Sturgeon’s Law. Part 2: How to Beat it?

Help to explain that “real test automation engineers are rare”.

A repost of my past article published on Medium in 2023

This article is one of the “Laws in Software Development” series. In Part 1, I discussed the definition of Sturgeon’s Law and its applicability in E2E Test Automation and Continuous Testing. I will explore a bit more in this aritcle.

Table of Contents:
· My Articles Reading Stats fit the Sturgeon’s Law
· Another Example with LinkedIn
· The “Not Caring E2E Test Automation” Culture May Change
· How Can Someone Beat Sturgeon’s Law by Becoming a Real Test Automation Engineer?

My Articles Reading Stats fit the Sturgeon’s Law

You must be quite familiar with Medium. Below are my audience stats for 2024–07-25.

Out of 5,461 followers, only about 3.4% have chosen to subscribe via email. This percentage is notably below 10%, which might be due to an unusual spike (I suspect zombie accounts) in followers in June 2024, when 1,827 new followers joined in just one month.

A typical read count for a new article is about 10% of email subscribers.

Read count of one recent article. Typcialling, about 15–25 reads within 24 hours.

Many of my articles are practical and actionable hands-on. I don’t have the stats for that. From feedback, my guess is another 10%.

A quick recap. Among a large pool of Software/Test Engineers:

• 10% show interest to improve by reading books or articles on Medium

• out of the above, ~10% bother to follow a technical blogger

• out of the above, ~10% are willing to subscribe by email

• out of the above, ~10% are willing to put into action

• out of the above, ~10% are persistent and achieve good come.

I know that the numbers are not accurate and there are variations, but we might still uncover some insightful findings.