Kristoffer Nordström, Electric Cloud

Why every system test department should

have a test developer (… or two)

www.eurostarconferences.com

@esconfs #esconfs

Copyright © 2012 Electric Cloud, Inc. All rights reserved.

Why every system test department should

have a test developer (… or two)

Kristoffer Nordström (@kristoffer_nord)

2012-09-12

knordstrom@electric-cloud.se

…so that testers can focus on quality human testing

Test Developer who loves to automate testing

WhoAmI

Cert. Scrum Master

Agile freak Test automation

Developer

Tester

TestDeveloper Leanfrastructure

UIQ Technology

Softhouse AB Svenska Antennspecialisten

Embedded platforms

Team Lead

Non-functional testing Test automation

Test tools

Automated GUI Testing

Aut. dev. testing

Charging systems

NFNT Testing

Automated GUI Testing

Test data Automated Installation

System testing

Exploratory testing Northern Test Consulting Electric Cloud

What is a test developer?

Challenges

Test departments with only testers

Agile pace of delivery

Scripted manual test cases

Where to get development skills from

Potential benefits

Dedicated man hours

Test automation

Reproduce complicated bugs

Compile open-source tools

Non-functional testing

Data diggers

Watch dogs

Thanks to Luva@Ericsson Karlskrona

for permission

Dashboards

Automatic provisioning

Copy new binaries, testdata etc.

Reset application

configuration

Reset Database

PXE boot - install OS

Overriding System Calls

Test Case Production Code

Glibc::readdir()

SystemCall::getdents()

Virtual File System

LD_PRELOAD::Override_readdir()

Loadable Kernel Module::Override_getdents()

Potential risks

Less manual testing

”Team within the team”

Not working focused enough

Ends up doing test

automation for the dev teams

Risk of department relying to

much on one team/person

Hard to keep up quality

when working as solo

developer

Where do I find one?

Hire your own

Train your own

Train from developer

Train from tester

How to boost them?

Role Description

[Testing]

• Exploratory Testing

• Write good test cases

• Non-functional Testing

• Test automation

• Break software

• Risk analysis

[Development]

• Programming language(s)

• Scripting language(s)

• Good OS knowledge

• SOLID programming

• Design patterns

• Debugging techniques

[Personal]

• Problem solving

• Communicator

• Passion for learning

• Tight partnership with developers

• Serves the test team

Role description

Potential risks

Potential benefits

All in all: A test developer helps your test department run just a little bit more smoothly

Copyright © 2012 Electric Cloud, Inc. All rights reserved.

Thank you @kristoffer_nord