Why I don’t value test certification

Certification, Testing, ,
Est Reading Time: 3 minutes

Certification for testers seems to have been a hot topic for a while and many testers seem unsure whether it’s the right thing to do for their career or not.

If you want to work in the USA or India as a software tester then you will almost certainly need an ISTQB qualification. In that case it may be useful for your career but it feels very much like a box ticking exercise at that point.

I’ve recruited software testers for many organisations in different industries and countries and I never value certification as part of the application.

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Pragmatism in Testing

People, Testing, Ways of Working, ,
Est Reading Time: 3 minutes

A really important part of being a tester is the ability to be pragmatic when the situation calls for it. It’s important to have principles and values that you are guided by but there are times where you might need to compromise these to get the job done. I don’t think this should be seen as a bad thing, rather an ability to adapt to the situation in front of you. I’m going to examine some of the most common scenarios from my own experience where you may have to compromise and be pragmatic in your thinking.

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Testing your contracts (5/5)

Automation, Contract Testing, Testing, , , , ,
Est Reading Time: 10 minutes

In parts 1-4 of this series, I’ve looked at what contract testing is, introduced the pact framework and showed how you can use it to create consumer side and provider side code to ensure a specific contract scenario.

Now I’m going to look at building pact in to your pipeline and tips on how to achieve this in an efficient way that doesn’t block or slow product delivery.

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Testing your contracts (4/5)

Automation, Contract Testing, Testing, , , ,
Est Reading Time: 5 minutes

If you’ve been ready the parts I’ve written so far, you’ll know we’ve gone through what contract testing is, the pact framework and the consumer side code for a specific scenario.

In this part, we’ll be examining the provider side code of the same scenario. I’d therefore recommend checking out the earlier parts if you haven’t yet, or even for a refresher as this part may not have much context otherwise.

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Testing your contracts (2/5)

Automation, Contract Testing, Testing, , , ,
Est Reading Time: 4 minutes

Pact

In part 1, we looked at what contract testing is and the gap it can cover in an automation strategy. In part 2, we’re going to look at Pact, which is the most widely used contract testing technology and how its framework implements contract testing.

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Testing your contracts (1/5)

Automation, Contract Testing, Testing, , , ,
Est Reading Time: 4 minutes

Contract.. what now?

I have been doing a lot of work with contract testing recently and wanted to do a blog series on something, so this seems as good a thing as anything else! And it’s more technical and I want to do a mix of technical and non-technical blogs.

So, contract testing… some of you may have done this before and some of you may not but it’s becoming more and more relevant given the rise of micro-services and REST APIs.

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Elitism in testing

Testing,
Est Reading Time: 4 minutes

Since the first half of 2018, I’ve been really bad at blog updates and I want to change this and start blogging much more regularly. So I’m going to write some shorter blogs to get me back in to it and here is the first! I’m still going to write the longer articles, but I’ll be looking to save them for publishing elsewhere.

As always let me know any thoughts in the comments and contact me using the buttons if you wish via the various channels.

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