situation when they are not very comfortable with taking a decision, choosing to go on the right or on the left, when they have few information or when they’re worrying about the future.

Can you be 100% sure that the decision you’re taking is the correct one? Stop looking for perfection, believe in adjustments and be open to assume the responsibility of a wrong decision. Sometimes, even a wrong decision took at a certain moment can lead you to new and exciting situations.

“Because we feel vulnerable about the future, we keep trying to solve problems in our head.” — David Carbonell.

2020 - worrying about the future is normal, but digging into a rabbit hole while trying to find out what is going to happen will not help

Do not feel bad when you are rejected

For me, for many years, rejection and then overthinking worked hand in hand. “What did I do wrong? Why wasn’t I good enough for that job? Why doesn’t he call me back?”. I guess most of you recognise this pattern.

And after all these years, I think I found the recipe. Whenever it happens to be rejected, my thought is that I wasn’t the right person at the right moment. Period.

Never stop dreaming

I think everyone of us has more than one dream and when we focus on a certain dream, we feel we have a purpose. Dreams provide a why, a way to understand better the journey to our destination and keeping an eye on the dreams list can help us choosing our next move.


Which is your dream list?

Have faith

I usually tend to believe that most of the things are meant to happen only when we are 100% ready for them to happen.

2020 - faith is the only thing that help us moving forward, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, giving us hope that the whole pandemic thing is going to end soon.

Set proper expectations

Setting expectations, high or low is very important and setting them properly might help you instead of hurt you. Unmet expectations lead to all kind of negative feelings and we can easily feel unmotivated (“If M. doesn’t call me, why should I call her?”).

We’re full of expectations:

  • expectations we set to ourselves;
  • expectations we set to our partner, parents, family or friends;
  • expectations we set to our bosses;

The most important is to set realistic expectations and to communicate them properly.


After 2020 had ended, looking at the list above, the most important one for me seems to be "have faith". As without faith is almost impossible to move forward.

Have a blessed 2021!

Photo credit: Quino Al on Unsplash

<![CDATA[Things NOT To Do When An Employee Resigns]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/things-not-to-do-when-an-employee-resigns/5f8ed19b9cb8de108808de24Wed, 21 Oct 2020 12:54:35 GMT

"How do you know when is the time to resign and leave from a company?" was someone asking in a tweet recently and I left a reply saying that "is similar to knowing when to leave from a relationship".

Because in many aspects, I do believe that these two relations are quite similar and from both, you decide to leave when "you had had enough" or when you're having a better offer - when something or someone better got your attention.

During my time spent working as a manager, I was lucky enough not to have to deal with resignations too often. But when I did, it wasn't the happiest moment and that was because I felt I was "losing" valuable people.

When someone from your team is asking if you've got 2 minutes to talk, your mind usually starts spinning, finding the best things to say, as the first thing that comes to your mind is "oh boy, something is wrong".

There are cases when a resignation might get you completely by surprise, what I do recommend is to have constant check-ups with your employees, 1:1's, just to be sure you're on track with their struggles, frustrations or wishes.

Here are some things NOT to say nor to do when your employee is presenting his/her resignation.

You don't take it serious

When your employee is presenting his/her resignation, don't take it as a joke and don't wait for your employee to change his/her mind. He probably won't, and the break up can become more unpleasant because of your lack of professionalism.

You're playing the "mocking boss"

But what's the "mocking boss"? I have heard different stories from my friends about that kind of boss who's asking what financial offer have you received and starts making jokes about how easy and fast have you sold yourself.

In many cases is not just about the money and would be more helpful for you as a manager to understand your employee's reasons for resigning rather than mocking him/her.

You're trying to flatter your employee

Well, don't try to flatter your employee when s/he is resigning, but instead, try to value that person during the whole period s/he is working for you. Listen to what they're struggling with, listen to what are their wishes, goals, professional and financial desires and do whatever you can do to make them happy (if you consider they really deserve it).

Don't leave the rewards to the end when there's more likely to be refused by your employee.

Playing politics

When one of your employees is giving you the news about the resignation, don't tell him/her not to say a word to the other colleagues, just to give you the time to sort out things or to avoid creating rumors inside your team.

If you do think you can change the decision of resignation, you can ask the employee to give you a day or so to see what you can do for him/her and tell him/her you'll come back with news as soon as possible.

Arguing resignation reasons

If you're having a trustful relation with your employees, you're most probably going to hear the real reasons (or at least a part of them) of why your employee decided to resign.

Even if you don't agree with the reasons presented or you have another opinion or view over the things, try to empathise and to understand the resignation reasons and to help the employee understand your point. Avoid making a polemic.

You make it personal

When someone from your team decides to resign, you as a manager, usually get intro troubles, so to say.

And that's because you're suddendly facing new problems - find a substitute to do the job done by the employee who is resigning, explain to the higher management why the retention process did not work properly, and if you are lucky enough, to open a new position and start recruiting again. Or start working on making the case and convince the management team that you need a new hire.

Having these in mind, it's easy to fall on the sleepery slope and ask the employee who's resigning "what are you doing to me?",  making him/her responsible for your future challenges.

It is your responsibility as a manager to sort the things out, but keep in mind, the resignation is not about you, it's about giving support and understanding for the one who's resigning, and after that, finding the proper solutions to move on.

You take it personal

I left this one on purpose at the end. It's hard not to take it personally, right?

Well, it is, and that's because we read everywhere that an employee usually resigns because of his/her manager not because of the organization itself. Which is true.

Maybe you are indeed in the scenario when the employee dislikes to work for you as a manager, but not as a human being. You can use that to see if there are any things or skills that need to be improved on your side as a manager.

What to do though when one of your employees decide to resign?

  • acknowledge it!
  • try to understand the reasons and see if there's something you can do to make the employee continue working for you
  • congratulate him/her for the new opportunity and express your regret for losing a valuable employee
  • help your employee with the next steps (exit interview, how to communicate the decision inside the team, make a recommendation if needed, etc.)


The decision of leaving a company is usually not taken spontaneously, but it takes a while for you as an employee to acknowledge all the things that make you wish going somewhere else.

Like I said in the beginning, it's like deciding to leave a relationship, right?  

Looking for new opportunities is a good thing when we think the current context is not fulfilling us anymore.

For writing this article, I got inspired by having lot of talks with friends, ex-colleagues who resigned from their jobs and did not get the support or the words they were expecting.

Thank you all for your help!

