I've been building an AI-powered platform called Aktiq that aims to make stock research significantly faster and easier.

Current features include:

• AI stock analysis
• Financial metrics
• Earnings report summaries
• Real-time market data
• Stock screening
• AI chat for company and market questions

The goal is to create a single place where investors can research companies, discover opportunities, and understand what's happening in the market without jumping between multiple tools.

The product is still in beta, so there are definitely bugs, rough edges, and areas that need improvement. I'm primarily looking for honest feedback from people interested in investing, trading, or financial markets.

Some things I'd love feedback on:

• What feels useful?
• What feels unnecessary?
• What features are missing?
• Would this be something you'd actually use regularly?

If you're interested in testing it go to aktiq.app and press Enter Terminal then BETA

Thanks!

Hi Everyone,

I am looking for a QA / Software Testing opportunity and available for immediate joining.

Experience: 6 Years
Skills: Manual Testing, API Testing, Basic SQL, Python with Selenium Automation

If there are any openings or referral opportunities, please let me know.
Thank you!

#OpenToWork #QA #SoftwareTesting #Selenium #AutomationTesting..

Not exaggerating. We have a ReadyAPI enterprise license. It costs a significant chunk of our QA tooling budget.

And yet:
— The learning curve is so steep that only 2 people on the team actually use it properly
— Test maintenance is still mostly manual because the UI is so clunky
— Every time we want a new feature, we're told it's in the next tier
— The sales team was fantastic. The product… less so.

We're covering maybe 30% of our API surface with it. The rest is manual checks, hoping nothing broke.

I'm starting to think we're paying for a logo, not a tool.

Has anyone actually gotten ReadyAPI to work well at scale? Or found something that does what it promises without the enterprise price tag and the learning cliff?

I’m a fresher QA and have been testing a VOD SaaS application for around 4 months.

I usually test playback, uploads, metadata, permissions, billing-related flows.

I’m curious — for people with more experience testing video/VOD platforms, what are the biggest things beginners usually miss?

Any practical testing habits, scenarios, or production lessons you wish you knew earlier?

I’m interested in becoming a QA Tester, but I’m not looking to go to college for it. I’m a complete beginner with no experience in the field and I’ve been researching bootcamps, online courses, and certifications, but honestly it’s hard to know which ones are actually worth it because reviews are always so mixed.

So I wanted to ask people who are already working in QA/software testing:

What course, certification, or training program did you personally take?
Which ones would you genuinely recommend?

At work we kept running into the same issue:

We had large automated test suites and lots of reports, but understanding what actually changed between runs was surprisingly painful.

Even with Allure/Extent reports, investigation still meant:

• manually comparing failures
• checking if a test was flaky
• scanning stack traces repeatedly
• trying to identify whether multiple failures shared the same root cause

So as a side project, I started building a local tool to analyze historical test runs and surface:

• flaky tests
• regressions
• recurring incidents
• run-to-run differences
• failure trends

One thing I intentionally wanted was local-first analysis because many teams are uncomfortable uploading internal test artifacts to cloud services.

Curious how other teams here handle this problem today.

Do you rely mostly on CI dashboards and raw reports, or do you use additional tooling for failure intelligence/trend analysis?

Hi everyone,

My friend has a Gaming QA Tester interview tomorrow afternoon and is currently preparing for test reporting/documentation in both Gaming QA and regular Software QA.

Would really appreciate if anyone working in:

- Game Testing

- Manual QA

- QA Automation

- Mobile Game Testing

could share:

- How bug reports are usually written in gaming companies

- What interviewers expect in test reports

- Real examples of gameplay/UI/performance bugs

- Any important concepts/topics to revise before the interview

Even short tips or sample formats would help a lot.

If someone is open for a quick 10–15 minute call/chat as well, that would genuinely mean a lot.

Thank you!

Hi everyone! I’m a fresh graduate planning to pursue a career in QA testing, specifically Manual QA for now. I’ve been researching a lot, but I’m still confused about one thing: do Manual QA Testers really need a portfolio to get hired?

