Issue #172 : Software Testing Notes
Tips to Become a Successful QA Engineer
Hello there! 👋
Welcome to the 172nd 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:
The Sad State of Testing Interviews
Why Do Bugs Slip Past Your Tests
Testing Cached Data of Mobile apps with Playwright
Measuring the Effectiveness of Test Suites
Security Testing with ZAP+Playwright
and more…
🙏 Featured
Still Waiting on That One API to Test? Mock It in Seconds with Requestly
Stuck because an API isn’t ready or keeps breaking? Requestly—now backed by BrowserStack—lets you mock and modify HTTP requests right in your browser.
No proxy setup. No SSL hassle. Just faster testing, fewer blockers, and more control. Built for QAs who hate waiting.
📚 Testing
Tips to Become a Successful QA Engineer (From Someone Who’s Been There) by Charukshi Wijesinghe
Drawing from her own experience Charukshi Wijesinghe shares few tips for QA engineers, especially those early in their careers about how Quality is about mindset than processes and tools or just finding bugs, and shares actionable tips you can start using now.
The Sad State of Testing Interviews: Why We’re Failing Before the First Bug by Brijesh DEB
This post hits hard on a problem we’ve all seen but too often ignore: hiring testers based solely on tool checklists instead of thoughtful, risk-focused problem solving. Brijesh DEB dismantles the myth of the "full-stack tester" and argues for interviews that assess critical thinking, domain understanding, and decision-making over memorization.
Why do so few people really understand software testing strategy? by Cri (Críona) Quentin
How does your organisation/team handle test strategy? Cri (Críona) Quentin walks through a real-world initiative at a major UK bank where they helped implement a lightweight, scalable decision framework to guide projects in defining test phases early.
Labeling a root cause is predicting the future, poorly by Lorin Hochstein
Focusing too narrowly on a single cause limits our ability to learn from the full complexity of what went wrong.
This thoughtful piece by Lorin Hochstein challenges the conventional wisdom of “root cause” analysis in post-incident reviews, arguing that incident retrospectives are not about assigning blame but preparing for an unpredictable future.
Why Do Bugs Slip Past Your Tests? by Anna Jones
This article breaks down ten core causes behind escaped bugs during testing cycles such as fuzzy/uncleared requirements, rushed sprints, fragile automation suites and mismatched environments.
🔍 Software Testing
⚙️ Automation
What I Learned About Annotations in Playwright by Yogita Lad
In this post, Lorin Hochstein shares how Playwright’s built‑in annotations can give you more control over which tests run, which to ignore, and how to flag or adjust tests without hacking the test logic itself.
UI Test Automation Beginner’s Guide: Selenium Grid Server — Hub & Node by Daniel Antoniuk
This article dives into how to run UI tests in parallel using Selenium Grid. Daniel Antoniuk gives a detailed walk through of the architecture (Hub and Nodes), setup steps, and practical Java code examples for remote execution.
And If you're looking to level up your automated testing strategy, Daniel has also written Introduction to Java for Testers, Selenium IDE & XPath Without Coding and Selenium WebDriver in Java, Assertions & Selense
Testing Compose Desktop apps: preparations by Thomas Künneth
Ever wondered how Desktops apps are tested on varios OS platforms? Thomas Künneth shares a walk through of how to build and package your app for each OS and processor architecture and why you must test natively on each supported platform/architecture.
Offline but Not Broken: Testing Cached Data with Playwright by Irfan Mujagić
Testing mobile apps that work offline? In this article, Irfan Mujagić shares a step‑by‑step Playwright test that automates two scenarios. (a) Saves the cache by visiting online, goes offline, and confirms cached data still renders, and (b) Simulates a first‑visit network failure to assert the app shows an appropriate fallback message. Give it a try even if you are not doing mobile automation. I think this practical experience will be worth it.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Test Suites: Beyond Code Coverage Metrics by Ben Force
Who here hasn’t gotten in trouble with test suite that make you uneasy? Ben Force outlines how and why you should track the effectiveness of your test suite using real, measurable metrics such as code coverage and mutation scores to flaky test detection and defect isolation.
Testing a Gradle Plugin that interacts with Git by Marco Gomiero
This article by Marco Gomiero shows how to automate end‑to‑end testing of a Kotlin MPP Gradle plugin with Git by using Gradle TestKit.
🔍 Test Automation
🌞 Accessibility
Intro to accessibility testing by Carme Mias
Getting started with accessibility testing? This article by Carme Mias shares a practical guide and tooling, starting with browser extensions, then keyboard checks, and finally screen reader testing to help us catch common accessibility issues early.
🔍 Accessibility Testing
🔒 Security
Security Testing with ZAP+Playwright by Suman Vishwakarma
In this article, Suman Vishwakarma lays out a detailed, practical workflow for combining OWASP ZAP with Playwright to automate security testing during UI test runs. The article walks through everything from setup and test execution to CI/CD integration and reporting.
Compromising the Code: Inside CI/CD Pipeline Attacks by Urshila Ravindran
When we think about security testing, people generally consider only app layer but that’s not the truth. Almost all components involved should be security tested and CI/CD pipelines are no exception. Urshila Ravindran offers a clear-eyed breakdown of how pipelines can be exploited. It’s a must-read for anyone responsible for build infrastructure, highlighting practical defenses and real-world attack scenarios.
🔍 Security Testing
🙏 Featured
Requestly — An open source HTTP Interception and Mocking Tool
Requestly by BrowserStack lets you mock and modify HTTP requests right in your browser. It also has a Chrome Extension that can Redirect URLs, Modify Headers, Override API Responses, etc. Get started for free!
🛠️ Resources & Tools
talk2dom — Locate web elements using natural language. Powered by LLM. Works with Selenium.
VirtualBuddy — A VM to virtualize macOS 12 and later on Apple Silicon, with the goal of offering features that are useful to developers who need to test their apps on multiple versions of macOS.
RedCoffee — is a CLI Tool, developed and built using Python, that helps developers generate insightful PDF Reports for code analysis done using SonarQube Community Edition.
📝 List of Software Testers
Do you create content around Software Testing ? Submit yours blog details here and I will add it to the list.
🎁 Bonus Content
📌 OTHER INTERESTING STUFF
⭐ LAST WEEK'S MOST READ
QA Test Strategy Framework: How I Built a Real-World Manual Testing Portfolio with ISTQB Templates by Rennan R.
Being a Solo QA with Daily Deployments: How to Survive and Still Build a Quality Process by Jyan Swan
The Ultimate Guide to OWASP Top Ten Security Risks by Deepak Katara
😂 And Finally,
How IT people see each other 🤣
📨 Send Me Your Articles, Tutorials, Tools!
Wrote something? Send links via Direct Message on Twitter @thetestingkit (details here). If you have any suggestions for improvement or corrections, feel free to reply to this email.
Thanks to everyone for subscribing and reading!
Happy Testing!
Pritesh(@priteshusdadiya)
Hi https://softwaretestingnotes.com/submitalink this link you provided not working it seems