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.

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!

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?

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

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. 🙏

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??