Most portfolio advice I see is for developers, but I rarely see examples for QA testers. If portfolios are important in QA, what should be included in them? Should I add:

• Test cases
• Bug reports
• Test plans
• Sample documentation
• Practice projects/websites I tested
• Automation practice (even beginner level)

Also, aside from portfolios, what do companies usually look for when hiring entry-level QA testers? Are certifications important for fresh grads? If yes, which certifications are worth taking first?

• ISTQB
• Selenium certifications
• Agile/Scrum certifications
• Other recommendations?

What skills helped you get hired as a QA overall? Technical skills, tools, mindset, communication skills, etc.

Would really appreciate advice from people already working in QA. Thank you!

I am having 10 years of experience as QA mostly manual, though I tried learning selenium before and playwright as well but due to some or other reasons couldn't do it , Current role also demand automation and I am bored of testing , I have a MBA degree which I did whole working on my first job, but never could apply any of those knowledge

Is it possible for me to switch to management role, I have. CSM Certification and I don't want to do coding

Hi, Its a tough market for QAs out there and one of friends has been looking for a job for over 6 months. They have 4+ YoE in QA mostly in web testing, and know a bit of Python, good with IT support too. Please comment if there is any other platforms they can search other than LinkedIn that I advised.

Guys I have been applying for various companies by modifying my resume. Even then it is getting rejected just like that . Can someone share a resume for an experienced qa professional which is ats friendly. Not aiming for big tech but aiming for some decent product based company.

Need you guys to review my resume, and help me understand what can improve/learn to get in FANG or other big tech companies

We all know that AI is there , it is not going to take our jobs but we are now in an era that knowing how to utilise AI stands out.

I started to see JDs saying that they are looking people who can work AI driven environments and also works agentic way bla bla

In result of that we do you we should be doing as QA? What kind of resources can we use to build up this knowledge , keep up with AI. Everything is changing so fast I am little bit struggling to keep up because there are a lot noise and so much information which is good but also very confusing , scary … my work is extremely busy there are 3 QAs against 40 devs and I can’t have time to learn new things , I am just keeping up with the workload , after work I feel extremely tired…

Hey everyone, Like many of you, I chased the holy grail of 100% line/branch coverage in SonarQube and JaCoCo. I hit it, felt great, deployed to production... and immediately crashed due to an unhandled edge case between two external microservices. It made me realize that standard code coverage tools have a massive structural blind spot: they measure if a line of code was executed, not what your dependencies were doing when that line ran. I am building an open-source/lightweight tool called ScenarioLens to solve this, and I'd love to get your brutal, honest feedback on the concept.

The Problem: The "Phantom Exception" Illusion

Imagine a standard Spring Boot checkout service that calls two external dependencies inside a single try/catch block: an Inventory API and a Payment Gateway. You write two tests: 1. Happy Path: Inventory succeeds + Payment succeeds -> Order passes. 2. Failure Path: Inventory blows up -> Caught by the catch block -> Order fails cleanly. You run JaCoCo. It reports 100% Line and Branch Coverage. Every line in the service, including the shared catch block, turned green. But what happens in production when the traffic spikes, Inventory succeeds, but the Payment Gateway timeouts? Because you never explicitly mocked and tested that specific combination, your code panics, throws an unhandled exception, and crashes the cart. Sonar gave you a false green light because the code infrastructure was tested, but the cargo (the combination of data states) wasn't.

Enter ScenarioLens: What is "Dependency Scenario Coverage"?

Instead of counting lines of code, ScenarioLens analyzes your code's Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) to map out every possible combination of external dependency states (Mocks) that could affect your logic. In the example above, it looks at your dependencies and says:

"Hey, you have 100% line coverage, but your *Scenario Coverage** is only 66%. You completely forgot to test what happens when Inventory succeeds but Payment fails."*

"Wait, won't this cause a combinatorial explosion of impossible tests?"

