From Manual QA to Automation Engineer Using AI with Tal Barmeir and Sapnesh Naik

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Tal Barmeir and Sapnesh Naik TestGuild Automation Feature

About This Episode:

I want to share with you one of our most popular Test Guild webinars “From Manual QA to Automation Engineer Using AI” that took place a few months ago from Tal and Subnesh of BlingIO.  BlinqIO is also our Platinum sponsor for our 2025 online Automation Guild taking place Feb 10-15th.

Don’t miss AutomationGuild25 register now: https://testguild.me/future25

Got big automation testing goals for 2025? But you’re not sure how to achieve them without creating hard to maintain automation? Learn What works from the brightest minds in Software Testing by attending Automation Guild 2025 which is only a week away (Feb 10-15) . That where you’ll learn how to apply AI to your work, the latest in functional and non-functional test automation, and strategies you can put to work right away. Secure your future by getting your tickets at testguild.com. I hope to see you there.

Listen in to discover:

How the role of QA is changing in the context of software development and what this means for career advancement.
Key skills needed to transition from manual QA to automation, including an understanding of AI tools.
Practical strategies for leveraging AI to improve test creation, management, and execution.

Exclusive Sponsor

Don’t miss AutomationGuild25 register now: https://testguild.me/future25

Got big automation testing goals for 2025? But you’re not sure how to achieve them without creating hard to maintain automation? Learn What works from the brightest minds in Software Testing by attending Automation Guild 2025 which is only a week away (Feb 10-15) . That where you’ll learn how to apply AI to your work, the latest in functional and non-functional test automation, and strategies you can put to work right away. Secure your future by getting your tickets at testguild.com. I hope to see you there.

About Tal Barmeir

Tal Barmeir

Tal Barmeir, CEO and Co-Founder. Tal is a seasoned serial entrepreneur in the testing domain, and boasts an impressive 25 years of experience. Her previous venture, Experitest (now digital.ai), was at the forefront of providing test automation solutions for mobile apps during the early stages of smartphones. Today, Tal's primary focus is on harnessing the power of AI to empower testers.

Connect with Tal Barmeir

About Sapnesh Naik

Sapnesh Naik

Sapnesh Naik, Head of QA. Sapnesh is a technology professional with a strong background in software quality assurance and client solutions consulting. He has spent the past few years honing his skills in test automation solutions, ensuring high software quality, and leading teams to deliver real-world solutions that make an impact. His expertise lies in finding practical solutions to complex technical challenges that help clients achieve their goals. Sapnesh currently handles multiple roles at BlinqIO as the head of Quality Assurance (QA) and Lead Solutions Consultant.

Connect with Sapnesh Naik

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[00:00:00] In a land of testers, far and wide they journeyed. Seeking answers, seeking skills, seeking a better way. Through the hills they wandered, through treacherous terrain. But then they heard a tale, a podcast they had to obey. Oh, the Test Guild Automation Testing podcast. Guiding testers with automation awesomeness. From ancient realms to modern days, they lead the way. Oh, the Test Guild Automation Testing podcast. With lutes and lyres, the bards began their song. A tune of knowledge, a melody of code. Through the air it spread, like wildfire through the land. Guiding testers, showing them the secrets to behold. Oh, the Test Guild Automation Testing podcast. Guiding testers with automation awesomeness. From ancient realms to modern days, they lead the way. Oh, the Test Guild Automation Testing podcast. Oh, the Test Guild Automation Testing podcast. With lutes and lyres, the bards began their song. A tune of knowledge, a melody of code. Through the air it spread, like wildfire through the land. Guiding testers, showing them the secrets to behold.

[00:00:34] Joe Colantonio Hey, I want to share with you one of our most popular Test Guild webinars from a few months ago called from Manual QA to Automation Engineer using A.I. and leading experts Tal and Sapnesh of Blinqio, who are also the platinum sponsor of this year's Automation Guild will also have a session on AI and automation. But before we get into it, if you have big automation testing goals for 2025, you're not sure how to achieve them or without creating hard to maintain automation. Well, learn what works from the brightest minds in software testing by attending Automation Guild 2025 online, which is only one week away February 10th to the 15th. That's where you'll learn how to apply AI to work the latest in functional and nonfunctional tests automation and strategies you could put into place right away. Don't miss out. Secure your future by getting your ticket now by heading over to TestGuild.com or using the link down below and hope to see you there. Alright, in this he session. We're going to go over how the rule of QA is changing in the context of software development and what that means to your career. Also, you'll discover key skills needed to transition from manual QA to automation, including an understanding of the AI tools. And you'll also get practical strategies for leveraging AI to improve test creation management and execution. Also, because this is both audio and video, I left out the demo part, but if you want the demo, just use the link down below and I'll take you to the full video where you can actually watch the demo in action in how you can apply AI to your test strategy as well.

