Career Transformation Guide for Manual Testers to become Automation Testers !!

1. Though I am an Automation Architect, I love the Manual Testing more than
Automation Testing. But why I am writing here an article to motivate manual
testers to become automation testers!! Welcome to My view of World!! Let us go
on my thoughts!!
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Be an Automation Tester by 2020, WHY:
Great History and Value created by Manual Testing in the last two decades will
continue to rock withoutany doubt. Manual Testing will never go away but more
demand is generated for the Test Automation. Let us see whathappened since
long time and whatis changing !!

2. What has changedsince last twodecades in Testing is:
 The Number of Manual Testers in the world has reached to a BIG number,
(Please help me to guess this number)
 Importance of Testing is known to everyone from a support engineer to
Engineering Leadership and Business Management.
 Developers have also started thinking in n-way direction while doing the
coding to avoid bugs.
 Developing methods like TDD (Test Driven Development), ATDD
(Acceptance Test Driven Development), FDD (Feature Driven Development)
etc are emerged and can be used to achieve high Quality.
 Modern Software Engineering Methodology "Agile" also has shown great
ways of doing Testing by involving the Testers from the beginning and by
applying Lean principles like built-in quality, avoid wastage and quicker
customer feedback etc.
 Due to the business needs of meeting shorter deadlines Automation got
huge demand, so most of the Automation Testers are being used to replace
Manual Testers !!
So now the TWO Big Questions are:
#1. How many of Manual Testers can replace Automation Testers ?
#2. How many of Automation Testers can replace Manual Testers ?
What is missing inAutomationTesters toreplace Manual Testers ??
Manual Testers die for Quality !! They will not compromiseon Quality at any cost.
Manual Testers always think in n-directions to find defects in software. And they
providebest coverageon functional / business flows with High Quality.
But Automation Testers focuses on Automating the existing Manual Test Cases.
They are more worried on the Robustness and Stability of Automated Test Scripts
and Automation Frameworks.Nextthey focus on automation coverage, i.e.
number of automated Tests. Also another responsibility of Automation testers is
to do continuous optimization and integration of the automation.

3. Hence it is observed that the priorities and responsibilities of Manual and
Automation Testers looks so different, in this case how one can replace the
others. If one is unable to replace other what could be the ratio of automation
testers vs manual testers in the world. Obviously thenumber of manual testers
are high in number when compared with the automation testers. But the number
of new opportunities / job-openings will be on automation testing only !! do you
know why ? Answer is simple, every organization has already many manual
testers who are unable to gain automation skills. Hence they are looking for
Automation Testers !!
If manual testers are happy with their current job and don't wantto change to
any other opportunities then they may havejob for another 3 to 5 years but it is
difficult to sustain justwith manualtesting in ITbecause there are already enough
professionals who can do just Manual Testing. Organizations arealready investing
huge amounts of money on automation. Hence there will be more opportunities
for who can do automation.
And other side of coin says only automation testers cannot add the quality.
Though automation testers can contribute with manual testing but it is risky to
expect high quality justfromautomation professionals.
Hence the Ultimate solution will be the integration of Automation Testing and
Manual Testing. By 2020 every Manual Tester is expected to do some
Automation. And by 2025 every Tester should have expertise on both of the
skills Manual & Automation.
Also there is nothing will be like PureAutomation because at the end 90% of the
SoftwareApplications will be used by Humans and not by robots. AI &
Automation cannot solvethe TESTING problems that much easily when compared
with Natural Intelligence. PureAutomation will never sustain without manual
testing. Same thing I have expressed in a Linkedin postand got great response, it
reached to 57000+people and liked by 755 and zero opposing comments.
And also it is getting proved that the most of the Software Engineers need to
have programming skills whether they use programming in their daily work or
not because programming knowledge gives expertise on Logical Thinking. So it
is very important for every manual tester to learn and start exhibiting
automation skills to have long run in TESTING Career.

4. Till now we have seen why we haveto be an Automation Tester by 2020.
Now let us see the How part.
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Be an Automation Tester by 2020, How:
Here I am providing simplified steps to become an automation tester.
Steps tobecome an AutomationTester
1. Learn one Programming Language(Example: Java)
2. Learn one Unit Testing tool (Example: JUNITor TESTNG)
3. Learn an Automation Tool (Example: Selenium)
4. Learn building the Automation Frameworks. (Data driven, keyword driven,
hybrid etc)
5. Implement Automation on two case-studies(projects)
These steps are helpful to become a good Automation Tester but to become an expert or senior on
Automation you have to learn few more tools like Continuous Integration tools (Jenkins or Bamboo)
and Build Tools (Maven or Gradle) and code repository tools (git) and API Automation, etc. But to
begin with Automation Career above steps would be very helpful.
Here are the additional steps to become Automation Expert:
6. Learn the Build tools like Maven, Gradle.
7. Learn the Continuous Integration Tools like Jenkins, Bamboo
8. Learn the API Automation tools like SOAPUI. Also learn API Automation through
Programming.
9. Implement all the additionally learned tools on 2 case-studies (projects).
Unfortunately you have to learn many things, it may be difficult but not
impossible.
Also you need not be expert on all these tools, you should have some hands-on
experience and should be ready to learn and explore these or any other tools.

