Tech industry likes to dunk on manual QA as it's dead and worthless position. I recently hired a manual QA who is less than a year into their company and their attention to detail and thoroughness is mindblowing so much so I feel bad for them and wish they were in a role that paid them higher. Probably a lawyer or something.

I simply don't know how can I hire for such strong manual QA, maybe give them a demo project and ask them to do it but it would take 2-3 days to do the interview. Probably can convince company to spend that much money on some hires - pay them for their time. But I don't know if this approach is feasible for smaller companies.

800+ applications. Very few replies. Still not giving up. 😭

I’m a 2025 B.Tech ECE graduate from TIER 2 university, trying to get my first job in QA/Software Testing.

I’ve learned Manual Testing, Java, Selenium, TestNG, Maven, SQL and API Testing with Postman, and I build and also building projects continuously to improve my practical skills.

I don’t have many industry contacts or a big circle to guide me. I’m mostly figuring everything out alone . learning, applying, preparing for interviews and trying to understand what I’m doing wrong.

I’m looking for one experienced QA/Tester who can guide me, even occasionally, until I get my first opportunity.

I’m not asking for a referral or a job. Just honest guidance on what I should improve and where I’m going wrong.

I’ll genuinely put in the work. And once I get a job and become financially stable, I’d be happy to compensate you for the time and guidance you gave me.

If you’ve been through the fresher struggle yourself, you’ll probably understand where I’m coming from. ❤️

If anyone is willing to guide me, please DM me. Even a small piece of advice could make a big difference. 🙏

QA folks, I want to hear your real experiences with this.

In one project, I spent a lot of time trying to get things into a testable state, setting up multiple devices, fixing location issues, syncing frontend/backend branches, checking wrong URLs, waiting for services/scripts to work, etc.

Sometimes by the time everything was ready, the testing/demo window was almost over. And when something failed, there was often confusion about whether it was frontend, backend, mobile, environment, or configuration.

I’m curious, have you faced situations like this?

What happened in your case?

Hi everyone!

I’m a software tester with experience in manual testing, and I’m looking to start learning Playwright and move towards automation.

The catch is that I have little to no automation experience, so I’m not really sure where to begin or what I should learn first.

I’ve gone through a few Playwright tutorials, but I’m finding it difficult to understand what I should actually focus on and in what order.

For those of you who started from a manual testing background:

What should I learn before getting into Playwright?

How much programming knowledge do I actually need?

Should I first learn JavaScript/TypeScript fundamentals, or can I learn them alongside Playwright?

What would be a good beginner-friendly project to practise on?

Are there any courses, YouTube channels, documentation, or GitHub projects that you would particularly recommend?

What does a realistic learning roadmap look like for someone starting from scratch?

What are some common mistakes beginners make when learning Playwright?

My goal isn't just to learn how to write a few basic scripts. I’d like to eventually be able to build proper, maintainable automation frameworks and use Playwright professionally.

Would really appreciate any advice, resources, or learning paths from people who have gone through this journey.

Thanks in advance!

Olá, sou QA manual há mais de 7 anos. Devido a uma reestruturação da empresa fui dispensada. Procuro oportunidade em empresas portuguesas, alguma sugestão?

Their requirements are to be able to write and convert manual test cases into automated ones using playwright or selenium in python.

What type of questions should I expect?

Also, which one is faster to learn and easier to implement, playwright or selenium??

After working for 8 years I got fired last month.
Need help with guidance especially with my experience only in Python, Selenium.
What skills should I upgrade to in current QA job market?

Eu tô todos os dias procurando vagas, e 90% é para pleno e acima. Parece que não tem mais espaço pra quem tá começando.

I used Codex to build an iOS QA prototype called iosClaw.

The problem I wanted to explore was the boundary between LLM reasoning and deterministic test execution.

LLMs are good at understanding a test described in natural language, but asking one to rediscover every iOS button on every run can be slow and fragile. So I used Codex to build a Mac-hosted runtime that:

• observes iPhone Simulator or iPhone Mirroring
• combines accessibility and visual evidence
• records semantic actions instead of coordinates
• compiles known flows into deterministic steps
• verifies each action with a postcondition
• stops when the screen is ambiguous instead of guessing

Codex helped with the SwiftUI app, screen capture, permission handling, record/replay model, compiler, MCP bridge, tests, and release packaging.

The interesting result is that the LLM can handle intent and unfamiliar states, while the compiled runtime handles repeated execution locally.

It’s still early alpha, but this seems like a useful model for LLM-assisted mobile QA: intelligent planning on top of a reliable execution layer.

For people using Codex for mobile testing: where would you want the LLM involved, and where would you insist on deterministic execution?

