With the increased use of Scrum and other Agile methodologies, there is a growing demand for Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) software development.
Such professionals are crucial to software development teams, emphasizing cross-functional and interchangeable responsibilities. However, you must have a clear idea about the job responsibilities and required skills to decide whether you should pursue this career path.
Continue reading this post to know the basics of this profession and the top courses you can opt for to become an SDET.
What Is SDET?
It is the acronym for “Software Development Engineer in Test.” An IT professional with this job role has responsibilities that include both software development and software testing.
Hence, people who want to join this profession must cultivate skills to adopt both roles. Usually, professionals skilled in Software Development, along with Quality Engineering, become SDETs in different organizations.
Besides writing test scripts and developing software and apps, they also work to fix bugs as a part of the process. Subsequently, these engineers assist in replacing redundant manual testing processes with automation.
Roles and Responsibilities
#1. The primary responsibilities of an SDET are to develop products and test them. Consequently, they must be involved in designing data, products, and user interfaces.
#2. They may need to develop robust and high-quality test automation solutions for various tests.
#3. Sometimes, they must be involved in every stage of development to check from the customers’ perspective.
#4. They sometimes need to partake in discussions on architectural design and provide effective feedback.
#5. They are also responsible for testing a product’s functional and non-functional characteristics, such as functionality and security.
The Importance of an SDET
SDETs are an essential part of software and mobile app development projects. They specialize in using and developing many tools, processes, techniques, and best practices.
Thus, IT companies prefer these tech experts over usual software testers for end-to-end test automation, software functionalities, security, and performance. Here are some more reasons why they are the backbone of this industry:
#1. They collaborate seamlessly with all the stakeholders of the development cycle like testers, developers, UI/UX designers, QA engineers, the customer service team, and so on.
#2. IT businesses can drastically reduce the market time of a newly developed app by recruiting them to the project team.
#3. Ensures the development team adheres to all the quality norms, client requirements, and compliances.
#4. Recruiting them will significantly reduce the overall software or app testing turnaround time.
#5. A Software Development Engineer in Test can think from the perspective of a developer, designer, tester, QA, and customer experience manager.
#6. An SDET can perform unit tests and source code reviews, enabling businesses to reduce expenditure on human resources.
Ideal Skillset for an SDET
To become successful in this profession, you should possess the following skills.
Technical Knowledge and Skills
Understanding Web Applications
To become an SDET, you must understand the internet, web browsers, and web applications. Also, you should know the software development lifecycle, domain name system (DNS), hosting, APIs, and server/client model. It will be an added advantage if you know how these elements are a part of the software architecture.
Programming Language
Mastering any trendy programming language will fulfill a core prerequisite to the SDET position, enabling you to develop websites or applications. Start with one programming language that you can use for Automation as well. Only after learning one language’s advanced features should you move to another one.
HTML and CSS
Both HTML and CSS are the rudimentary elements of web applications. Therefore, you need a basic understanding of HTML and CSS to become an SDET.
Automation Tools
As a proficient SDET, you need to use several automation tools. While knowing when to use which tool is essential, you must continuously learn automated testing tools such as Selenium and AWS Lambda.
Agile and DevOps Methodology
Software development teams use Agile and DevOps methodologies to ensure greater efficiency in less time. Those trying to become an SDET should understand these methodologies to adapt these approaches quickly.
SQL
As an SDET, you need to handle loads of data, so knowing SQL and other relational/non-relational databases is a must. It enables you to interact and understand the data and resolve issues related to data management.
Version Control System
Version Control Systems assist teams in managing the changes to source code. As SDETs need to write, review, modify and manage source code, the knowledge of the Source Control System is helpful for collaboration and productivity.
Non-Technical and Soft Skills
Adaptivity
SDETs should have an open mindset as they must learn about the changing technology, including new programming languages and automation tools.
Problem-Solving
Becoming an SDET means fixing bugs during testing and resolving problems raised by colleagues or stakeholders. Hence, they should be able to identify issues and fix them.
Communication Skills
Apart from conducting tests, SDETs must develop test strategies and bug reports that are easily understandable to everyone involved. Hence, they must be excellent in verbal and written communication.
Organization Skills
SDETs are required to manage the workload efficiently while being highly productive. So, you need organizational skills like time management to become a successful SDET.
Collaborative
SDETs must constantly be in touch with product owners, developers, manual testers, and business analysts. For this reason, they should be a team player.
Who Can Opt for an SDET Role?
The sphere of software and app testing is changing drastically with the entry of automated testing solutions. To avoid being obsolete, you must try to upgrade yourself and become a software development engineer with testing specialties.
The following software tester job roles can transition to SDET roles with proper learning and certifications:
Software Quality Assurance
Software QA engineers and manual QAs have similar technical competencies compared to SDETs. These are:
- Selenium open source project for browser and testing automation
- Jenkins server for developing, testing, facilitating integrations, and deploying
- The object-oriented programming language Java
- Black box testing
Thus, QAs can easily transition to an SDET role by learning advanced technical skills.
Software and App Developer
Software and mobile app developers bring programming expertise to the table. They only need to acquire practical technical skills in testing automation, customer expectations management, and communicating with the project team.
