Building a Career in QA with Judy Mosley

In a land of testers far and widely Journey seeking answers, seeking skills, seeking a better way O the Test Illumination Testing Podcast Guiding testers with our nation awesomeness from ancient realms to modern days they lead the way. Oh, the testicle of nature Testing Podcast.

Hey. Today we're talking with Judy Mosley, all about your journey or her journey into software testing. Really excited about this topic. If you don't know, Judy is a QA engineer at Tex Us. As a QA in the tech industry for over nine years, she puts herself in a position of learning and growth. As you could tell, she has a lot of blogging. She's always in all the different communities doing all the things. She's also a writer for Failure is Feedback, which we'll have a link for down below. It's a weekly newsletter dedicated to testing and living from a quality perspective. You definitely should check a lot. Look, once again, like I said, you can definitely register for it down below. She's also an active member of the Test Guild community. I've been trying to get her on the show. So, so glad she decided to join us. So you don't want to miss this episode. Check it out. Hey Judy, welcome to the Guild.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.

Me too. So like I said, you've been an active member of the guild. I'm always excited to see a new post and what you've been working on. I guess the first thing is maybe take us back. How did you get into testing? A lot of people, especially me, fall into testing at random, random reasons. Just curious to know what your journey was.

Yeah. So for me personally, I. I was a stay at home mom for 10 years and I joined the development boot camp here in Louisville and I took two. I took front end web development and then PHP and my first job was as a qa and it was kind of painted to me as QA is not the career that you want to stay in. It's a stepping stone, but it's definitely not the glamorous life of a developer that everyone surely wants to enter into. But as I stepped into the career, I found out that I was really good at breaking things and also frustrating developers. So one thing that I also focus a lot on is communication. And because as a QA, when you're constantly pointing things out to people that they may not be excited to find, it can be a very tricky balance to do that well. So that's a lot of. I love breaking things, but I also want to keep friends in the business. So balancing the two is important to me 100%.

You know, a lot of people ask me about boot camps. Was it worth it? Should they do it? What your real experience. Do you think people should join a bootcamp or what were your experience with. With this particular bootcamp?

My experience was so helpful. It was the first time in my life that I experienced real mentorship. We entering into the bootcamp, we had came up with the idea for a project, and at the end, we had a portfolio. They taught us how to interview. They taught us how to write a resume. And so there was a lot of. We were also forced to network, which, as an introvert like myself, was an absolute nightmare. But I learned so much, and I would recommend a bootcamp just for the fact of, like, seeing if it's for you, because a lot of times, especially someone like my background who didn't have any formal training, you just don't know if it's going to be the right fit for you. And so even just taking a dive into it, spending a few weeks learning if the frustration is worth it, because the frustration is definitely a part of it. But the real gains for me personally were completely worthwhile.

Nice. So you mentioned they did say maybe QA may be more of a stepping stone. How much of QA did they teach you or testing? Was it just like. Like a small part of it, and then you're like, oh, no, I got the job. Now what?

Okay, so I'm not sure I've told anyone this, but I think our total QA training in the boot camps was. I remember one person saying, try to break what you've built. And I thought, that's terrible. Like, why would I want to do that?

So that the only instruction that I got within the bootcamp itself, but as a career, thankfully, my first job, it was very manual focused. There was only one automated test engineer where I was. And, you know, we all just kind of looked at this person in awe. But because the position was so manually driven, I learned how to break things in a lot of different ways. And in that open space, it was actually very instructional for me.

Love it. So, as I mentioned, I watch different people in the community and what they do, and I'm not a stalker or anything, but it seems like you're very active. You're always learning. So how do you put yourself maybe into a position of growth when you mentioned you're an introvert? Very much an introvert. Even people don't believe it, but I am. So how do you put that aside and then still Continue to grow and put yourself out there.