Photo credit: Jude Beck on Unsplash

<![CDATA[More Than Interviewing For Testers]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/interviewing-for-testers/5f7231949cb8de108808dd76Wed, 30 Sep 2020 19:50:57 GMT

I took part in a bunch of interviews in the past years and during this time, I've worked on polishing my set of questions to be addressed to our candidates.

For a long period, being a candidate to an interview was like a nightmare for me, and have tried to avoid going to interviews mainly because I've always felt that the interviewer's role was to highlight my weaknesses.

(Yeah, yeah, I know, when you're accepting your weaknesses and you're not afraid to look vulnerable, everything goes smooth. We all know the theory, right?)

But then I got to the other side of the table.

Things to observe during an interview

In the beginning of our discussion, I'm giving the candidate the chance to present himself/herself, to say whatever he/she wants based on his/her professional experience and resume which helps putting himself/herself in a good light.

In our area of expertise, i.e. software testing, the most important area to focus on during an interview is the technical part.

Even if I'm looking for an automation tester, manual tester, quality assurance specialist, test analyst, you name it, the technical questions are covering most of the interview time. And by technical I mean questions that highlight the candidate's knowledge, potential and understanding of the things that need to be done according to our company role's description (programming languages, frameworks, various tools, methodologies, test strategies, types of testing, and so on).

I usually tend to ask questions based on the candidate's resume and based on the needs that our company has for that certain position. I'm trying to avoid asking too many questions on a certain topic when the candidate starts to feel uncomfortable by saying "I'm sorry, I don't know" for too many times.

After the technical part is covered, I'm curious to find out more about the processes.

💡 "What do you do when you run out of work?"

💡  "From where do you get the information on what needs to be tested?"

💡 "What does it mean for you to be an <agile tester>?"

💡 "How soon in the development cycle does the tester have access to the code to be tested?"

And something more

But what's more important for me is to hear the candidate's "why".

What drives you as a tester?

To hear his/her story. And you know what? Few candidates have a real or a strong "why", kicking them out of bed every morning and be thrilled by the job they're doing.

Another thing that I'm curious about to hear is how do they learn.

💡 "What blog posts do you usually read?"

💡 "What testing/technical books have you read?"

💡 "What conferences did you attend?"

💡 "What initiatives did you have and made you proud?"

💡 "Did you attend any mentoring program as a mentor or a mentee?"

💡 "What would you like to learn but you did not get the chance yet?"

And an interesting one to hear is:

💡 "What do you hate at what you're currently doing?"

There are a lot of posts on the Internet teaching you strategies for an effective interview, job interviews questions and answers and ways to prepare, x most common questions and so on.

Even interviews can be hard and unpleasant, I believe they should be led by honesty from both the candidate and the interviewer, to be able to see what level of compatibility you have. in

Photo credit: James Pond on Unsplash

<![CDATA[I Wish I Knew More About...]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/i-wish-i-knew-more-about/5f4e99b59cb8de108808dd2bTue, 01 Sep 2020 19:44:39 GMT

Picking the right battles.

Or picking the right areas to focus on.

Why? Well, because in software testing you can easily get assaulted by a tone of technologies, methodologies, frameworks, tools you are required to master and to learn this or that and might become scary as you get to the point where you're saying "I don't even know what I am paid for, I know nothing".

During the past 10 years I had a tone of to-do lists and checklists with all the stuff I would like to master, thinking that my "rank" as a software tester would be higher by learning all that stuff. Which seems legit, the more you know, the more valuable you are.


When you're trying to focus on too many things, you might end up focusing on nothing or spending your time on irrelevant things.

It's all about prioritization.

↪️  Make a list with all the things you would like to master and which are applicable to your job.

↪️  Put on the top of the list the ones that thrill you the most, the ones for which you would spend your free time reading about and the sleepless nights doing proof-of-concept for it.

↪️  Then add those ones which are the most critical for the business context you are working in.

↪️  . . .

Then add some salt and pepper.

↪️  And after that, put on the list the things that are "nice to have" for you as a software tester professional, the ones that are the most searched by the technology marketers.

Our learning curve and professional growth are in our hands. Picking everything or nothing to be learned is not an option, that's why I consider being crucial to pick wisely your own battler. Pick wisely the things you would like to learn and to master.

Big kudos to Bloggers Club from Ministry of Testing for inspiring me to write this blog post.

Photo credit: alireza mahmoudi on Unsplash

<![CDATA[How Does DEVOPS See Testers?]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/how-does-a-devops-see-testers/5f1d76df9cb8de108808dcebWed, 29 Jul 2020 09:29:38 GMT

This is a series of blog post interviews, aiming to help testers understand how different IT departments see the role of a tester. Every tester wants to become a better version of itself, yet not everyone has all the missing pieces in doing that. Hopefully, these interviews will give you new ways of improving yourself.

My DevOps guy in Alex Dascal, passionate about music, drummer in a band, currently working as DevOps Engineer at BoatyardX.

1. What does DevOps stand for?

DevOps is more of an ideology. It basically boils down to a set of practices and principles built around shortening/improving software delivery times, streamlining software development lifecycles (SDLCs) and producing a "fail-friendly" atmosphere. There's a ton that goes into the devops mindset, but prefer to often resume to simple idioms like "Automate everything!".

2. Where does testing fit in DevOps?

Testing is a big part of DevOps, a vital one actually. If we are to look at what makes software "safe" for shipping, it goes without saying that whatever is being built needs to be tested properly to fit the bill.

Considering the simple ideology of "Automate everything!" tests are definitely an important aspect of the process. Whether you are copying static HTML code in a text file on a server or delivering a complex, multi-component environment, fully provisioned with various applications, pertinent testing is required.Simply put, the main "trick" to achieving a lot of the aspects described above is to make sure you get reproducible results reliably. The simplest way of doing that is (and knowing it too :D) is to put together a relevant test-suite.

3. How do you see the role of a tester from a DevOps person position?

Testers are very important throughout the stages of software development. Their focus should mainly be building automated tests as well as integrating tests within the various layers involved in delivering software.

An entire SDLC should benefit from the expertise and knowledge of testers on each and every step of the way. I believe that there is an increasing need for testers with CI Tool DSL knowledge and a devops mind-set.

Having the knowledge and the opportunity to write out your entire CI/CD methodology for testing will get you on anyone's good side and can relieve annoyances caused by tooling barriers (e.g. "The tester doesn't know if the change is good because the platform guy didn't have time to show him the test results").