[00:02:08] Tal Barmeir Excellent. We're excited to be here. And thank you everyone for joining us for the session. We will really try and take you to move forward into the next generation world of testing where manual testers can actually very quickly become automation engineers using the Gen AI. So one of the big messages or news from Gen AI is that actually a lot of capability that in the past you needed to bridged by learning programing language and other things can now actually be reached using Gen AI. Sapnesh is exactly you know the type of person that first hand experience. What does it mean to actually move from being a manual tester to a test automation coder? And with that, you will be able to share from his experience what does it mean when you can leverage the Gen AI engines of any sort in kind and actually become a test automation engineer without needing to learn that code. I myself have about 20 plus years experience in the testing industry specifically and my last role I cofounded with Guy a company called Experitest that was later acquired by TPG and renamed Digital.ai. We do the test automation platform for mobile and web for digital apps. I've seen firsthand what does it mean, the difference between test automation and manual testing, the big benefits as well as the big challenge on finding people that are good test automation coders. And now again, it's really exciting to see that we can actually bring forward manual testers to that in Lightspeed. So really the topic of today is how Gen AI opens the fast track career paths for testers and we'll be touching on to why they career passes that tester might have boosted with the help of Gen AI. The first one is actual Imanuel tester that wants to become a test automation engineer and generate code and will show you how the capabilities of journey AI enable you to use the skill set that you have already today as the manual tester and actually generate or deliver test automation in code. So you would still be keeping doing and using your manual testing capability, but the result of your work, instead of just being a one time manual test would be test automation go that can run continuously and all of that without needing to know any code. The second route, which we're not actually going to explore during this webinar but it's quite interesting as well, is a test automation engineer can now manage a team of AI test engineers and will see how you can significantly, if you are already a test automation coder, how you can significantly multiply the productivity by actually managing a set of test automation coders that are powered by AI. So as I mentioned in this webinar, we're covering only the very first career Path enhancement manual to test automation engineer. Let's speak a little bit about how does that work today. Okay. Before, Generative AI was it came into the picture. What did it mean that somebody wanted to actually move from being a manual tester to becoming a test automation engineer. If we look in terms of what are the skills that a manual tester already has. A manual tester has the ability, the analytical skills, right? He has the ability to understand what the requirements are and overlay them on the tested application or website. You have to test design expertise to understand how to define or what type of test scenarios should actually be brought to the picture in order to cover the full capabilities of the new feature or existing feature. And finally, it has application knowledge. We understand the full ecosystem of the application. What is it purpose? Who is using it? What is the context in which it use. All of that application knowledge. But what does it take for a manual tester today if you wish to become a test automation engineer? First of all, you need basics of programing. You need to know Python, you need to know JavaScript. In addition to that, you need to know test framework. At the end of the day, if you want to be a good test automation engineer, you need to build something that scale, something that can reuse methods that are already being implemented and so forth. And for that, you need to do a very big investment. You need to understand, know how to operate and manipulate test frameworks such as Playwright, Selenium, or any one of those, as well as how to structure the test automation in a way that is scalable, such as using BDD, Cucumber, JS and so forth. This is what is required today. And the question is, many people that are manual testers find themselves, year after year saying, I would like to do this job. However, life is stronger than many of the aspirations to learn this big gap in coding and test framework. Obviously, many times it's put aside and year after year passes and you keep on being a manual tester. Now the question is how can Gen AI change that? How can it actually boost your career forward? With GenAI, you don't need any additional skill required to deliver the productivity and result of a test automation coder. I'm repeating that, with GenAI, you don't need to know anything more than you know today. As a manual tester, and the results of your work would be the equivalent of what a test automation coder would do. How does that miracle actually happen? If you perform your test manually, GenAI will be able to generate for you two critical things that a test automation coder today would do. The first one is to articulate or build the description of the test itself in a business level description in BDD Gherkin type of format. Now, this is something that you could easily read out and it feels like regular English, but the ability to actually structure it in such a way sometimes requires some expertise and training. This is not a huge gap, but it is a gap. And this is something that GenAI can just from the fact that you click through a manual test flow and actually understand what was the flow, you just click through the application a website and translate that backwards into a test description that is written on the business logic level. The second thing that GenAI can do for you is the biggest gap between manual testers and test automation coders. At the end of the day, a manual tester generates a yes or no result per a single execution of a test flow. A test automation coder produce a code that repeatedly runs that test and provides a yes no result that is ongoing and continuously executed. The GenAI can take that same flow that you would manually click through exactly like you perform a manual test and create code that would perform that exact type of manual scenario you just click through. This is something which is super powerful. You're clicking through a manual test, but the result that is happening is the background without you even being aware of it is a full blown project. It can be Playwright, it can be in other language. It doesn't really matter. It actually codes for you the flow that you manually perform. Now that we understand what GenAI can do and how it can actually take a manual tester to deliver work equivalent to a test automation coder, let's look a bit more in detail on the AI engines and understand what is it, what are those different capabilities that they bring to the table. And what I try to do here is actually cut this into 5 different main activities that a test automation coder would need to do and see what is the portion that AI can actually do for you. The first one is the requirement analysis and test planning. We defined the test scenarios themselves. A manual tester would usually either do that in plain English, some sort of free English description. How do you actually translate that into a more structured BDD description? This is something that AI can do. It can understand a plain pre-English description, for example, of let's say you have a description that say, Hey, John, you're the manual tester, please create a new opportunity and so forth, and go then to check that it actually appeared in the pipeline. That translated into a more structured BDD way, a Gherkin follow a given when then that is something that you don't any more need to learn how to do or what are the basics A bit. GenAI would provide use that directly from the free English description or just from the flow you're manually clicking through like you've done all with. The second thing a test automation coder needs to do and a manual tester doesn't necessarily know how to is to set up the test automation project, this is actually setting up a code environment which a manual tester doesn't necessarily know how to do. A.I today, GenAI can actually set that project for you. How can it do? It learns just through the fact that you click through a certain flow. What is the application you're testing? It sets up all the application environment definition directly into the test automation framework. It knows to parameterized all sorts of field that you click through. So if you created, let's say, new opportunity in a Salesforce and you filled in all sorts of fields as you went through the process, it would know to parameterized that, okay, all of these things are things that a manual tester does not know how to do. You would just click through the flow, enter the data, but you would not know how to generalize that into a code based parameterization project. And all of that is actually done for you today by GenAI. The next thing GenAI can do for you is write the code itself. The project has set, but now you actually want to describe each one of the different locator, the object that you're clicking through, entering and so forth. And GenAI today is smart enough to actually identify the locators, describe them in a general way so that the code of that is being generated is stable and scalable. The next thing AI can do for you is once you've actually created this test automation project and it started executing, it can analyze for you why certain tests failed. The one of the big headaches for any testers, including manual testers that are often asked to look at results, failed results that were executed overnight is to understand why tests failed. And this is something that is very time consuming and actually holds back the whole team because until you identify why this failed, you don't know to whom to direct the investigation as the RnD because of the bug, is it the test automation because the code has been broken due to update of the UI. Or is it the DevOps because the environments went down? AI can actually do that for you. If you're now a manual tester tasked with analyzing all the failed results and trying to understand why that is a task that now GenAI can do for you. And last but not least, all of us know that the biggest test for test automation coders is not just the initial creation of the test automation code, but actually the maintenance of it against all set of UI changes that the application or website undergo as the application lifecycle exists. For that, you might ask as a manual tester, what does all this help me if at the end of the day when a test automation test fails because there is need to update the test automation code through UI change it. I don't know how to update that code. I didn't write it to start with. So again, here, the big message is that GenAI can autonomously update the code against the updated UI for you. You might ask how do I know that it updated it correctly? It provides you an explanation of what it updated and for what changes in the UI. So you actually have in the manual tester the control to approve or disapprove any code changes without ever looking at the code just by looking at the screenshot that the GenAI explains to you with what was the reason it changed the code. Up to here is really, what are those capabilities that GenAI engine brings to the table today? The next thing that is important to understand is that today as a manual tester, you're limited many times to the language that you speak. And as a test automation coder, you're limited many times to knowing to code only on mobile or web and not necessarily know how to code across all platforms. GenAI has this ability. It's fully multilingual and it's able to create test automation code for you, even though the manual flow that you are executing based on which is great the test automation code has been executed only against a mobile or only against a web application. Now, this is a big thing because it means that for a manual tester, click through a certain flow, let's say on a web application, and then the GenAI knows to create not only the code for the web application but also for a mobile application, whether it's iOS or Android. And if you ask yourself, how can this be, the answer is that GenAI actually create the full model of what the business logic of the flow you just created in the manual test represent and implement that against an application, whether it's a web, whether it's a mobile, iOS, or Android, it doesn't really care. By the way, very similar to the way the brains of a human manual tester would work. If I gave you a test and I gave you a mobile application or a web application, you'd figure out how to actually perform the manual test flow. GenAI has enough intelligence to figure out from one flow that is performed against a web application how to perform the same business logic against a mobile application and create the code for that. Think about it now from a manual tester performing a one time manual test, you become a test automation coder, creating test automation code on multilingual websites and on multi platforms. The value that you bring as an employee to your organization has been multiplied in an unimaginable way, and that can happen today with the help of GenAI without any need to learn code or to learn different languages or to learn different platforms. I switch over here to Sapnesh to speak a little bit from your experience, moving from a manual tester to a test automation coder, how can actually GenAI help you and what type of capabilities somebody can actually learn to make this path best.