The biggest reason that I started to write and to connect with the community is because as I was changing jobs within qa, you know, when you're in one role for one for a specific amount of time, you learn the ropes, but you don't expand. And typically, it's when you take another role that asks for different career requirements, then you realize, oh, I need to learn this thing. So I have made quite a few job changes in my life for various reasons. And because of that, it's put me in this place where I would need to learn a new skill. Or just like Cypress is a great example, a lot of the documentation is out there, the community is out there, but then there are specific problems that I would run into that weren't on the Internet. And so when I started to write, it was basically for myself. Like, I am going to run into this problem again, and I don't want to forget it if I ever leave this job. So a lot of the reason for me to write and to connect with the people that I do is because the resources and frankly, the friendships are becoming so valuable, and I can't grow without those pieces.

Absolutely. And I'm just curious to know, since you've been writing, do you find yourself getting more opportunities that you wouldn't have had if you weren't writing or writing these blog posts and interacting with the community?

Yes. So I have been a writer for as long as I can remember. I have my journal from when I was 11 years old.

Wow. Very cool.

It's not interesting.

But so writing itself, it's just been a part of me. But I think the first thing that I had to get over was the crickets. Because when you first start writing, like, writing for an audience does not work for me. My audience is myself. And my audience may be the one other person that runs into this weird issue that I find. So as I've written, I have been really amazed by the ways that my writing has been picked up by the Ministry of Testing by you. Cyprus recently included it in one of their newsletters. And there is a part of me that's like, you know, that I don't know what I'm doing.

Like, just that feeling of, I'm so grateful and I'm so thankful, but it's still. Yeah, it does blow my mind a lot.

How do you fight through that imposter syndrome? Once again? I think a lot of us, like myself, is an itch for. I also have imposter syndrome. How do you fight through it though, like, oh, I shouldn't release this. Maybe I shouldn't publish this. Do you ever get any hesitancy, like, I don't know enough about this tool or this code to do this?

One of my biggest fears is that someone will read what I write and be like, no.

But, like, that's the thing is I'm still waiting for it, right?

Yep.

And that's the biggest thing for me is being willing to say, okay, yeah, I'm writing and I'm not sure how this is going to be received, but the only way to know is to do it. And I personally do not fight against imposter syndrome. I like what Elizabeth Gilbert said in Big Magic, where she's basically. She said that fear is always with her. Like, it never goes away. And so she basically tells her fear that, okay, you can stick around, you can hang with me. You know, here's some snacks, here's a blanket, here's whatever you need. But I'm gonna drive. And I think that idea has been the most helpful for me, where it's like, if I get. If I let fear drive, I'm not going to get anywhere. But if there is, if there's something that I at least want to experiment with, I will regret not experimenting with it. And I'd rather do the thing and be proven stupid than not do the thing and not know it all.

Love it. And I guess I see this a lot as well as people are waiting for training rather than taking the initiative to try something because maybe they're scared. Do you see, like, if someone's on the job and they have a tool like, oh, the developers are using Cypress. I'm not a developer, I'm not going to try it. But knowing that, all right, maybe you're not an expert, maybe you don't know anything about it, but what's the harm in you trying it and trying to get up to speed and checking it out for yourself?

Yeah, I think the biggest. Well, like, you mentioned the idea that, like, you have to be a specific type of person to even try and maybe let's just remove that label off. You're a person and you're curious. Let's go with that. That's enough of a qualifier. I think the other thing for me was I remember I went to a local meetup in town and it was on automation, and so many people attended. I was there, and this guy talked about how he, you know, built this automation framework and. And. But he didn't give a lot of beginner tips. And I asked like, where do you start? Like, how do you start? And he said, oh, well, you know, you just play with it. And I'm like, that is not helpful.