4. How do you interact with testers during your work?

I am always involved in working directly with testers as more and more companies are moving towards fully adopting various CI Tooling solutions. The most common situation I've found myself in is that testers are considering DevOps engineers a default first point of contact. It's rather natural as DevOps engineers are usually jacks-of-all-trades and they are almost always the ones building the DSL libraries used with their CI tools, hasing out all the automation, responsible for platform applications and infrastructure, and that can lead into gaining a fair amount of knowledge within the project and all of it's specifics.

So ever so often I get involved into and asked about a variety of items that have (in reality) nothing to do with my job description - I still enjoy lending a helping hand though :)

Leaving that aside, there's always a discussion to be had on how to optimise, test smarter, increase coverage, increase quality and so on.

5. Which is the DevOps effect on quality?

I believe that if the mentality is adopted and applied correctly, you will never have to worry about drops/decreasing trends in quality.

6. Do you think a tester should reinvent his role and if yes, how?

Not entirely. I do believe that recently more and more people are moving into automated testing which is ultimately where all testers should be (in my opinion).

That being said, one aspect that I've always found lacking in the people that I've worked with is a total disregard for non-functionals. I guess it's arguable whether or not that should be of interest to a tester but from my perspective, non-functionals are equally important when it comes to delivering quality software.

7. How would you see a perfect relationship between a DevOps engineer and a tester?

When I think of any inter-disciplinary relationship, the first thing that comes to mind is that the other person should know how and why they want to automate something and I should be able to provide a relevant and easy (enough) to use platform and set of tools to achieve that. It's a bit difficult to elaborate further as it all varies heavily based on the project and the teams end-goals.

8. What skills do you think a tester should have to survive in a DevOps world?

Adaptability, an open-mind and being proactive (nosy even) in the software development process (and in platform development as well!)

9. And what tools would you recommend he or she should master?

I think picking up any of the big CI Tooling DSLs would be a great start. (Jenkins Pipeline Groovy, GitLab CI DSL). Getting familiar with stuff like Docker and Kubernetes should also pay off in the long run as many companies are in full blown transitions towards containerised infrastructures.

Photo credit: Franck V. on Unsplash

<![CDATA[How Does a DEVELOPER See Testers]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/how-does-a-developer-see-testers/5eebc0019cb8de108808dc7eThu, 09 Jul 2020 17:15:48 GMT


My developer guest is Sergiu Oltean, passionate software developer which likes to do things properly. He's currently working as Senior Software Engineer at Winnow and in his spare time, Sergiu's writing technical stuff on his personal blog.

1. How do you see, as a developer, the role of a tester within the team?    

It depends. If you're Google or Facebook probably you think testers are overrated since they have a CI/CD in place with everything automated (developers write the tests). Also depends on which type of tester.

If we're talking about a tester which writes automation tests, this one has a big contribution to build automation, which means faster deployment times. Is some situations this is a competitive edge.

A manual tester is able to find more edge cases by performing exploratory testing and find things no one thought of. Also some of the tests just cannot be automated (or it's too hard).

From my point of view each team should have both types.

2.  How does your activities as developer intersect with tester’s activities?

It's a close collaboration. Both must understand the business details in order to be effective. From a developer's perspective I expect that each bug should be clear as daylight. Should contains steps to reproduce, expected and current outcome. In some cases I even saw GIF's visually describing the issue. In others I was unpleasant surprised by the lack of any details. Just a bug name shortly describing the problem(I cannot read minds).

As a developer, my responsibility is that every bug should only be found once. That means I need to write a unit/integration test for each bug found. Nobody likes the same bug being reopened (especially multiple times).

Developers should not be defensive when a bug arise. I have encountered situations where the developer asked the tester not to log the bug because he will fix it asap. This is just weak. Accept your mistakes and go on.

3. In your opinion, what skills (technical / non-technical) does a tester should have?

In order to be effective you need to be passionate. This is the main driver of doing anything. You don't feel it's work when you enjoy what you do. Posses some detective like skills. Attention to detail, written and oral communication.

Technical I would expect some basic knowledge of networking (http, ip) and some scripting ability (bash at least). An automation QA needs programming skills and deep understanding of testing frameworks. Also to be familiar with processes (i.e Scrum, Kanban) which is valid for any type of tester.

4. How do you solve the “this is not a requirement, it’s a nice-to-have” situation?

You mean it's not a bug, it's a feature type situation. This happens when the developer implements the written requirements and the tester uses the common sense if you want, thinks like a user, but did not read carefully the requirements.

It's like that joke: "How do you know a man is a programmer? Send him shopping and tell him: "Get a loaf of bread and if they have eggs get 10." If he comes back with 10 loaves of bread, he's a programmer." Sometimes (most times) we think like machines and testers like humans. And they both have right in this case. The solution is to go to the product owner and ask him to create another task/story for that feature. This is just an example of a tester creating business requirements.

5. Should developers test their own code?

Hell yeah. I am just gonna state here the testing pyramid from Clean Coder by Uncle Bob.

How Does a DEVELOPER See Testers

It's our job to make sure the tester does not find anything. It's an overstatement, of course, but something to use as a guideline. The code should not go to production without tests. The code review should not pass without the presence of tests. This is just common sense.

6. What ratio of automated - manual testing do you consider to be ideal?

The pyramid from above it's a good guideline. The main requirement of automation is to cover the critical paths of the system, the rest is nice to have. Manual testing should not overlap with these and focus on other parts. But exceptions of course exists. Automation and manual are complementary, they do not exclude each other.

7. Is is true or is it just a myth that developers and testers are like cats and dogs?

It depends. We need to look at Conway's Law. They are both true depending on the organization. I personally think that the developers and testers are just wheels in same mechanism. They need to work together and be professionals. And by playing cats and dogs, cats and mice, cops and robbers it's just unprofessional.

8. And how do you make the relationship between developers and testers be healthy?

This is a tough one. It depends on their personalities. But some general guidelines, which apply not only for devs and tester, but for humans in general. Don't blame, condemn or complain. See the situation from the other's point of view. Start the conversation on a positive note, see the things you agree on. Don't be aggressive, as it will put the other on the defensive and build resentment. Build extra work relations (beers, sports).

9. What advice would you give to a tester willing to write  code?

First of all you need to invest time. Read a basic programming book to understand the concepts. Do some tutorials. Find a tester who has made this transition and ask for guidance. Spend more time with a developer and ask questions. See if writing code is for you or not. Remember in order to be good at something you need to like doing it first.

