A Story of ~Unit, a Failed Developer-Created E2E Automation Framework I Witnessed

One downside of end-to-end test automation is that if it starts on the wrong path, it can be very difficult to get back on the right track due to human factors.

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This article is one of the Stories series.

In 2019, I worked as a test automation engineer (contractor) at a finance company. Before I joined, I heard one test automation lead talking in a meetup about how well the test automation was implemented in this company.

However, after started working at the company, I could not see a sign of test automation. Over half of my team members were manual testers, with a similar ratio in adjacent teams. A few days later, I heard there was a separate test automation team in the company (on a different floor), and I talked to one senior there. They were using Micro Focus UFT (record-n-playback) and never did anything with our division. But they helped me get a UFT license (quite expensive); I tried it, but it was still bad, as a few years ago.

The application under test (AUT) is not a real web app. Rather, it is a Windows app that runs in IE (a bit like the old TestDirector). Anyway, I managed to develop a test automation solution from scratch within the first week. (By the way, no expectation for new staff for the first week, as there was a list of training to be completed). I demonstrated this to my manager, and he was pleased. He arranged a meeting with a few senior engineers and an agile coach.

I started the presentation with, “This is my 11th day here. I will show an automated end-to-end test using a new approach.” Long story short, they were deeply impressed.

The manager was excited and told the manual testers to find time to learn test automation from me. In the first week, no one acted. One day, a manual tester approached me to automate a few scenarios for her. I asked her to sit next to me while I was doing it. She was surprised at how easy it was. I encouraged her to do it hands-on, under my coaching. Within the same afternoon, she completed six test scenarios. The news spread the next day quickly; shortly, all manual testers in my team started scripting automated tests.