Thoughts After my ‘Popular’ LinkedIn Post About Fake Automated Testing

Reflections on why it is well received.

Two days ago, I reposted an amusing image (from a tweet) on my LinkedIn, accompanied by my immediate reflections upon encountering it:

“Saw this image on Twitter. We all heard “good programmers write automated tests”. But, for many programmers, how? Test Automation, especially E2E (via UI), and Continuous Testing, are not taught at Unis. So, people lie or fake test automation.

Check out this article, “A Tale of a Deceptive End-to-End Test Automation Engineer”, which contains a story told by renowned Agile expert, Michael Feathers. This image is just a summary of that story.

Moreover, fewer and fewer software companies engage test automation coaches to provide test automation training to their employees, Sigh!
Check out this free article, A Story: “Promised E2E Test Automation Training” Never Came.

https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/1732152524084269385

Surprisingly, there were 80K+ impressions and 300+ positive reactions (i.e. Likes) within just two days.

Still growing quite rapidly.

I limited commenting within my existing connections. Otherwise, this post would receive a significantly higher number of reactions..

These figures may not impress tech influencers, but they astonished me, considering my limited activity on social media (if counting LinkedIn). My ad-hoc posts on LinkedIn are usually of two types:

1. My article has been featured in some publications or newsletters

2. Amusing images related to the software industry

A typical reaction count is ~20. This makes me ponder.

Table of Contents:
· My Thoughts On This
∘ 1. It is common for software engineers to pretend or exaggerate their proficiency in automated testing.
∘ 2. Software professionals wished “End-to-End Test Automation” and “Continuous Testing” to be taught at universities
∘ 3. They want the company to provide training on E2E Test Automation and Continuous Testing.
∘ 4. Few took action to read my articles

My Thoughts On This

While the image itself isn’t novel, what resonated with the audience were the words within the image and my reflections on them.

1. It is common for software engineers to pretend or exaggerate their proficiency in automated testing.