Photo credit: James Pond on Unsplash

<![CDATA[How Does a RECRUITER See Testers]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/tester-seen-by-recruiter/5ed14e979cb8de108808dbecMon, 01 Jun 2020 17:08:24 GMT


I'm starting the series with this blog post having a special guest - Cristina Cherecheș, founder of Talent Matchmakers, the liaison between companies and people looking for new opportunities.

When we're looking for new opportunities, we usually have a first discussion with the recruiter. Answering my questions, Cristina is helping us, the testers, sharing her view and opinions from a recruiter's perspective and give us some tips from the other side.

1. How do you see, as a recruiter, the role of a tester within a team?

The tester’s role is to ensure the value and quality of the product aren’t sacrificed while maintaining the timelines or objectives of the application.

The QA is responsible for guaranteeing a level of quality for the end client/user and helping the software development team to identify problems early in the process.

I see the tester as a “Serjeant-at-Arms”: prevent, detect, and fix defects in an early stage.

2. What’s the difference between recruiting a tester and recruiting some other role (i.e developer, designer, you name it)?

Each recruitment process is different and involves a different approach, depending on the role you want to fill.

When it comes to the recruitment process for testers, the required essential skills are attention to detail, creativity to test different scenarios, analytical and logical thinking, problem-oriented, etc.

On the other hand, it’s important to set the differences between each testing role: Software Test Engineer, Test Analyst, Test Automation Engineer, Software Development Engineer in Test, Test Architect, Test Manager. Each one of them has another role in the team and other objectives that need to be accomplished. And this influences the recruitment process a lot.

3. What difficulties does a tester have to overcome when looking for a new job?

  • The need to have experience in automation. More and more organizations are looking for experienced automation testers in order to ease and speed up the velocity of the development.
  • The need to have experience in desktop, web, mobile testing.
  • Fewer jobs compared to the number of jobs for programmers in the labor market; The total budget value from the engineering expenses assigned for the quality assurance of a project is around 10%.
  • Some companies don’t consider necessary hiring a tester/quality assurance persona. The current trend among software development teams is to move away from QA-based testing in favor of developer-based testing. The testing market is gradually shifting towards a unified role of a testing professional that is able to automate, develop testing tools, and even write production code when necessary. Google is an example of this approach - they are blurring the line between testers and developers. They expect developers to test their piece of code, while testers provide them with the necessary infrastructure.

4. How hard is it (or easy) to convince a tester to change his / her job?

It is as hard as any other role in the IT industry if we are talking about an experienced tester. The QA talent community is interested to know as much as possible about the product, application’s road-map, best practices that are in place, the relationship between programmers and testers, and how they can contribute and grow in the new context/organization.

5. What aspects do you consider to be important to be written in a tester’s resume?

Well, there are a set of things that will help candidates avoid receiving inappropriate job offers and also ease their path to an interview:

  • Information regarding the environment in which the product was developed (is it web/ mobile/ desktop/ responsive).
  • In which industry you have experience. Some opportunities required previous experience in finance, cybersecurity, healthcare testing, etc.
  • The tools and technical stack used in each experience.
  • Results and achievements. Your contribution and impact are highly appreciated and sometimes more valued than the responsibilities you had.

6. What’s usually missing from a tester’s resume?

Results and Achievements. As a recruiter, I want to go beyond the responsibilities a candidate had in his previous experiences. I want to know the candidates and what makes them different from the others. I want to know how they contribute to the development, what proposals and impact they had during the development process, and also on the final product.

I encourage candidates to make sure they add in their resume information regarding the footprint they left behind -  in each project they were involved in.

7. How would you define that “great candidate”?

A great candidate is a transparent and honest candidate. A candidate that has a clear state of mind of what he is looking for, and what he is avoiding. A great candidate is very open in communicating all information regarding his professional experiences, desires, and puts his trust in the HR team. In this way the assessments are gonna be more accurate.

8. And how do you find him/her?

Well first of all - network. Great professionals are well-spoken and have a well-known reputation and notoriety in the labor market. Besides that, of course sourcing them on different professional platforms where we, as recruiters, can see/evaluate part of their work.

9. Is it true or is it just a myth that a tester earns less than a developer?

It is true. Of course, it depends on the seniority of the candidates, skillset, type of company (outsourcing/ product). There are some differences when it comes to salary structures between a developer and a quality assurance engineer.

10. What advice would you give to a tester looking for a new job?

Pursue to become a full-stack tester engineer. You can do this by taking care of all aspects of product quality, such as functionality, usability, performance, security, globalization, and combining different strategies and technologies to test an application.

And if you are looking for a job - I encourage you to be bold. Try to connect with recruiters, contact them, find out what kind of opportunities they have, and, after that, you can evaluate if one of them is suitable for your career. Don’t just wait to be contacted, not all the jobs are not listed on the market.

Thank you, Cristina!

Photo credit: Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash

<![CDATA[Letter to my fellow tester.]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/letter-to-my-fellow-tester/5ec17e9b9cb8de108808db24Tue, 26 May 2020 11:31:00 GMT

🔵 The text below was published in "Around the World with 80 Software Testers" book. The book draws upon the knowledge and experience from both experts and new voices from around the world involved in software testing.

Don't be shy. Let your voice be heard.

Why? Because your voice is valuable and your opinion matters.

I worked a lot during the past few years trying to empower you, to help you letting your voice be heard. But some of you still preferred to remain quiet, as if opening your mouth to say your opinion was the last thing in the world you would do.

Do you think you're an impostor in the software development team? Don't worry, we all feel that at certain points in our careers, no matter if we're developers, project managers, business analysts, designers, you name it.

The impostor syndrome can affect anyone.

But why you, my fellow tester, why do you pick the silence when your voice would make such a difference if heard?

Well... Maybe due to misconceptions?


It is well known that some people and companies are seeing your relationship with the developers as a continuous battle, as the developers are the ones working to build something and you to break it. More than that, you, my fellow tester, might get to be marginalised by the fact that you are the "breaker of the system" and your role is not as important as the constructor's (developer) is.

Not even it's a bad approach and an unhealthy way of looking to the tester - developer relationship, but might create you a poor self esteem, making you avoid giving an opinion as you might think you are not good enough or you are not having the power to speak. Wrong!

Misconceptions are affecting your voice as a tester.
Letter to my fellow tester.

Since you're afraid to speak as you're considering yourself as not being as good or as valuable as a developer is, you're prone to end up doing the following mistakes.

Let's have some examples.

