Daniel Toms’ Post

🔄 The SDET Identity Crisis: Stuck Between Two Worlds? 🐞 After years in the trenches as an SDET and during my journey from SDET to Software Engineer I've noticed a frustrating pattern that many of us face. Let me share a reality that's rarely discussed: 😕 The Development Transition Challenge: When SDETs try to move to pure development roles, we often hear: "But you're a test engineer, where's your product development experience?" This, despite building complex test automation frameworks, designing scalable testing architectures, and writing code that's just as crucial as production features. 📉 The QA "Overqualified" Paradox: Try to pivot to QA leadership? "You're too technical for this role." The same coding skills and architecture experience that make us valuable suddenly become a barrier. It's as if hiring managers can't see past the "test" in our job title. 🎯 The Truth About SDETs: SDETs build and maintain production-grade testing infrastructure. SDETs write code that tests code. SDETs understand both development and quality perspectives. ⚡️ Reality Check: An SDET who has architected entire test automation frameworks from scratch, managed CI/CD pipelines, and written thousands of lines of code isn't "just a tester" or "overqualified for QA." We're engineers who happen to specialize in quality and automation. 💡 What Needs to Change: HR needs to understand that SDET !== "just testing" Hiring managers should value our unique full-stack perspective The industry needs to recognize that building test frameworks IS software engineering #SDET #CareerTransition #SoftwareEngineering #QualityEngineering #TechCareers #JobSearch #Engineering #SoftwareDevelopment #HiringManagers #CareerGrowth

According to Forbes, 377,500 IT positions will open each year from 2022 to 2032, with salaries ranging from 6 LPA to 60 LPA. These positions include software development, but beyond SDE roles, many other profiles are highly in demand. So, what makes you hirable if you want to apply for trending and in-demand technologies? 💬 👉 The right set of skills and an optimized approach to job applications—that’s it. But how do you acquire these essential skills and master the application process? I’m excited to announce a new series of posts where we’ll guide you through the most effective roadmaps to kickstart your career in: 👉 DevOps 👉 Data Analytics 👉 Data Science 👉 DevRel / Developer Advocate 👉 Product Management 👉 SDET / Automation QA 👉 Network Engineering 👉 Technical Architecture 👉 AI / ML Engineering 👉 And many more Stay tuned, and don't forget to press the bell icon on my profile to be notified as soon as I share the posts. The series starts tomorrow!

Great road map in one piece

Continuing my deep dive into testing job posting, I came across an SDET role in India yesterday, that demands 5 years of overall experience, including 3 years in QA. The role requires proficiency in C++, Python, Scala, Kubernetes, Kafka, Docker, and Aerospike. Additionally, the candidate must exhibit technical leadership in architecture evolution, maintain automation frameworks, coordinate with various teams, manage CI/CD environments, analyze data integrity, ensure quality, and handle UI technologies like React, Angular, and SQL. This seems excessive, even for an automation lead or architect. Possible reasons for such demanding job postings could be: a) The job requirement is written generically by someone outside the project. b) There's a need for a jack-of-all-trades due to numerous applications to test. c) Budget constraints prevent hiring an architect, so an engineer is expected to fill the gap. Why do you think we keep seeing such extensive job postings? Please share your thoughts. #SoftwareTesting #QualityAssurance #TestMetry #TestingJobs

There's nothing worse than having two really strong candidates and only one job opening... but it can be great if you keep track of them! Got to start my morning by making an offer to a "Silver Medalist" candidate who interviewed for a Staff SDET role a few months ago. Engineering manager: "I need to hire for ______ role, before you post it, let's see if this candidate is still on the market." They are. Made an offer the next day. $1,000's of dollars and dozens of hours saved, and a happy engineer joining the team. Hires like this aren't possible at most publicly traded companies due to red tape. New interviews required, goofy policies requiring "cool off periods" from the last interview. All nonsense. Get out of the way and trust your teams to hire the right people! #Recruiting #Hiring #Talent #Engineering