Because it's just like those. I think when you're a beginner, you need those tiny, tiny steps where it's just like, okay, let's just make a GitHub. Like, that was my article this week, make a GitHub repository. And that's it. That's be the big win for the week. And then I think the other thing is, like, I was thinking about this specifically and I think what made the difference for me was when I got hired on this was for another position, I was bound and determined to learn automation. And I basically told the people interviewing me that I was going to learn automation and they can either have me on the team or I would learn it without them. And so what they did was when I got hired on, they gave me a project. They said, pick a framework. Explain it to us why you picked this framework, why you think it would be best for our organization. And I think something like that, like, if you're a beginner, there's so many testing sites out there that you could just pick a testing site, look at it, observe it, kind of poke around with it and think, okay, what testing framework do I want to try to play with? You know, is it playwright? Is it Cypress? Is Am I interested in Selenium? And I think if you kind of start thinking as a person who wants to build a project, that may be more helpful than, you know, oh, well, just play with it. You know, love it, love it.

So how do you know the what to do though? Like, if you, if someone says to play with, like, do you have like a framework you use? Like, okay, here are the steps I use to, to learn something or I found helpful to kind of guide people along the way.

So I think another thing that's helpful is thinking like a user. I'm seeing a lot of posts about is test case management dead? I love test case management. Like, and for anyone that's curious, if you just want to build test cases, because that's a lot of times where we start. Like, that's our frame of reference. I'm looking at a functionality. What does it need to do? I need to click the button. Should the button change color? Should the button. You know, there's like, there's like so many aspects about specific functionality that we can think about if we focus on it. So if we use test cases to break those down, you can, me personally, it helps Kind of. It helps put together my thoughts on how I'm going to test it and even how to automate it. So I know that with case. Well, one test. Case management typically is expensive, but case, you can make project for free. Like you can create an account and if you want to start building out the idea of learning how to automate, write some test cases in a real test case management system and then play with that. So if the test cases log in, start with Cypress. You know, you need to fill out the forms, you need to click the button. The result should be a specific kind of thing. Manual testing, in my opinion, is so valuable when it comes to automation because the two are very linked in my mind.

Absolutely. When do you get the time to do all this? Obviously, you're a mother, I assume, like people like, she's probably single, you know, she doesn't have any kids. But you're a mother, you have kids. So like, how does this work? But you get time to even do this.

Yeah. Well, I will say I am very privileged in that my kids are teenagers, so they don't need me 24 7. I listen. We all have different seasons in our life. And so if you need to, you know, take an hour on a Saturday or, you know, whatever it is that fits your life, I don't want people to come away thinking that they have to do all this in order to be successful because the season that you're in is going to define what you do. For me personally, I have teenagers. Both of them are working now. So I have a specific night of the week that I write and it's on the calendar. The entire family can see it and they know, like, okay, it's Tuesday night, Mom's writing, like, we can't bother. So there is an aspect of kind of being very clear about what you want to do and how you're going to do it and even setting a calendar event for yourself that, you know, if one of my friends are like, hey, do you want to get, you know, get together on Tuesday? I'm like, nope, unfortunately I can't. What's a better night? So taking yourself and your opportunities as seriously as the rest of life.

Love it. Do you also find it as a good hack that when you're on the job, say you need to automate something, you're using a tool. Couldn't you learn it on the job because you're applying it to your job? I'm not saying you're using the time to accompany's time to do something. You're not supposed to be doing, but you're incorporating your learning with the things you're supposed to be doing. Like maybe they said you're going to manually test this and you're like, okay, I can, but I can also automate it. So why don't I try to automate it? Well, the company tell me to. I don't know if that makes sense, but is that kind of a career hack that might be able to help someone?

Absolutely. I will say in my, the company that I work at now, they encourage learning. So I can take an hour once a week and just if there's anything that I'm interested in in regards to technology, I can check it out. Like, it doesn't have to be project focused. I will say a lot of the ideas for my articles that I write I get from my job because I'm working on a specific automation problem and I'm not finding what I need. And I just write myself a post it and I'm like, okay, I'm going to blog about this after, after work, because it's killing me.

Yeah, you know, I, I saw my podcast when I was working full time as an automation engineer and I would. Things I was struggling with, I'd get a guest to talk about on my podcast and it was like free consulting. So the company, I was like, you know, it may look like I'm not doing my job, but actually talking to this person actually helped me solve this problem that we have without you paying a dime. So what, you phrase it, right? The way you pitch it to your company helps as well.