▪️ You're in the middle of the planning meeting and everyone is talking about estimations, developers are throwing some numbers based on complexity considerations, but you are not saying anything. Why? Because someone said at some point that testers should not evaluate the complexity of the work that needs to be done, that is a developer's role to do that. Well, it is not only developers' role, but an estimation should also contain the effort that is made by both developers and testers to deliver a certain piece of work.

▪️ You're not asking questions as you are afraid of looking stupid as you are not as technical as a developer is. So? That's the beauty of having diverse roles in a team, great things might be revealed exactly by those non-technical questions that you are asking. And in the end, why is it so bad to ask a question to make things more clear to you? For me, is a sign that you want to evolve, to learn more, to do more to help your team. At certain points in time, everybody is asking a question to which the rest of the team is already knowing the answer.

▪️ The go-live is approaching, you're still having things to be tested and you are pressed by your superior to give the green-light so the features to be released. Nothing fancy, this is happening frequently. But you are not saying anything about the risks that you're seeing, being of afraid of not being able to justify your concerns of postponing the release for a bit. Well, my dear tester, in this situation is more dangerous to remain silent than to speak up loud about your concerns.

▪️ You're receiving the features to be tested when there is not enough time left until the end of the sprint and you are not complaining about it. Pointing the finger or making a drama out of this situation is not ideal, but ignoring it and making everything possible to finish your work in a time record is not helping you. Talk to your team, find together some ways to avoid having the features given to you to be tested so late in the delivery process.

▪️ Specifications are not clear and you have to test the features based on these. Don't make assumptions with regards to specifications. Rather than making assumptions, get the courage to ask all the questions, with the risk of you looking vulnerable, just to be sure you're testing what is needed to be tested.

💌 This letter is for you, my dear tester, and for the silent tester I used to be too years ago.

Photo credit: Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash and James Pond on Unsplash

<![CDATA[What Leadership And Parenting Have In Common]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/what-leadership-and-parenting-have-in-common/5ea1a2289cb8de108808da18Sat, 25 Apr 2020 07:09:52 GMT

I've read a tweet a while ago about this topic, what leadership and parenting have in common, but back then I could barely get my head out from the sand to see what all this parenting is about.

One thing got clear though:

You were not born a leader as you were not born a parent.

But both of them can be taught.

We are talking about love when it comes to our children, but we are not used to talking about those kinds of feelings when it comes to our staff, nevertheless, our mind rejects the idea of having such feelings at work. But, as you will see below, in many cases when dealing with life situations with your kids or with your staff, you end up applying similar patterns.

As a side note, when I entered maternity leave, my manager told me that when I am going to be back at work, I'm going to have a completely different approach with my team. But until then, here is what I found out to be the common key points between parenting and leadership.


Empathy is crucial when raising kids. And so it is when managing people. If we nurture empathy in our relationship with our kids, it gets easier in helping them feel understood.

Why shouldn't we doing the same thing with our staff? It happens a lot for them to be frustrated too, feel they are overwhelmed by their tasks, they might have conflicts with each other. You don't have to give your employees a hug, but be there, listen to what they have to say, show them that you understand what are they dealing with and give support, even in the cases when you cannot change the thing that generates the discomfort.

It's not at all about you, it's about them

Well, this is a hard one - to acknowledge and accept that it is not at all about you anymore, but about your kids or your staff. They should be in the first place when you're making any decision which might have, one way or another, an impact on them.

Providing safety

As a parent and as a leader you have the responsibility to create a safe place for your kids and your staff to perform and develop. Create a safe place to play, to experiment, to try different things, to learn new things, but offer them that net they're needing in case they are going to fail.

Failure is always good, remember to tell this to your kids and your staff, but more important, be their lifeguard when they're falling.

What Leadership And Parenting Have In Common

Know when to step back

After providing the safe place for experiments you are now free to take a step back. Are they struggling with that new toy or that new programming language they're using? Well, as hard as it may sound, let them try, fail, do it again, fail again, and only give them some hints when asked.

Making a step back it always gives confidence to your kid or your staff that you trust them and you're avoiding to micromanage every individual and situation.

Learn when to intervene.


Or patience, patience, patience.

Maybe almost every parent and leader has days when s/he isn't in the mood to hear his or her kid's yells or his or her staff complaints. It's ok, you're not alone, there are good days and not so good ones. We're humans.

But patience is a skill you need to learn when you're becoming a parent or a leader. Because kids and people, in general, tend to grind your gears in specific situations. The power of patience helps you think rationally and deal calmly with the day-to-day problems.

Be a good listener

You don't have to always act, the first step should be to listen.

Sometimes people just need someone to hear their thoughts or their problems without judging them too much nor interrupting them nor be focused on giving a reply. Maybe there's no reply needed at all.

Encourage the speaker, be it your kid or one of your employees, by asking questions to be able to understand their problem. Helping them answering the questions might be more than enough than offering your solution.

Be trustworthy

Your kids and your staff have to trust you first then to follow.

But how do you gain trust? By trusting them first, by being a good listener by hearing and accepting what they have to say and by showing them empathy.

Both as a parent and as a leader you have to keep your word and be the support they're needing.

Show them you care

Because you do, right?

What Leadership And Parenting Have In Common

It is their success

Even when you stood behind it.

As a parent and as a leader you rarely receive the credits for success, because you don't actually need them. When you see your kid or your staff performing at their best, that is enough for you, you know that your job was done and it was good.

Lead by example

We all agree (I hope) that the fundamental aspect for both parenting and leadership is leading by example. You cannot simply ask someone do to the things that you're just preaching about, but not doing them.

Nurturing empathy, being a good listener, cultivating trustworthiness, being present, and showing them that you care, involving yourself in their activities by guiding them, delivering what you promised, these all should help you be the leader your kids and your staff need.


As I said in the beginning, no one was born a leader or a parent, you become one. And both as a parent and as a leader, you're a permanent student, you're still learning things every day. There is no recipe for being a perfect parent or a perfect leader, it is only your way of acting and performing the role. And maybe neither your kids or your staff need a perfect leader. Needs you to perform at your best.

Let parenting or leading people become your lifestyle and as Simon Sinek is saying

"The more you understand about parenting, the more you understand about leadership, and the more you understand about leadership, the better parent you become".

