Sheressa Hill

Test Automation Engineer

As a Test Automation Engineer (Test Engineer) my job is to: design, build, test, and deploy effective test automation solutions. To fulfill the role I apply appropriate automation technologies to meet the short and long term goals of the testing organization. My objective is to automate as much of the testing effort as possible with a minimum set of code / scripts. The focus is to be on test effort not testing coverage

Test Automation Engineers must have a clear understanding of the Testing Mandate and how automation can be applied to help meet this mandate. The temptation of any automation engineer is to automate everything; the challenge is to determine what should be automated and in what sequence to get the maximum return on the automation investment.

The Test Engineer must have a good working relationship with the Test Lead but more importantly the Test Engineer must keep the Test Lead aware of any challenges or costs that could impact the delivery of test automation. The relationship between the Test Lead and Automation Engineer parallels the relationship between a Development Lead and Developer. The automation engineer must size, implement, and test a Testware solution while the Lead ensures the goals of automation are met.

The Test Automation Engineer must understand precisely what the Test Designer wants any given test case or group of test cases to accomplish. If you think of test cases as requirements, then the Test Designer defines the requirements for the automation effort; the Test Automation Engineer implements these requirements. In many ways the Test Automation Engineer works under the direction of the Test Designer in terms of what automation needs to be built but it is the role of the Engineer to determine how it should be built.