5. Automation Learning Projections:
Here I am providing projected timelines for learning each of this at an average
pace !!
 To be an AutomationTester following arethe Skills & ProjectedTimelines
for Learning those skills, assuming thatdaily you spend 2 hours on
Learning !!
So at an averagepace we can become an Automation Expert in 6 months. If we
learn these at a below average speed it will take maximum of 48 weeks i.e One
Year.
To become an Automation Architect you need few more other steps which are
not covered here !!
And the most critical part of the above is learning a Programming Language, it is
not that much difficult as imagined. Itis about choosing the right sourcefor
learning. Always I believe that "Science is not Complex, the way it is explained is

6. Complex". Hence choosing a right learning sourceis critical for the success. In this
modern era there are so many sources available for learning for free or at low
cost. Examples are like Youtube video tutorials and Udemy courses at 10$. Also
soon I will start a non-profitprogramto train the manual testers on programming.
AutomationLearning Stack:
If wegive a pictorial representation for Automation Learning Stack itwould look
like as below, the base of the stack is the Programming Languageand top of the
stack represents the specializations of automation like Mobile Automation,
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and API automation etc.
There are so many free tutorials are available on web to teach What you need to
become an automation professional but no one is able to convey clearly Why and
How you can become an automation professional, this article solves the problem
!!
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7. Generic Tips for Learning any subject and to become Master:
We should consider the other Learning Practices also, justwatching video
tutorials will not give us the experience, we haveto startpracticing it. We should
explore and fail at some points and then become expert on the subjects.
Learning has multiple steps and there is no single defined way which will make
you Master.
Following are the general learning tips:
 Gain Knowledgefrom multiple Video Tutorials
 Gain Knowledgefrom Books
 Gain experience fromSelf Practice (build simple to complex casestudies).
 Gain Knowledgefrom friends, colleagues and forums.
 Try to help & train others.
 Revise your learning at regular intervals.
 Gather more information on advanced techniques.
 etc.
Taking a step back fromgeneral learning tips, let us comeback to our Automation
Learning, as per my knowledgethere are thousands of Manual Testers, may be
tens of thousands of Manual Testers on the Globe who are depressed with their
career path and worried aboutautomation demand and there is no standard
guidance or motivation available for them to make them understand exactly what
to do about the automation.
This article provides the understanding on future Value of Automation, and
Motivation to learn Automation and Projections on the Automation learning to
the demotivated and confused Manual Testing Professionals. I am requesting
every Manual& Automation Tester who read this article kindly to share with other
every Tester who is connected to YOU.

8. Common Challenges inbecoming AutomationTester:
1. "Doing only Manual Testing since longtime": Itis notat all a problem, you
can startlearning the Programming & Automation fromnow. Every minute
in our life is new and provides an opportunity to learn and change. So you
can startlearning the automation fromnow.
2. "No one is giving me automation projects": Getting a job as a fresher is
different frommoving up in career and playing different roles. Many
professionals in many industries already proved that changing role is not
that much difficult. And we haveto understand onepoint that no one will
come and give you opportunities, we have to explore and catch the
opportunities. Check with your colleagues and friends who are working on
automation, get the knowledge, get trained on automation, do some case
studies related or non-related to your work. Allthat you need is knowledge
and hands-on experience, it may be in your daily projects or other projects.
Organizations also should take someresponsibility on providing automation
opportunities to their resources to help them on their career growth. This
could be a separate topic, I will address this in a detailed way later.
3. "Programming is difficult": Yes at times programming looks difficult. But
already most of the Engineers and other Degreegraduates already would
have done someprogramming at academic levels. And it is not a rocket
science and we are not aiming to build satellites. All that you need is some
good programming skills. I willauthor another article to guide you on
learning programming. Also remember my principle "Science is not
complex, the way it is explained is complex". So choosea right training
sourceit will make your learning simple and fruitful.
4. "Unable to get Time": Time management is required for not only learning
Automation but it is also essential for leading a good & happier life. Learn
about Time Management, already so many Professionals haveprovided
good tips and techniques on Time Management. My suggestion is first
know how your are spending time in a day, put the description for all the
hours of a day in an excel and track it and then optimize it. Itis our
responsibility to make time for our learning & career growth.
5. "Automationis difficult": Very few automation projects looks like complex,
it may be becauseof context of the projects or the professionals who
developed those automation frameworks/projects. Butit need not be true
for all the automation projects. So many automation projects are simple yet

9. give best results to the business and someother projects are complex in
nature and give very little results to the business.
6. "Not interestedinAutomation": That's okay, Automation Testing is one of
the Testing types, we havemany moretypes in Testing Career path like
Security Testing, PerformanceTesting, API Testing, ETL Testing and Big Data
Testing etc.
Apart fromthis topic of Manual to Automation, on the other side is that
automation testers also have to improve their skill set to do the manual tester
role more professionally.
Also it is very important that Automation Testers should learn more about the
Principlesand Skillsof Manual Testers to deliver the High Quality Productsin the
modern Automated & Hyped world.
We are reaching the conclusion!! after reading all of my thoughts if you are still
not interested in Automation or Testing, that is also okay, we have many more
tools, applications, technologies, platforms and paths in IT.
IT is bigger than Automation, Lifeisbigger than IT.
Wish you All The Best, and a Happy New Year!!
Your valuable feedback is welcome.
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Best Regards,
Kalyan Katuru,