new site();

"Which latest tools should I learn further to get a high paying testing job? I am a Selenium automated test engineer?"

2019-02-15

Originally published on Quora.

When looking for and evaluating candidates, I do not really care much about specific frameworks or technologies. These come and go, and their relative worth is generally due to either current fashion or their prevalence at whatever company happens to be offering the job.

What I much prefer to see are skills and knowledge that are independent of the tools used. Most candidates come with experience having written tests in one framework or another. Have they mentored other colleagues in those frameworks? Did they work on the framework itself, or did they only contribute tests? Have they looked at feature code and helped improve its testability? Have they contributed to open-source testing tools and frameworks?

In this regard, I evaluate candidates for test engineering roles in much the same way that I evaluate candidates for feature engineering roles, and these are some of the qualities I look for:

• Good communications, and experience presenting or explaining complex ideas to people
• Knowledge of what makes code testable and how to improve its testability
• Understanding of the test pyramid and how to apply that knowledge to a set of acceptance criteria to develop a test strategy
• The ability to tell the difference between good and bad tests
• A demonstrated ability to learn—new tools, new skills, new ways of thinking, new practices

So, in my experience, candidates with these qualities have a better bargaining position than those who don’t, and are more likely to be interviewed for higher-level (senior or architect) jobs. These are harder to acquire than knowledge of a new framework, but on the plus side, that knowledge never really loses its value.