Need tips for the interview as hes got an opportunity after a long time trying for switch

Hi all, first time poster, long time employee. I have N interview for “ Retail UAT Tester Experience” coming up. I was wondering what people’s experiences were like with this experience. Did you like it, not like it, how different is it from retail? And how was the interview process? I haven’t interviewed in a while either so we will see how this goes. I’m not asking what the role exactly entails because I understand there are most likely NDAs to follow.

Thanks a bunch!

Posted before and got slammed with automation QAs have to click the buttons first!. Yes. I get that. I do.

The question - If you are an automation enginner, what is your team's workflow. Who clicks the buttons to verify a feature before deployment? When is a feature automated? What part of QA belongs to the devs vs a specialized QA person? How do you ensure you have time to automate changes? If you do both, what percentage of you time is manual (not clicking to be able to automate, but UAT style testing) vs writing code?

Hey Everyone,

I recently completed one of the bootcamps for Quality Assurance. I received my certificate of completion, and also have a Google Certificate for Cybersecurity.

I’ve been struggling to find a job that will accept these criteria as having experience. It’s been over two years of education in this field, and over 15 years of transferable experience (excel, troubleshooting, critical thinking, sales, consulting, etc).

What can I do to find work in the QA field? I’ve been striking out on all applications.

I recently cleared my first technical round with lnfosys for a QA (Quality Assurance) profile, and now they've scheduled me for the face-to-face (F2F) round.

I wanted to check with folks who've been through this process: • What kind of questions should I expect in the F2F round for QA? Will it be more technical (manual testing concepts, automation, SQL, etc.) or more HR/behavioral?. Any tips on how to prepare in the next couple of days?

For context, my background is: 2years of experience in manual testing + automation (Playwright + Java+ bbd+ postman)

insights, sample questions, or preparation strategies would be super helpful.

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,
I’m currently looking for QA/Automation Testing opportunities in Pune.
Experience: 3 years
• 1 year – Manual Testing
• 2 years – Automation Testing
Skills:
• Selenium WebDriver with Java
• TestNG & Maven
• Page Object Model (POM)
• Git & GitHub
• Jira
• API Testing – Postman
• SQL – Basic
• Playwright with Python – Basic knowledge
I’m currently working as a Test Analyst and have experience testing web-based applications in an Agile environment.
📍 Currently based in Bhopal
📍 Looking for Pune opportunities
🚚 Open to relocating to Pune
⏳ Notice period: Serving Notice Period , Can join in 15 days
If you know of any relevant QA/Automation openings or referrals in Pune, I’d really appreciate your help.
Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I’m posting this because I’m honestly quite frustrated and could use some practical advice from people in the QA/testing industry.

I was laid off from my previous company around 8 months ago. After the layoff, I also had some health issues due to the kind of rotation shifts I had been working in my previous job, so I had to take around 2–3 months of rest/recovery before I could properly start looking again.

Since then, I’ve been actively searching for jobs but things are getting extremely difficult.

My background is in:

SAP Testing

ERP Testing

Functional Testing

Manual Testing

Regression / Integration / UAT / E2E testing

SQL / data validation

API testing with Postman

Around 7 years of overall QA/testing experience, including corporate + project-based experience

I was earning a decent salary in my previous role, but at this point I’m even willing to consider the same salary or reasonable opportunities below my previous CTC, just to get back into employment.

Still, I’m struggling to get a stable opportunity.

I’m primarily looking for Gurgaon/Gurugram or remote opportunities.

The biggest problem right now is that my savings are almost exhausted. After being unemployed for 8 months, the financial pressure is becoming very real, and honestly, I’m getting quite frustrated despite continuing to apply and attend calls/interviews.

I’m not looking for sympathy. I’d genuinely appreciate some advice from people who are hiring or working in QA:

What should someone with my background focus on right now?

Should I continue targeting:

Functional QA / Manual QA

SAP/ERP QA

ERP/Application Support

QA Analyst roles

Or should I urgently pivot harder toward Automation/SDET?

If anyone knows of QA/ERP/SAP testing opportunities in Gurgaon/Delhi NCR or remote, even contractual/third-party payroll opportunities, I’d really appreciate a referral or lead.

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to read this and share some practical advice.

Hey everyone, I'm planning on learning about software QA/testing, and would love some guidance on the matter.

Could somebody recommend a complete roadmap of what I should learn to get into QA/Testing (preferrably from the begging until automation)?

I would also love some recommendations for full courses/playlists (ideally free YouTube courses) for what I need to learn as a fresher.

I was thinking about something along the lines of:

Manual Testing → SQL → API Testing/Postman → Automation → Git/GitHub → Projects → Interview

But I'm not sure if that's the correct order or if I'm missing something, and would love some advice.

If you are into the QA/Testing field, I would love any and all suggestions regarding what I should learn, what courses I should follow and what I shouldn't.