Exactly.

So you've had a lot of jobs over your years. Like, what's the secret to getting a new gig or not being like myself? When I get a job, I try to hunker down and not have to look again. But how do you get the courage to then say, all right, maybe I'm not growing the way I want to grow. I want to learn this other thing. How do you, how do you do that?

Yeah. For me personally, and I am afraid this is gonna sound a little woo woo, but I'm gonna go for it. I trust my gut a lot. I am huge on culture. I need to be able to speak up if there's an issue. If the culture starts tanking in any way, I will voice that to my superiors. I have no problem with identifying when things aren't going well in a company. But once I start feeling like it's time to leave, I hate it. Like, I'm like, no. Like, job searching is the worst. But I do know that with every move I've made, I have only benefited. And so I very much pay attention to the culture around me. Can I be myself? Can I speak up about the issues that I'm seeing, be it, you know, within the culture, or if. Just. I don't know if. Just if something is not going well and if I see the culture start to shift, I do communicate that, and I'm just going to bolt immediately. But if I see that change is impossible, my growth and my health, frankly, is more important than any job I have. So I would rather risk it with someone else than stay in a place where I know I'm not going to thrive.

So, I don't know. Anytime I have a job, I'm always afraid I'm gonna get laid off. Do you find because you're putting yourself out there that maybe that fear doesn't go away, but maybe it minimizes it? Cause I was like, at least because I'm putting myself out there. If I did get laid off, I guess I almost create some goodwill or little breadcrumbs that can lead people back to me for opportunities.

That is to be seen.

I do consider my writing kind of like a living resume. I, again, like, I write to express who I am, so I don't have any specific goals that I'm after other than to make the path a little more clear for someone else that's following me. So if someone is reading whatever I'm writing and they resonate with that and it does lead to an opportunity, that would be amazing, though. I think there is a moment where, for me personally, I have seen a lot of amazing people in QA get laid off. I mean, people that I would consider superstars. So I do want to keep a touch of humility. I guess that, like, just because I'm putting out myself out there and writing and offering what I can, it doesn't mean that I won't get laid off for whatever reason. But that also doesn't mean that I'm doing a terrible job either. Because if these people that I admire are struggling, too, then it's. It speaks more of the place that we're in than who we are as people.

100%. I actually was laid off six years ago, and I haven't got a job since. This is, you know. So I agree with you there, 100%. So I'm curious, you know, layoffs. I think Microsoft just did a huge layoff. And as you know, AI is everywhere. And I think AI, they're going AI first or something. What you got telling you about AI. Should testers be worried? Is this just something else that's part of the being, you know, part of the tech industry?

So I have so many mixed feelings about AI. I was reading an article this morning about how AI is, you know, ChatGPT and other chatbots, they basically make what sounds good enough. And so I think it goes back to finding those organizations that share the same values that you do. I think about where I work now and I don't think they would just, hopefully they wouldn't ditch me for some AI testing, but they are very thoughtful and they want good quality software. And so I think it very much depends on what the company itself believes about AI. And I think just speaking up and having those conversations and what is, like, what defines value? Like, what as a person am I creating? Is it valuable? And what does it mean to the company at large? And I mean, like, if you want to start a career as a gardener or a farmer, like, and that's what your gut is telling you, like, go for it. I don't think you'll miss much, but definitely be aware of the videos that you see on social media because they're probably touched up these days.

Sure. So I like what you said about value, though. So do you think it's a tester's responsibility to not just say AI, but maybe inform themselves what AI can and can't do and then maybe tell your management, hey, to show them, hey, you are taking initiative, you are trying to help, you are trying to cooperate AI, but you're doing it in a way that like, hey, this works and this doesn't. And so they see you even more maybe as an AI testing leader now, so maybe you can help your other teams with it. I don't know. Just thinking out loud here.