[00:19:25] Sapnesh Naik Thank you, Tal. What you're seeing on the screen here is the general path for engineers to become an automation test engineer from manual test engineer. So you already have some skills as a manual test engineer. You know your application. If we give you a feature description, you know we generate different kinds of test cases like note it down and then test a feature like in a positive happy path or negative path. You can already understand the edge cases as well. And since you are doing this day in and day out manually, you also have a very keen eye for detail. This still applies to automation testing as well. So if we can bring all of this and then on top of this, learn a few skills and then translate this into code automation code. You have already written excellent scripts, excellent test script. What new you need to learn is basics of some simple programing languages like JavaScript. So JavaScript can be used to do very advanced stuff as well, but the learning part for that, learning curve is very easy. We'll be able to learn that in like a week or two if you start with basics and then learn Playwright, Playwright or Selenium anything. But I would suggest Playwright today and then learn Cucumber JS as well. So Playwright will allow you to basically automate whatever happens in your browser, right? Like clicking the actions, navigating to a page, filling in something. All of that. And Cucumber JS will allow you to like organize your test cases. If I test such like regression or a feature based and then run multiple test cases in a suite and then get reports and all of that. And Github also you might have already heard GitHub. It goes without saying you need to know version control as well. But once you learn these basics and start exploring AI tools, you can see that even with like learning 20% of it, with the help of AI, you are able to reach 80% of the test automation. That's what it will help you. You learn the basics and then you start exploring AI tools and that will take you to the full 100% and you will be able to automate your test cases.