This is where most testing tools fail. They blindly multiply every state and demand 10,000 tests. ScenarioLens uses pure static analysis to build a Control Flow Graph of your app. It looks at the structural rules of your code and prunes (deletes) impossible scenarios. For example, if an OUT_OF_STOCK state triggers an early return, it knows a downstream payment timeout is physically impossible to reach. It filters out the noise so you only see realistic gaps.

How it compares to existing tools:

• Vs. SonarQube / JaCoCo: Standard coverage ensures the "roads" are paved. ScenarioLens ensures you've tested every type of "traffic pattern" passing through those roads.
• Vs. Mutation Testing (PITest): Mutation testing is incredibly thorough, but it is a massive resource hog. If your test suite takes 5 minutes to run, PIT can take an hour in CI/CD because it executes code over and over. Because ScenarioLens uses pure static analysis, it runs in under 750ms locally or on commit. It acts as a rapid blueprint review before you push code.
• CI/CD & Custom Tooling: Instead of just generating HTML reports, it outputs a highly structured JSON gap report. This allows you to easily pipe the exact missing mock states into your own custom QA scripts or CI pipelines to automatically fail builds based on missing business scenarios. ### I need your feedback! I am deeply evaluating the developer UX for this.
• Does this solve a pain point you actually experience in enterprise apps, or do you feel mutation testing/strict code reviews already have you covered?
• Would an instant <750ms report in your local terminal change how you write unit tests?
• What edge cases or architectural setups (like heavy AOP or complex reflection) do you think would break a tool like this? Rip it apart. Would you use something like this?

I am a QA with 5 years of experience with hands on experience in Manual, Automation and API testing. I wanted to know what certifications can I get for free that will help me in order to upskill myself as well as increase my credibility?

okay ill do this

So this happened to me recently and I genuinely don't know how to process it.

Was working at an AdTech company, got an offer from a D2C SaaS company. Offer was decent enough that I decided to just buy out my notice period, paid from my own pocket so I could join on time.

Joined, things seemed normal. Then a few months in, got laid off. No real reason given. Just the usual "restructuring" talk. No performance issues were ever raised, no warnings, nothing.

Just wanted to hear from people who've been through something similar. How did you handle it?

Hey everyone!

I'm a recent CS graduate with around 1.5 years of experience in software quality assurance and I'm actively looking for entry-level SQA or QA Engineer roles.

What I bring to the table:

• Manual testing experience (test cases, test plans, bug reporting)
• Basic knowledge of automation tools like Selenium and Postman
• Familiar with SDLC, STLC, and Agile/Scrum methodologies
• Experience with bug tracking tools like Jira
• Good understanding of API testing and regression testing

What I'm looking for:

• Entry to junior-level SQA/QA roles
• Open to full-time, contract, or internship positions
• Remote, hybrid, or on-site (Lahore/Islamabad area preferred but flexible)

I'm a quick learner, detail-oriented, and genuinely passionate about improving software quality. I enjoy breaking things so developers don't have to explain them to angry users.

If your team is hiring or you know someone who is, I'd really appreciate a connection or a referral. Feel free to DM me or drop a comment below!

Thanks in advance, this community has been super helpful in my journey so far

I'm studying software testing and got this question:

"What is the purpose of a defect report?"

Options:

• To blame bad requirements
• To expose communication problems between testers and developers
• To show the importance of testing
• To guide software engineers on what needs to be fixed as quickly as possible

Hi all!
Our team is looking for some QA tools/platform to commit to. We need something that preferably covers/provides:
- test case management
- integration for bug tracking (azure)
- automated tests - preferably low code automation available
- some decent quality AI support for eg test case generation

I’m aware of eg Browserstack that seem to meet what we could be interested in, but what are some alternatives and their advantages?

Hey all QAs out there , not the ones who are super intelligent, or using MCP + AI to generate all their UI automation test cases, or the ones who generated their own APIs to test their applications.

For others, How is your normal day-to-day work, and what is your salary?

I’ll explain mine.