Yeah, I think I'll just use an example. I like to write. I never use writing prompts from ChatGPT. I just, I love writing and I love that process of getting started, even when I have no idea what to say. But in contrast, I sell some items online just for fun and they have included AI in the fact that it will analyze whatever you're selling and then come up with a title and description. I love that because I don't care. I mean, I want to be able to sell what I'm selling online, but at the same time, I don't want to think about it that hard. And so it's like going back to the points of value where it's like, okay, how can we use AI to make our Customers more at ease with our product because there's probably things that they don't want to think about either. And I think if we could guide AI to do those things that just, you know, make you go, ugh, you know, I think that's more helpful.

I'm actually a terrible writer. I can write, but, like, I have to give it to my wife to be edited and she give me a side eye, like, how did I meet this, marry this idiot? So I've been using ChatGPT just to say, before I give this to my wife, don't change any of the content, just check the grammar, the spelling, anything like that. And then it does it and then I give it to her and I get a little more, a little more love that way. So I guess use it for the right reason, not to, to do everything for you, but just maybe to assist you. Maybe, I guess, is what I'm getting at.

Exactly. Like, and I know the, you know, recently one of the developers was writing a Cypress test and they just used AI to start off with it. And, you know, I think a lot of times maybe that's where you need. You just, you're too afraid to start yourself. I know with automation it can be so, you know, even just starting just feels so hard. But it's like, okay, yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with like seeing how someone else does it, whether it's a person or chatgpt. But then, like, don't accept it. I think that's the thing where it's like, I don't know, I like learning tangibly. And so if I can do it first, that's how I understand it. But if I just give it away or if I just watch someone do it, I feel like I don't really take it in and I can't replicate it. And I think understanding, you know, I could create automated tests with AI, but do I actually know what it's doing and why it's doing? And is there a better way? Like, can I identify a better way to automate a test even if you know whatever response I've been given?

Absolutely, yeah. It could give you false confidence, like, this is the right way, but you with knowledge can look at it go. I don't think so. With this one, you may have been right with the second one, but the first one, let's get rid of error, modify it. So like you said, don't take it at face value. I think it's good advice for sure.

Exactly.

Okay, Judy, before we go, is there one piece of actual advice you can give to someone to help them with their automation testing or testing efforts in general. And what's the best way to find or contact you?

Yes. So if I was to give advice, take yourself seriously, but not so seriously like this is just a skill, like anything else. Read the documentation. Well, whatever framework you choose, read the documentation. Join whatever community you can. I know both with Cypress and Playwright they have discord communities. So even though I don't use Playwright at this moment, I am a part of the community because I do understand that at some point I may need to pick it up and I want to have those connections in place. And yeah, just take it one step at a time. Try to find the people that are doing what you want to do because as you watch them, you'll learn as well. And to find me I am on LinkedIn. I think it's just slash. Judy Moseley I haven't looked at it in a while but but probably the best place to find me is LinkedIn and then if I have other links I can add them there.

Absolutely. And once again we'll have all the links to follow. Judy down below. Thanks again for your automation awesomeness. The links everything of value we covered in this episode head on over to test guild.com a546 and if the show has helped you in any way, why not rate it and review it in itunes? Reviews really help in the rankings of the show and I read each and every one of them. So that's it for this episode of the Test Guild Automation podcast. Joe My mission is to help you succeed with creating end to end full stack automation awesomeness. As always, test everything and keep the good Cheers. Hey, thank you for tuning in. It's incredible to connect with close to 400,000 followers across all our platforms and over 40,000 email subscribers who are at the forefront of automation testing and DevOps. If you haven't yet, join our vibrant community@testguild.com where you become part of our elite circle driving innovation, software testing and automation. And if you're a tool provider or have a service looking to empower our guild with solutions that elevate skills and tackle real world challenges, we're excited to collaborate. Visit test guild.info to explore how we can create transformative experiences together, let's push the boundaries of what we can achieve.

With hoots and lyres, the bards began their song A tune of knowledge, a melody of code through the air it spread like wildfire through the land Guiding tester showing the secrets to behold.