Photo credit: Valeria Zoncoll on Unsplash, Kelli McClintock on Unsplash, juan pablo rodriguez on Unsplash

<![CDATA[5 Things to Remember When You’re Feeling Stuck]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/things-to-remember-when-feeling-stuck/5e8617239cb8de108808d9bdThu, 02 Apr 2020 17:32:33 GMT

Humankind is now living the biggest crisis of our generation, fighting an invisible enemy, the coronavirus. Our government, as many already did, imposed emergency measures, placing the Romanian citizens on a police-enforced lockdown. In other words, we are stuck in our homes to protect ourselves and others too.

While living and fighting the feeling of being (physically) stuck, I've remembered an article that I have written back in 2017 about how to deal with the feeling of being professionally stuck, but, oh boy, it is so so relevant in the days we're living now.

I'm leaving the article below.


Have you asked yourself recently what happiness is? Or are you happy?

Do you even know what makes you happy?

We are living great times when everything we need is one click away (in most cases), but even so, many people don’t know what to answer when they are asked if they are happy or not. Happiness has several variables, including a fulfilling life with your partner, a great job with an income that satisfies your needs for buying things, having friends and family to spend time with. Or just being able to spend your time doing the things you love.

And the list can continue.

Usually, we set some expectations about how our life should be managed and when things are not working as planned, we get frustrated or disappointed.

Have you ever felt that? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

It happens quite often to ask people “how’s it at work?” and in many cases, I get a similar answer: “Hmmm, all good, I guess, not the best, not the worst, it is just a regular job. 8 hours per day and then I go home”. The feeling of being stuck in your career it might lead to feelings like lack of motivation, boredom, frustration caused by different aspects of your life at work and a continuous waiting for something to change. Things that used to make you happy in the past are not working anymore.

Usually, when I hear someone telling me these “symptoms” in regards to his/her job, I would recommend him/her to make a change in his/her career. But it is not always that easy to pack your things and fly away to another company, without reflecting all the things that got you to the point of feeling stuck and understand what you can do to overcome this feeling. Otherwise, you can easily fall again in the same situation in a few months.

Here are my thoughts about what to remember when feeling stuck:

Though #1:

Answer yourself to the following two questions:

  1. “Do you love what you do?” No matter what your job is, I think it is very important to love what you have chosen to do. Doing so, all other things can be adjusted in some way to fit your needs.
  2. “Do you see yourself doing something else?”. If the answer to this question is yes, then maybe it would be a good idea to start digging into that thing, rather than spending time fixing something that you are not sure you still love or want to do.

I used this exercise and answered myself to these two questions when I felt stuck. I see it as a preliminary step of redesigning your career and enough power to help you move forward with what you love to do.

Though #2:

Take a step back and try to see the big picture. The feeling of being stuck in a rut is usually caused by a variety of reasons and detaching yourself from the current situation can help you identify them.

For example, you might feel that you don’t have any promotion opportunities, that your professional growth is on pause and the context you are in doesn’t offer you many possibilities to make new or innovative things. You might also feel that your work is not so important and you are not appreciated anymore. Maybe in all that routine that you have created at work, you started at some point to feel that there is something you want or need to change or to do differently, but you ignored it for a long time. And all this made you feel that you are stuck in a rut.

Identifying what makes you feel stuck is a crucial step in trying to get out of this feeling.

Thought #3:

Seeing the big picture does not only help you identify what caused you the feeling of being stuck but also might reveal some new opportunities that you may take in your career. One thing that helped me was to identify what I really enjoy about my current work. After you identify what you like about your job, you can start to create a plan for you to follow containing the steps that will help you move forward. An important thing to remember is that there is no need to make drastic changes or to expect you to make big steps. Even the tiniest step is progress. And at some point, all these small steps become a big one. Even if you don’t have a very clear picture of the final result, take every chance as a new challenge, meet new people that might bring you some fresh ideas, experiment new things, explore new ideas, be open and have patience with yourself.

5 Things to Remember When You’re Feeling Stuck

Thought #4:

Listen to your intuition. When your brain thinks and overthinks the same scenarios and gets stuck in finding a good way to follow, listen to your gut feeling. This may tell what your brain doesn’t or refuse to tell. Try to discover what is that you like and enjoy the time spent with yourself. Remove all the negative thinking about what others advised you to do, about the discussions that made you feel angry or frustrated, it is not about them, it is all about you now. Someone told me once that I am the one holding the key and by that time I got a bit frustrated telling myself “she knows nothing about my situation”. Yes, it may sound like a boring cliché, but it is unpleasantly true. We have the power to take any decision about our career and we have the power to make things happen in our way.

Thought #5:

I was saying a few lines above that it is good to stay open.

Open-minded, open-hearted.

Accept any new challenge with gratitude, maybe something good is going to happen, even if it does not perfectly fit your initial plan. Try, see what happens, adapt, try again, fail, try again and so on.

Have patience with all things but first of all with yourself. — Saint Francis De Sales

I truly believe that things that are meant to happen will happen to you only when you are completely ready for them. At the right time, in the right place. And with every success that you have and any rejection, you get closer to your goal.

Photo credit: Tomas Tuma on Unsplash and Sugarman Joe on Unsplash

<![CDATA[So You Want to Become a Manager]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/dark-side-of-management/5e4a77e39cb8de108808d88eSun, 22 Mar 2020 18:33:39 GMT

If you have read some of my previous articles, you already got used to the fact that I'm usually writing a blog post based on a discussion had with someone, an idea that came into my mind or an event that happened to me.

So, one day, I was talking to a neighbour about our professional lives, our jobs, the companies we are working at and I asked him what role does he have in the company.

"I was a developer, but now I am on the dark side. I'm working in management."

Dark side. Why is it dark? Being a boss is awesome.

But why being in the management is seen as being on the "dark side" though? Many would consider (and I was considering that as well a while ago) that being a manager comes with a lot of benefits - higher position, higher salary, access to precious information and power. The role itself is often seen as "less work, more meetings". When you want to make a step forward on your career ladder, you would plan to land in a management position.

However, being a manager is not always as easy and fun as it may look. Thinking to my experience in the past year as a member of the management team, I came across some situations which led me to the conclusion that management can be hard, stressful and there are indeed some dark sides of it.


Don't get me wrong, I love working with people and I find them as being the most powerful chain in the working ecosystem. The dark side of the manager's role comes when you have to deal with unpleasant situations, when you have to give bad news to your employees or when you have to deal with their problems, frustrations or conflicts. I think that as a manager you have to be a good psychologist to be able to give proper support to your employees. Sometimes you have to give your people hard feedback, finance freezes on raises and reasons for not promoting them when they expect.

As a manager, would be desirable to be able to know a few aspects of your employees' personalities to know what jokes or comments you can make.