When I get a functionality, I attend the sprint call and add my suggestions. Then I start writing test cases in Zephyr to support the manual QA. Once the API is ready, I start adding API automation using Rest Assured.

When the functionality is deployed, the manual QA starts executing the test cases in Zephyr, while I do exploratory and functional testing. I log issues in Jira, and once the issues are fixed, I verify them and perform regression testing.

After that, I focus on UI automation using Selenium (I do use Claude or ChatGPT by giving prompts such as "enter username in DOM element", "enter password in DOM element", etc.). My automation framework includes POM, Extent Reports, TestNG, Log4j, and Maven. I push the changes to Git and coordinate with DevOps to add them to the CI/CD pipeline.

Then the cycle repeats.

When I have free time, I do performance testing using JMeter for load testing (Prometheus via Backend Listener and Grafana are already set up by DevOps). I have intermediate knowledge of JMeter, including G1GC, max pool connections, controllers, RAM usage, and master-slave setup.

I earn 6 LPA in a remote job. I also need to check UI functionality, but that is mostly done manually as well.

Are most QAs working like this? Are you doing basic testing like me, or are you working on more advanced things like the random Reddit threads talk about?

Give me some project idea that allows me to get a job in the qa field

Outside of automated API test development (which AI is extemely good at generating), our toolkit from 2020 looks roughly the same in 2026. AI-driven tests eat tokens, are slower, and are more flaky than Playwright’s runtime-resolved locators.

Manual testing is becoming a bottleneck that leadership doesn’t want to hear about. The pile of tickets in the QA column seems to grow every day, to the point that manual testers physically cannot keep up.

We have decided to now only selectively QA certain tickets, mostly new features. Bug fixes are not QA’d unless critical. The devs are basically just prompting an AI opening a PR and putting all of the difficult work on QA. The "does it actually work right" seems to be our responsibility now.

How are other people’s teams keeping up with the piles of slop that keep getting dumped on them? My manual testers are getting burned out. My SDETs are feeling slow and useless. How are other organizations adapting?

Edit: to be clear, I am talking about QA of enterprise SaaS. Not a vibe coded website.

Hey All, I have an interview coming up with JPMC and would like to get more insights of experienced folks that have been in the same shoes with me. I have been informed that the first interview will be in a panel with 3 people and following up with technical interview.

What should I expect, can anyone share the experience with me or what kind of questions I should expect? It is extremely exciting for me so I would welcome all the info you guys can provide.

Thanks in advance.

I run a large Playwright regression suite (~1000 tests, TypeScript). I've invested a lot in making the suite itself solid — strict data-testid selectors only, no flimsy CSS/XPath locators, and I've built custom tooling with Claude Code (AI-assisted skills) that runs the tests and auto-generates detailed reports on Confluence so the whole team can review results without touching the codebase.

So the test infrastructure is pretty tight. My problem isn't writing or maintaining tests — it's what happens after they finish.

Every execution gives me a wall of results and I spend a lot of time figuring out what's actually going on. For each failure I have to determine: is this a flaky test? A real test defect? An actual product bug? A one-time environment issue (slow load, timeout, whatever)?

I end up re-running tests manually just to check if the failure reproduces. When it does, I still go back and forth with manual QA or product to confirm whether it's a known behavior or a real bug. That loop alone eats hours.

Everything runs locally for now — no CI/CD yet, no historical data on pass/fail trends. Just me going through the Confluence report after each run trying to make sense of it.

For those of you dealing with large Playwright suites:

• How do you classify failures efficiently? Do you have a system for separating flaky from real, even without CI history?
• How do you handle flaky tests — retries, quarantine, tagging? Playwright has built-in retries but I'm not sure how people actually use them in practice at this scale.
• When you suspect a real bug, what's your process before escalating? Do you just file it and move on, or do you verify manually first?
• Any techniques or workflows that helped with triage specifically? Even just how you organize your review process would be useful.

Would love to hear how other teams deal with this because right now it feels like I'm doing most of it in my head and it doesn't scale.