[00:21:35] Tal Barmeir Okay. Thank you for that, Sapnesh and how can you actually use AI to get ahead the way, you're experimenting a lot with this. What are your suggestions or ideas or manual testers looking at AI and saying, how can it help in my career?

[00:21:54] Sapnesh Naik Manual testers didn't have this like a year or two ago. So now we have ChatGPT, as you all know. I would say, use ChatGPT extensively to like arrive at a faster research, faster solution, faster research, faster results. So that will help you a lot. That's my personal experience also. And whatever AI tools you are exploring, right, make sure you document them somewhere in like your personal blog or else your GitHub repository. Make sure you have a record of that so that you can go back and revise it. And so you are giving any interviews as an engineer, test automation engineer. You can also talk about the AI tools to explore, right? Because we have seen that a lot of companies are exploring AI-based testing now. And if you are able to talk about what AI can do in your testing industry, like how it can generate code or generate test ideas and improve coverage and automatically query. All of these, if we're able to talk about it in your interviews that will be a huge plus for you, engineering interviews, too.

[00:22:54] Tal Barmeir Okay. Well, guys, we're going to demo on our tool on Blinqio, but the insights and capabilities we're demoing here are just a result of the general capabilities of generative the AI to date. So you have to understand that this is general capabilities that are available today and you'll probably see them in open source tools and all sorts of different the offerings in the market. We'll try to keep this as general as possible, focusing on the general generate of the AI capabilities. But again, feel free to plug in questions that you'd like to ask about this. And obviously, if you like to specifically try our tool, we would love you to come to our website and check it out. I'm handing over a year to Sapnesh for the live show of different GenAI capabilities.

[00:23:47] Joe Colantonio Thank you, Tal and Sapnesh for automation awesomeness.

[00:23:50] For links of everything of value we covered in this episode, head in over the TestGuild.com/a533. And while you're there make sure you register for Automation Guild. You have one week. If you miss it, you can also get the full replays using the link down below. Once again, hope to see you there. That's it for this episode of the TestGuild Automation podcast. I'm Joe, my mission is to help you succeed in creating end-to-end full stack automation awesomeness. As always, test everything and keep the good. Cheers.

[00:24:18] Hey, thank you for tuning in. It's incredible to connect with close to 400,000 followers across all our platforms and over 40,000 email subscribers who are at the forefront of automation, testing, and DevOps. If you haven't yet, join our vibrant community at TestGuild.com where you become part of our elite circle driving innovation, software testing, and automation. And if you're a tool provider or have a service looking to empower our guild with solutions that elevate skills and tackle real world challenges, we're excited to collaborate. Visit TestGuild.info to explore how we can create transformative experiences together. Let's push the boundaries of what we can achieve.

[00:25:02] Oh, the Test Guild Automation Testing podcast. With lutes and lyres, the bards began their song. A tune of knowledge, a melody of code. Through the air it spread, like wildfire through the land. Guiding testers, showing them the secrets to behold.

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