When dealing with people you have to be impartial and empathetic. And sometimes that's pretty hard.

So You Want to Become a Manager

Another dark side of a manager's role is to hire people. Hiring and interviewing is something almost everyone wants to be involved in as it looks to be quite thrilling. But also hiring (in the tech world at least) can be very expensive, consuming a lot of time and money, that's why as a manager you have to be sure you're picking the right people (is it possible to know that though?) to do the job. But when you end up having dozens of applicants none or very few having the skills you have required, you have to compromise. And even when you're sure you picked the right candidate, it might end up as not being a perfect fit for the job, or for the project or for the team itself. And as you have probably guessed, it is your fault. And is hard to repair it.


As I've seen during my time, many employees hate the moment when we have to talk about evaluations, feedback, goals. Some are very proactive, but with some, you have to work as a continuous reminder. And that might become quite annoying for you and for the employee too.

Also, you have to work closely with the HR and IT department too for being sure that your employees have all the logistics (desks, laptops, environments, access, you name it) they need to do their job.

Did we talk about hiring? We did. Well, as a manager you have to have an on-boarding plan for newly hired people and someone to help them whenever they need during their first month of employment at least.

Also, as a manager, you have to work with your employees in planning their time off, the vacations and also prepare the backup plan when someone gets sick or suddenly decides to resign.


As a manager you end up having tones of meetings every week. You have to schedule 1:1's with every employee at least one per month if not more often. You also have a lot of discussions with your peer managers ensuring that all of you and the processes too are on the same page.

Also, you have to regularly discuss with the persons who have an impact on your employees activities (such as Project Managers), to ensure that the latter are able to do their jobs and the best decisions are taken for them and for the project too.


In many cases, a manager is a decision-maker, giving the sign off on different things. And as you might imagine, the manager takes full responsibility for all the decisions taken, even for the good ones and the bad ones. As a manager, you decide who to promote and who you don't, the salary increases based on objective feedback of employees' performances, you set the priorities for your employees.

You decide where to put your best employees and where to put the not so productive or well-prepared ones. And you have to do it in such a way to please the project's needs and the employee's needs.

You need to decide when to hire a new person based on the company's needs and to be able to argue your decisions to your boss. Because, hey, you also have a boss.


As you see, a manager's role is not always bells and whistles and comes with some challenges that you have to consider.

Photo credit: Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash and Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash

<![CDATA[Tester Or Developer - Which One Is Better?]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/tester-or-developer/5e2ff7519cb8de108808d75eFri, 07 Feb 2020 08:46:02 GMT

It was 14 years ago, I was in the second year at college.

True story.

A group of students organized a trip in the Romanian mountains, in the heart of Transylvania. After we got there, being young and restless, we all ordered some beers and started chatting about various topics, some geekier than the others, as we were all being studying computer science. It was not very clear the moment when two groups have been created and a polemic started between those two groups. You would never guess the topic they have picked to argue on.

"Which one is better, Java or C#?"

Well, by that time, few of us could give a proper answer to this question as we were slightly introduced to these programming languages - we were still in the Pascal and C++ era. And let's be honest, how would you answer to it in 2020 (without being subjective, of course)?

And the argument took hours and each group had its own justice. The Java lovers were still convinced that Java is the best and the C# lovers still convinced that there's nothing better than C#. Fair.

But why did I remember such an old and insignificant story? Well, because as I'm regularly talking to groups of people about software testing basics, trying to prepare them to become software testers, I'm constantly getting the following question:

"Which one is better, a tester or a developer?"


I totally get the importance of this question as these people are preparing to join the IT industry and they want me to help them pick the best career. But usually, the story kinda ends (at least in my mind) when I'm trying to get more information from them about "what do you mean by which one is better?" and I usually get two answers:

a) "which one earns more money?" and

b) "aren't developers superior to testers?"

So, silence (in my head). Again.

Before going to give you the answer to the above question (spoiler alert! I won't give you the answer, because there is no answer to it) let me address some of the questions which might be helpful in getting an idea about which one is better - the tester or the developer.

  • Which one is part of the product development team?
  • Which one benefits of better career growth?
  • Which one is responsible for the quality of the product and which one takes the credits for success?
  • Which one is more important inside of a team?
  • Which one has technical skills?

As you might guess, the answer to all the above questions is BOTH.

In the following lines, I'm going to explain why "both" is the answer to the above questions.

Usually, nowadays the development teams are following certain methodologies in the way they're organizing their work such as Agile, Kanban and so on, and almost every team has in its composition at least a developer and a tester.

With regard to career growth, it much depends on every person's objectives and how can these objectives be accomplished in the business context s/he works. So that's why it does not have much to do with the role - of being a tester or a developer. Either as a tester or as a developer, you can always grow your skills or you can make the transition to other roles (such as Business Analyst, User Experience or even as architect).  

Before going forward, it's important for me to mention the following: I'm reading quite often the following syntagm "developer creates the code, tester breaks it" with which I totally disagree. Because in my opinion, both the tester and the developer work together to assure and improve the quality of a product. So yes, both are responsible for the quality of the product and both take the credits for the product's success.

I truly believe that both the tester and the developer are equally important inside of a team. There is a "but" though, you might find companies who decided to give up on testers and have only developers to code and to write the automated tests too. But such a decision depends on the company's vision and business.

With regard to the technical skills involved, it is not a rule that only the developers are having them. If you are a tester involved in writing automated tests, it is mandatory to have technical skills in order to do the work.

What to consider when choosing your career?

First of all, I would suggest you make an informed decision by having a good understanding of a tester's and a developer's job description. After this, pick the one you consider suits you best as a human and as a professional, by objectively evaluating your skills and objectives for the future. You might have good and bad moments as both working as a tester or as a developer.

With respect to the financial part which is so important for all of us, keep in mind that there is no rule. It depends much on how you negotiate, depends on the moment the company hired you and how much they needed to fill the role, depends on your skills and career level.

Photo credit: Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

<![CDATA[4 Things To Pass Over The Generations]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/things-to-pass-over-the-generations/5e29ee9b9cb8de108808d705Tue, 28 Jan 2020 13:25:16 GMT

If you know me, you know that I'm a "family first" kind of person and that I rarely share online things about my family. And I don't do it because family is a private thing for me and it should remain private.

Parents are our first role models and even if we want it or not, we are copying their behaviors, their body language, their way of speech, at least until we're able to define our own set of skills or at least until we can decide what is good or bad from what we have inherited.

