Issue #165 : Software Testing Notes

How to stand out as a QA

Apr 02, 2025

Hello there! 👋

Welcome to the 165th edition of Software Testing Notes, a weekly newsletter featuring must-read content on Software Testing. I hope this week has been good for you so far.

This week, we will explore:

Why testing alone doesn’t improve software quality.
Building and improving Page Objects, one step at a time
Why should you choose Shift-left testing?
Handling Repeated Elements in Playwright
Client Side Performance with Playwright + Artillery

and more…

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📚 Testing

How to stand out as a QA : Building the personality and portfolio to outshine ! by Swathika Visagn

Job hunting in today's market is tough, Swathika Visagn shares actionable ways for QA professionals to stand out such as building a strong portfolio, tailoring a CV, and making meaningful professional connections.

And to find good Job opportunities, you should check out TestDevTools.com — A single place to find all the cool jobs in software testing.

Does Testing Improve Quality? by Nate Ballantyne

Testing is a integral part of SDLC, but testing alone doesn’t improve software quality—only measures it. As Nate Ballantyne rightly points out, true quality comes from clear requirements, collaborative development, simple design, continuous feedback, and a culture of learning, not just passing tests.

Shift-Left Testing: Why Early Testing is a Game-Changer by Calder Hayes

Why should you choose Shift-left testing? This article by Calder Hayes breaks down its benefits, challenges, and best practices, including automation and collaboration strategies to make the approach successful.

🔍 Software Testing

⚙️ Automation

gRPC Testing intro. Writing the first test. by Oleksii Shamrai

With practical example, Oleksii Shamrai walks through building a gRPC-based Employee Service and different testing strategies, gRPC’s contract definitions and test reporting with Allure.

Also the first article to learn basic of gRPC requests.

Leveraging mocks for automated E2E testing by Dmytro Stekanov

End-to-end tests often fail due to unreliable external dependencies. Dmytro Stekanov has a way to solve this issue by using static, selective, or proxy-mode mocks to improve test stability, speed, and coverage of edge cases.

Building and improving Page Objects, one step at a time by Bas Dijkstra

While there’s no single "right way" to write Page Objects, Bas Dijkstra shows a way by building a well-structured Page Object model for UI tests and applying solid design principles makes test code more maintainable, reusable, and easier to understand.

Mastering Context Clicks: Handling Repeated Elements in Playwright by Dhrumil Soni

Handling repeated elements in UI tests can be tricky, Dhrumil Soni shows how to use Playwright’s powerful locators to interact with dynamic content easily. This article walks through automating the “Add to Cart” process on SauceDemo, using Playwright’s filter() and locator() methods to precisely target elements.

Automate Testing & Create Test Data Using Selenium on Linux — A Complete Guide by Dhruv Desai

This guide walks us through setting up Selenium on Linux, writing a simple login script, and more advanced automation tests. Whether you're new to test automation or looking to speed up repetitive tasks, this is article will serve as a great starting point.

Fighting Flaky Tests: 10 Real-World Tips to Stabilize Your Automation by Tracy

Flaky tests have always been the bane of reliable automation. Tracy shares ten practical ways to eliminate test flakiness, from replacing hardcoded waits with smarter conditions to stabilizing test environments and using robust selectors.

Creating a Cypress project from scratch using TypeScript + Cucumber by Pablo Peña

If you’re looking to build a solid end-to-end test automation framework, this article walks you through setting up Cypress with TypeScript and Cucumber Follow the approach laid out in this article and get started with configuring the setup, implement the Page Object Model, and write real-world test scenarios to improve application quality.

Playwright Fixtures or POM: Which One Should You Choose? by Kailash Pathak

If you’re using Playwright for test automation, should you stick with the traditional Page Object Model (POM) or switch to Fixtures? Kailash Pathak breaks down the differences and shows how to combine both by injecting POM instances with Playwright Fixtures, you can get cleaner, reusable, and scalable test setups.

Optimizing End-to-End Testing with Playwright: A Practical Guide by Dmitry Sheiko

If you're looking to level up your End-to-End (E2E) testing, Dmitry Sheiko explores how Playwright makes it easier to test authentication, handle data tables, ensure responsive design, and even catch subtle CSS shifts with visual regression.

API Mocking With WireMock as a Standalone Service: A Step-by-Step Guide by Darmawan H

This guide by Darmawan H walks us through setting up WireMock. The article covers creating mock APIs, handling advanced scenarios like query parameters, delayed responses, and dynamic templates, as well as recording and replaying real API traffic.

🔍 Test Automation

💨 Performance

Client Side Performance with Playwright + Artillery by Thara Perera

Why would you choose Artillery? Thara Perera chose Artillery for its seamless integration with their existing Playwright scripts to identifying bottlenecks like slow rendering and large media files that impact user experience.

🔍 Performance Testing

🛠️ Resources & Tools

google-fonts-testing — A repo with test pages that can be used to do performance tests comparing Google Fonts' default embed code vs. more optimal approaches.

GitDiagram — An online tool to turn any GitHub repository into an interactive diagram for visualization, useful for quickly visualizing projects.

React Scan — A drop-in testing tool that automatically detects performance issues in your React app, to help eliminate slow renders.

📝 List of Software Testers

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Thanks to everyone for subscribing and reading!

Happy Testing!
Pritesh(@priteshusdadiya)

Software Testing Notes