Mid vs Senior #126 Differences in expectations Mid level is usually the tech go-to person who’s not having a complete business picture. Key responsibilities of a Mid level Engineer: - Always finds a tech solution - Be reliable to change prod unsupervised - Knows most dependant products and takes it into consideration - Raises the technical standards - Makes extensive code reviews A complete tech person. On the other hand, the key priorities for a senior engineer are: - Develop business critical tech solutions (mainly design and scratch) - Maintain and raise the technical standards and navigate the team through them - Understand the whole business lifecycle and SDLC and make decisions accordingly - Support prod at any time unsupervised - Be the second line of support of the Mid engineer fails - Suggest product technical improvements and solutions with the business in mind The Senior Engineer is more of a Mid engineer with extra tech knowledge in the peoduct itself and great SDLC and business knowledge. It usually takes somewhere between 1 and 3 years to get from a Mid engineer to a Senior. Note that just staying at a Mid level for 3 years does not result in a Senior engineer. TopCoding - Your Tech Career Mentor #Coding #Interview

Real Talk About SDET Hiring - From Someone Who's Been on Both Sides I had to smile this morning while reviewing some SDET job descriptions that landed in my inbox. They reminded me of my mother's shopping lists - you know, the ones where she writes down everything in the store just in case she needs it. Look, I get it. I've been heading automation teams for years now, and yes, we all want rockstar engineers. But here's what I'm seeing everywhere: "Required Skills:" - Must know every automation framework created since the dawn of testing - Should code fluently in roughly 4-5 programming languages - Must have mastered all CI/CD tools (including the ones still in beta) - Need expert-level knowledge in... well, everything Here's the thing - I've hired and worked with some brilliant SDETs over the years. Want to know what made them exceptional? It wasn't their encyclopedic knowledge of every tool in existence. The real MVPs in my teams have always been engineers who: - Really understand how to design robust test architecture - Have solid coding skills in one or two languages (and can learn others when needed) - Know how to pick the right tool for the job (not just the trending one) - Can explain complex testing concepts to non-technical folks - Actually think about maintainability (bless their souls) Let's be real for a minute. If you're posting job requirements that look like a copy-paste of the entire testing section of Stack Overflow, you might be doing it wrong. What if instead, we tried something radical - like being honest about what the job actually needs? Here's my approach: 1. List the core tech stack they'll use daily (the real one, not the aspirational one) 2. Focus on problem-solving abilities (because that weird edge case won't test itself) 3. Look for architectural thinking (because someone needs to think about the big picture) 4. Value learning aptitude (because today's hot framework is tomorrow's legacy code) After all, I've never met an engineer who simultaneously used Cypress, Playwright, Selenium, and Appium all in one day. And if you have, please check if they're okay. Fellow engineering leaders - what's your take on this? How do you cut through the noise when writing job descriptions? #SoftwareEngineering #TestAutomation #HiringInTech #EngineeringLeadership #RealTalk #SDET #QualityEngineering

You should definitely apply for that next level position. Go for that Sr. SDET role, even if you haven’t held that title before. Just do these three things first: 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞: At the top of your resume, clearly state that you are applying for a Sr. SDET position. It’s okay even if your previous title was different. You’re showing that your experience makes you ready for this role at this company. 𝐓𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐞:  Ensure your resume reflects a Senior level SDET. If you're unsure, have someone review it to make sure it meets the expectations of recruiters and hiring managers. 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬: Be ready to share examples of your senior-level work both in your resume and during the interview. Many of us have been in situations where we do the work of the next level but don’t get the promotion due to budget constraints, lack of support, or other reasons. It's okay to seek the next level position through a new job. Just make sure you share the right stories. If you apply for a Sr. SDET role but only mention tasks like implementing a test strategy and using an existing test framework, that’s not enough for a senior-level role. Focus on stories of leadership, influence, and tangible business results. Highlight how you drove innovation, coached juniors, and improved team performance. Good luck! #CareerAdvice #JobSearch #SDET #ResumeTips #Hiring #Promotion #TechJobs #Leadership

Serious question to all recruiters and engineering managers out there: If a software engineer reaches out to you daring you to beat them in a video game they made themselves, and if they win, they get an interview, would you play the game and give them a fair chance? 😂 #softwareengineering #tech #programming #recruiting