Parents are usually the ones supporting our craziest ideas and unconditionally offering us a shoulder to cry on when we need it the most.

After I and my husband became parents to our little girl, I thought to all the things I have inherited from my parents, smiling and smirking whenever a bad habit learned from them came into my mind and I started to think which of these I would like to pass to my daughter too.

My dad is my role model in many aspects. And my mom does not like to hear it :) (joking). They both had a great impact on the woman I've become over the years.

Here are a part of the things I have inherited from my parents and I would like to pass them to my daughter.

To Be Responsible

For what I do and what I say.

They both are usually standing for what they are saying no matter the consequences (if someone gets upset or even if they are punished by their superiors for their opinions) and that's a thing I have learned to do too - not being afraid of taking the responsibility for my actions or my words. If I did something wrong, I know that I have to support the consequences. And I'm totally fine with that. This is maybe one of the most important things I would love my daughter to learn, to assume the responsibility for her actions no matter what.

To Be Honest

With myself first. And then with the others. To be honest with myself and be able to identify my strengths and more importantly, my weaknesses.  To be impartial and stay true to my beliefs when life situations are becoming shady.

And when life situations become too shady (like friendships, relationships, work environments) to have the power to move forward.

To Be On Time

Being on time is my second religion :) And if it happens to be late, I'm almost getting angry on myself or on the traffic jam, on the person who made me being late, ha.

I rarely have nightmares, but when I do, 80% of them are illustrating me being unable to pack myself and leave to get to some other place in time. Insane, I know.

I'm not sure if this is always a quality to have, but for me, people who manage to be on time on their appointments look more trustworthy.

Practice Is The Key

In the gymnasium, I struggled a lot with mathematics. But my lucky star was that my dad had and still has a good memory and he used to remember the kind of theory and exercises that we were teaching in the class by that time and he was able to help me with my homework.

Practice, practice, practice, he used to say. Without practice, you know nothing. And boy, I was hating him from the bottom of my heart in those moments. But wouldn't be the process too smooth if we can easily accept all our parent's recommendations?

This is something I'm trying to remember myself nowadays too. That without practice, without trying, failing, trying again you cannot learn what you have proposed to.


With all these good things, there is something though they didn't teach me or they didn't teach me well enough: how not to give up when things are getting harder to be accomplished. While I'm working with myself teaching me how to better deal with struggling situations, I would like to teach my daughter too.

Photo credit: Modestas Urbonas on Unsplash

<![CDATA[Adaptability Is The New Capability]]>https://blog.testing-land.com/adaptability-the-new-capability/5ded560d9cb8de108808d537Mon, 06 Jan 2020 08:00:00 GMT

There are two kinds of people. The ones that like the challenges, to have a thrilling life and who embraces the unpredictable changes in their lives and the ones who get scared and anxious whenever something is not going according to the plan.

Well, I'm in the second category.

I (almost) always have a plan. A well-documented shopping plan, what clothes do I wear tomorrow, I'm even making a plan in the morning for the current day with to do-lists and action items - "today I'm doing this, tomorrow I'm doing that", you get it.

And what happens when something is not working according to the plan?

My first feeling is frustration. The second one is resistance.

The frustration that my plan could not be kept and that I have to adjust it. After a few minutes of trying to figure it out why my plan was not good enough (waste of time!), I'm trying to adapt myself to the new situation and be able to give my best to accomplish the new tasks.

Resistance because I'm forced to get out of my comfort zone.


Adaptability is an attractive skill to have it on your CV and we all like to think about ourselves that we are adaptable, flexible, we like to be challenged and we like the dynamic environments.

As per the definition I have found, adaptability is "a skill which refers to the ability of a person to change his actions, course or approach to doing things in order to suit a new situation."

Simple in theory. But what do we do in practice?

My story

I have faced a few months ago the biggest change and also the biggest challenge of my life. I've become a mom. And even if I wanted to become a mom and felt (somehow) that is the right moment for me and for us as a family (you'll never know when's the right moment anyway) it was not an easy change. The fact is that even if you want something, that does not make it easier.

While being in the hospital after I gave birth to our little girl, a psychologist was sent to discuss with every new mom about the baby blues and even worst, about an eventual postpartum depression. And he asked me "from a scale from 1 to 10 how adaptable do you think you are?". I've made a pause and then said "I think I'm about 8". My husband smiled.

You can easily guess that the first weeks with my baby at home showed me that my 8 was highly overrated.

After one month and a half, one night while waiting for my baby girl to finish up her milky meal, this came to my mind:

adaptability should be my new capability

The importance of adaptability cannot be doubted. We all know that is a key factor in businesses and is a key skill for every employee who wants to keep his or her job relevant. Without adaptability, perhaps many big companies would have been closed by now and many professionals would have got outdated.


How do we achieve a higher level of adaptability?

Forget about your comfort zone

Being adaptable is more than being flexible. Being adaptable means leaving the "I cannot do that" behind and being open to new things and situations. Comfort zone is as per its name, comfortable, but sometimes we need to take a step forward from it and face the change. It may sound like a cliche, but it's true, staying in our comfort zone is not the best thing for us.

Embrace the change

Changes are not always easy to be accepted. But as soon as you manage to leave the past in the past and accept the new life, the new things or the new situations, your job of becoming more adaptable becomes easier. Try to focus more on the present, rather than on the past or on the future and maximize the moment you're living.

Don't get me wrong. I did not forget who I was before having a baby, that I was an active woman loving her job, but I'm trying to focus more on my current job of nursing and caring for a baby. At least for now. I embraced the change, even if it was not easy.

Adjust your goals

Goals are in many cases dependent on the context you are in. Whenever a new situation appears, you might be forced to adjust your goals and motivation. If for example, you're working in a tech company as a developer and you have set the goal of learning and becoming a DevOps and your company is passing through massive changes and restructuring, rather than be stuck in your goal that maybe is not applicable anymore, adjust it and find something that fits your current situation.

Having in mind your old goals and your previous motivation it only makes harder to face the new situation.

Set small goals that can be easily measured. Check them frequently to see which were accomplished and which needs to be changed.

Adjusting your goals and motivation is an important step to accomplish when a big change is happening in your life, professionally or personal. I did a smooth transition from growing my software testing skills and managerial skills to grow a human being.


Keep in mind that whenever you're facing a new situation, the way you're framing it in your mind determines the actions you're going to take to adapt yourself to that situation.

Photo credit: Gareth Newstead on Unsplash