Although I received my offer letter back on June 3rd, for a Software Test Engineer position at Verily (formerly Google Life Science) it was still thrilling to see in my Inbox:
"Welcome to Google: Hi Thomas Maher, We're so excited for you to join us at Google/ Alphabet".
"Email: Onboarding at Google"
My automation journey started, as I mentioned a few years ago, when I was I picked up the book "How Google Tests Software (2012)".
"Verily's mission is to make the world’s health data useful so that people enjoy longer and healthier lives. The company was launched in 2015 and is a subsidiary of Alphabet.
"Verily develops tools and devices to collect, organize and activate health data, and creates interventions to prevent and manage disease. The company partners with leading life sciences, medical device and government organizations, using deep hardware, software, scientific, and healthcare expertise to enable faster development, meaningful advances, and deployment at scale".
This is so exciting. I can hardly wait!!
-T.J. Maher
Sr. QA Engineer, Software Engineer in Test
Meetup Organizer, Ministry of Testing - Boston
As you may have seen in my last post, the workplace I have loved had a reduction in force. I made a lot of friends at Threat Stack, people I loved working with and hanging out with. I am really going to miss them.
I am now looking for a new full-time perm SDET role in the Boston role. Why hire me as an SDET as your company? Here are a few recommendations from the people I worked for, worked with, and trained:
A new article of mine was just published on the Threat Stack blog, dealing with all the research, requirements gathering, and analysis I performed when I was drafting the first version of an automation framework testing our web application, the Threat Stack Cloud Security Platform.
... And I was interviewed for the article, Current Trends in Automated Software Testing. Now you know why I haven't had a chance to post to this blog in a while. Work has kept me busy, busy, busy!
Come visit Mabl's new office tomorrow for an evening of ten-minute
lightning talks! Come mingle starting at 6:00 pm, and help yourself to
some refreshments, provided by Mabl.com, our host and sponsor for the evening. Thank you, Lisa Crispin and Bertold Kolics of Mabl, our group's newest Event Organizer, for setting this event up for us!
Location: Mabl, 101 Arch Street, Floor 16, Boston, MA
Time: Wednesday, November 13, 2019, 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Whenever I join a new team, my first task is fostering and nurturing a good working relationship with the developers. Why? If there is good chemistry between testers and developers, the quality of work improves as the quality of communication increases.
The relationship between developer and tester shouldn’t be one of artist and art critic. Rather, it should be like the relationship between a writer and a copy editor, where each contributes to the quality of the final product.
Developing a good working relationship with developers can be tricky. I am really fortunate working here at Threat Stack where my work is valued and my ideas are appreciated, but in my career — like many of you — I have had my struggles.
With that in mind, here are five tips that I’ve found helpful in nurturing and developing relationships with my developer teammates.
Previously published on the Threat Stack Blog, September 19, 2019, co-author Laura Haiduck.
All software development projects, whether they’re large or small, can benefit from well-planned and well-executed testing. It’s your way to ensure that the software you’re developing performs as expected and delivers value to the customer. More important — given the nature of our current cyber landscape — well-executed testing is your way to ensure that your software doesn’t ship with errors or vulnerabilities that could compromise its integrity. In a word, good testing lets you pass on performance value to customers — while also providing them with underlying security.
At Threat Stack, we have a complex, full stack development environment that requires a great deal of planning and decision making within the Test Engineering Team to make sure that all the functional areas of our platform are being tested effectively and efficiently. This includes decisions about what testing tools to use, since the right ones allow us to introduce automation as well as speed, repeatability, consistency, and accuracy of results.
There are many different Ruby libraries that allow you to interact with an API:
Net/Http: The HTTP client built into Ruby standard library.
Httparty: Built on top of Net/Http by John Nunemaker, you can GET the HTTP Response HTTP Code, Response Message, and the HTTP Headers with one call. The Google Group was last active in 2017.
The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) operates a series of bus lines, whose information is accessible through their API, https://api-v3.mbta.com/. How could you test that a sampling of these bus lines are still listed?
Route 210 | Quincy Center - Fields Corner
Route 212 | Quincy Center - North Quincy
Route 220 | Hingham Depot - Quincy Center
Route 222 | East Weymouth - Quincy Center
Route 230 | Montello Commuter Rail Station - Quincy
With this project, we are going to use the built-in Ruby Library NET::HTTP to interact with the API, and Thoughtworks Gauge to set up the test framework, and we are going to make the tests data-driven, putting the information we need to verify in a table.
Angie Jones, International Keynote Speaker, blogger at angiejones.tech, Director of TestAutomationU.com is on a world tour for her latest talk Visual Validation for Test Automation:
I remember being so impressed when I first heard about Test Automation University, the latest project by Angie Jones. A free online university, sponsored by Applitools, where subject matter experts in the software testing field created tutorials? Yes, please! Finding up-to-date information on automated testing can be an exercise in frustration.
Imagine my surprise when a few weeks after TAU was launched, Angie Jones got in touch with me back in February: Did I want to create a course for Test Automation University?
I decided my topic would be on Capybara, the Selenium WebDriver wrapper I used to put together the UI Automation framework at work last year. It took a lot of time, effort, and sleepless nights, but after a month of effort, I was able to beat the deadline.
Thank you so much, Angie, for giving me this opportunity!
I cannot believe all the effort Angie Jones puts into reaching out to the software testing community. She is always on the go, giving lectures, running webinars, and speaking at conferences.
Angie has been a guest speaker at my Ministry of Testing - Boston Meetup twice:
The Java course uses the OpenJDK General Availability release of Java 11.
The OpenJDK, the Open Java Development Kit is a free and open-source implementation of the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE). (Get the OpenJDK FAQ).
Whenever I join a new team, my first task is fostering and nurturing a good working relationship with the developers. Why? If there is good chemistry between testers and developers, the quality of work increases as the quality of communication increases.
The relationship between tester and developer shouldn’t be one of artist and art critic. Rather, it should be one between writer and copy-editor, each contributing to the quality of the product.
Developing a good working relationship with developers can be tricky. Here are five tips for nurturing and developing relationships with your developer teammates.
Even though I have been a software tester for the past twenty years, I still like taking introductory courses where I can practice going back to the basics.
Right now, I am working through Mark Winteringham's Introduction to HTTP, accessible when you purchase the Ministry of Testing's Professional Membership.
Threat Stack, where I work, has started a campaign to showcase on its company blog not just its developers and security analysts, but also its software testers.
The video course contains over 45 minutes of material covering topics such as:
What is your goal for starting a test automation initiative and what is it that you want to accomplish?
Who do you envision participating in your test automation initiative and in what capacity?
How do you plan for the execution of this strategy?
How to get people on board and help them understand their place in the automation strategy
How to scale your automation
Registration is free for this course, the current fifteen courses available, and the five courses listed as "Coming Soon". Also coming soon, ... a course I designed for Applitools Test Automation University: Introduction to Capybara.
