What should a beginner Automation QA Engineer learn

Ilya Lyubimov, Automation QA Engineer at EPAM, included links in this article to many of the most common sources for learning programming languages. The information below is exactly what every QA Automation engineer needs to know, and more.

English

— To work in the IT field, knowing English is a must. You need it to communicate with colleagues, use frameworks, and read documentation.

To test your level, you can take an English test.

Level B1-B2 will be enough. To improve your level, you can go to an excellent site that offers courses to assist with grammar, reading, and correct pronunciation; and it's free. If you want to practice in a playful way, DuoLingo is here to help.

Books

• Testing dot com, by Roman Savin — This book is a must-read for novice testers. It easily guides you through the topic, compares Russian and English-speaking concepts, explains terminology, and offers many useful examples.
• Are you smart enough to be a tester?? by Mukesh Sharma — This book is an introduction to a career as a software test engineer.
• Learn Testing in 1 Day: Definitive Guide to Learn Software Testing for Beginners, by Krishna Rungta — This book is designed for beginners with little or no prior software testing experience.
• Head First Java, by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates — The book will help you get started learning Java.
• The Way of the Web Tester: A Beginner's Guide to Automating Tests, by Jonathan Rasmusson — A book for anyone who needs to test web applications. It will help you better understand developers and decide how to organize and write a framework. It will also deepen your knowledge of integration, unit testing, and testing interfaces.
• Core Java, Volumes I and II, by Cay S. Horstmann and Gary Cornell — This book is intended for experienced programmers who want to write useful Java applications.
• Software Testing: A Beginner's Guide Learn Software Testing In 1 Day: Software Testing For Beginners Guide, by Rob Muraoka — This is another very good book for people with no software testing experience. It covers all the main types of testing, talks about Agile testing, and explores the features of application testing in different subject areas.

If you have not yet decided what to read in the near future, then here you can find another list of the best Java books for beginners.

Sites

Google and StackOverflow

Yes, it is obvious, but at the very beginning, you will frequently look for answers on Google and StackOverflow. To do so, it is important to be able to formulate questions correctly and concisely, and to deconstruct your problem into elementary tasks, for which you will be able to find answers quickly. This is a very important skill. It will increase your productivity, and then help you correctly formulate tasks and sub-tasks for yourself and your colleagues.

.NET documentation

This is a website where you can learn how to use .NET to create applications on any platform using C#, F#, and Visual Basic. Browse API references, sample code, tutorials, and more.

C# documentation

Using this resource, you can learn how to write any application using the C# programming language on the .NET platform.

Baeldung.com

The site helps developers get to know the Java ecosystem better. There are many useful courses here, especially on the Spring Framework. Practical issues are clearly described.

The Java™ Tutorials

The Java Tutorials are practical guides for programmers who want to use the Java programming language to create applications. They include hundreds of complete, working examples, and dozens of lessons.

Documentation

— There are a variety of frameworks and libraries that QA automation engineers use in their work. It is important to identify the main technologies that you will be using and know where to go in case you have questions. For each specialist, the stack of technologies will be different. Once you identify yours, documentation for each technology must be searched on the Internet site of developers.

In addition to focusing on the technologies, increase your knowledge of English. How? Change the settings on your equipment to English, read the news in English, watch TV series and movies in the original with subtitles. This will help you increase your vocabulary, memorize slang phrases, and learn frequently used constructions for various life situations by ear.

Regardless of the number of materials you read and perhaps even learn, practice is necessary. So, test, test, and test again!

My thanks for the topic suggestion to training.epam.com.

Find suitable courses from partners, and determine your level of English on our Learn page.