Automation Engineer
You can also opt for SDET roles as an automation engineer, provided you learn added skills like code review, algorithm testing, writing unit tests, etc. It will help you to take your career further or secure a better-salaried job at another tech company.
Now that you have gone through the basics of Software Development Engineer in Test, find below some popular resources to fulfill your dream of becoming an operational SDET:
SDET Training: Selenium WebDriver, Java Project & Code Tests: Udemy
One of the best resources to acquire the technical skills needed to become an SDET is this training course on Udemy. It is an elaborate QA Test Automation, Functional Software Testing, and SDET course that you must check out if you come from any of these domains.
First off, the course offers you 24 learning sections with 77 lectures. The entire course should take 16 hours to complete. Some of the notable tech skills that you will learn by completing the course diligently are:
- Agile testing and test environment
- Installing Eclipse IDE and Java Development Kit
- Selenium WebDriver
- TestNG
- Maven for build automation
- Real-world projects
Apart from the core technical skills, it also prepares you for the interview. It has a dedicated section where the instructor tells you what to do and not do during an SDET interview.
SDET Test Architect Essentials – Road to Full Stack QA: Udemy
Full Stack QA is a lucrative career option for software engineers, QA engineers, and development automation testers. To learn the core competencies of this role, you must check this SDET Test Architect Udemy course whenever looking for a related online course.
The course covers all the tech skills you need to learn to become a confident and booming Full Stack QA. Some of the notable competencies covered are:
- Building XML/JSON from database results
- Integrating Selenium Grid with Docker
- Jenkins automation server pipeline scripting for CI/CD
- Lambda expressions and Java streams
- Managing Git version control systems
- Jackson API
The course consists of 15 technical sections described by 74 lectures. Udemy suggested course completion time is 13 hours 8 minutes. Finally, you will get a certificate from Udemy after successful course completion.
SDET Automation Testing From Scratch – Complete Guide: Udemy
Want a quick promotion from test automation engineer to SDET or test architect? Want to learn QA automation engineering (AQA) from scratch? You must try out this Udemy course on automation testing now.
It is a certification-oriented course that you can complete at your own pace while working a day job. Also, you get lifetime access to the course materials on digital screens like computers, tablets, and mobile phones.
Some notable technical skills that the course covers are:
- Selenium in Java
- SOLID principles
- Git
- Clean Architecture Design
- Object-oriented programming
- Reflection API
To transform the candidates into a full-service SDET, the course comes with 62 sections of technical competencies and 260 on-demand video lectures. The entire course should take about 50 hours and 30 minutes to complete.
SDET Training & Certification: DevXSchool
Are you looking for a consolidated course that also offers job assistance for SDET professionals? Give DevXSchool a try. It offers its candidates highly experienced instructors who work in tech giants like Microsoft and Apple.
Its course curriculum has 3 phases. For example, two months of SDET foundation course focused on Java programming in Phase 1. Phase 2 (two months) consists of courses on SauceLabs, Selenium, Maven, Cucumber, and Reports.
Phase 3 also spans two months, and you will learn advanced ASQL DB, Jenkins, and API.
SDET Automation Course: Syntax
This Syntax course is yet another trending resource in the software testing spectrum. Professionals with tech-savvy minds but no coding skills can also sign up for this course to become software development engineers with testing specialties.
The course will train you extensively on popular software testing and development tools like Selenium and Java. At the end of the program, you should be confident enough to apply automation in software testing.
It is a six-month course that comes with online learning content delivery. Whether you are a fresh graduate or working in a software development company, you can conveniently undertake the course since it is fully self-paced.
SDET Second Edition Book
Mostly, all the software development companies carry out application development constantly. Hence, they need to maintain workflow and processes for easy management and quality assurance. When there is a process, you need a manager or troubleshooter.
This SDET prep book, available in paperback and Kindle editions, comes with all the self-assessment questions and answers that an SDET professional needs to test their competency to run, manage, and troubleshoot processes.
There are 702 real-world case-based self-assessment questions. The author has segregated the questions into 7 core sections to make the assessment process intuitive and effortless.
A Practitioner’s Guide to Software Test Design Illustrated Edition
This book helps you understand how to design a software or app testing process. Its content is up-to-date, comprehensive, and highly practical in real-world software testing projects. Furthermore, you shall find all the important and popular software test design techniques in one place.
When you go through the book diligently, you will develop enough wisdom in the spectrum of software testing. For instance, you can develop a novel testing workflow that will use less human resources and computer apps to test newly developed software faster than before.
How We Test Software at Microsoft Paperback
If you want to learn novel software testing process ideas from tech giants, this is a must-have book for you. The publisher of the book is Microsoft Press, and the content is available on Amazon in Paperback and Kindle versions.
The authors of the book are Alan Page and Ken Johnston. Both of them are working in Microsoft. While Alan is the Director of Test Excellence at Microsoft, Ken heads the Microsoft Office Internet Platform & Operations team as the Group Manager.
Conclusion
The role of an SDET is to be an allrounder in the software and app development industry. Being a software development engineer with a testing specialization, you possess the core domain knowledge. In addition, you also know software/app designing, coding, debugging, your customers, and testing the tools you build.
Thus, you become essential to a software or mobile app development project. Utilize the basics of becoming an SDET and the online learning courses to secure a better job in the software industry.