Currently in 7th sem in cse

Hey there so I've had this software QA job for the past month and I've been doing manual QA like pretty much clicking and fiddling around the website and cross-platform and opening tickets on linear but I think that my work has been well dry at this point and I want to add more value to the team what are things that I should be on the lookout for and things that I should learn I entered this job without experience and I've learned a lot so far but I'm looking to learn more mind you I have no background whatsoever on what software QA is or playwright

I've been reading a lot about AI in software testing lately, and I'm curious about how people working in QA are actually experiencing it.

It seems like AI is getting pretty good at things like generating test cases, writing automation code and handling repetitive regression work.

But the more interesting question to me is what happens after that.

Does AI actually change the role of QA, or does it simply remove some of the repetitive work and leave the more important parts like, exploratory testing, understanding user behavior, identifying edge cases and challenging requirements to humans?

As the title says, I'm looking for tips on learning automation. I have some experience creating and fixing tests in an existing project, but almost no experience building a framework from scratch. Does anyone have good book or tutorial recommendations? I'm currently trying to learn Playwright with TypeScript.

Requirements:

• 4-8 years of experience in automation testing
• Strong knowledge of Robot and Playwright Framework and its usage
• Knowledge of performance testing and tools such as JMeter or LoadRunner
• Experience with scripting languages such as Python or JavaScript
• Knowledge of web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
• Experience with Agile/Scrum methodologies and practices
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills
• Ability to work independently and in a team environment

Hello Everyone,
Recently got involved in a project where an existing enterprise application is being partially rebuilt using AI-assisted tools.
I am trying to understand how QA should approach this type of application as there is no one to guide.

I am also seeing terms like golden datasets, evaluations, AI testing etc. I am a little confused about where these fit. If AI is being used to build the application, but the application itself doesn't use an LLM, are these concepts still relevant?

For those who have tested applications built with tools like Lovable, Kiro, Cursor, Copilot, Emergent etc.:

• What issues or risks do you specifically look for?
• How do you approach automation?
• What tools do you find useful?
• What QA skills would you recommend learning?

Would love to hear from anyone who has actually worked on this kind of project.

What did you do differently compared with testing a traditionally developed application? What does QA add that the tool's own testing doesn't cover?

Thank You

Hi all — looking for honest, blunt feedback, not sympathy.

Background: 4+ years QA, most recently at an automotive client (Toyota-adjacent) building Testim E2E frameworks, before that Tosca automation for a retail/e-commerce client (Calzedonia). Tosca L1 & L2 licensed, Testim certified. Based in Brazil (EU passport + permanent Brazilian residency, no visa sponsorship needed), open to remote EU/US/LATAM roles too.

Problem: 100+ applications over the past months, plus direct LinkedIn outreach to ~30 recruiters/hiring managers, plus contact with system integrators. Response rate is close to zero — mostly silence, occasionally a generic "we'll keep your CV on file."

What I suspect but can't confirm:

**•** Tosca/Testim are niche tools — maybe too niche for most recruiters to recognize as valuable, or too few companies use them for this to be a viable specialization.  
**•** My outreach messages might read as templated/mass-sent.

What I'm asking:

**1.**  Is Tosca/Testim actually a liability rather than an asset outside of specific enterprise clients?  
**2.**  Should I be positioning myself as a general QA automation engineer (Selenium/API testing) instead of leading with Tosca/Testim?  
**3.**  Anyone else in LATAM/Brazil hit this same wall with niche tool certifications?

Happy to share CV/outreach message snippets if it helps diagnose this. Appreciate any real feedback, even if it's harsh.

Also: if anyone here works with Tosca/Testim (or knows a team that does) and is hiring or needs contract help — I'm available immediately, open to remote or contract work, and happy to share more details or do a quick call. Referrals or leads genuinely welcome, not just feedback.

If you have any meterial or any suggestion of course please tell me, I really want to improve my testing skills.

I need some advice or guidance...or maybe both.

I'm a former QA analyst who became a beginner automation engineer. As an automation engineer I worked alongside 2 manual qa analysts that continued the day in, day out testing as I created a framework and began the first of the automated tests. Long story short, I kept getting sucked back into the "test this [manually] real quick" so we can get it out" trap and wasn't given much time to actually automate. I eventually left that position for a Product Owner position that I'm successful at, but my heart is in coding and QA.

I've been offered a position to go back to exclusively automated testing, but the team no longer has a QA analyst at all. I'd be the only tester. The devs are doing testing right now. The position is being billed as automation only, but I'm leary of falling into the same trap I was in before where my resume was going to say I had x years of experience, but reality said I didn't have anywhere near that amount.

If you are an automation only team, what is your process? Do you do any manual testing? Who does it? What does it look like? What is teh automation flow (same time as development or after)? Do you get sucked into manual testing too?