As technology is almost ruling over every sector, automation is considered to be the icing on the cake. Nowadays businesses hardly grow and expand without automation. Automation has revolutionized the way organizations operate their businesses. In the past ten years, technological progress has been continuing to grow and lead us into a new era of automation. The footprint of automation in different industries is very obvious and visible, including the software industry itself. The future scope of software testing depends on the fusion of human and machine capabilities. The implementation of automated software testing through local manual testing allows testers to easily copy the process, thereby achieving more efficient and accurate testing.

It is important for organizations to ensure the security and safety of their software products, but this involves a testing process. Either choosing a manual testing method or utilizing automation testing services from famous vendors, quality is the top-notch concern for any small-medium or large enterprise. Automation is no doubt a problem solver but it may have some diverse effects on the testers. But before having an understanding about the influence of automation on testers, let us highlight some of the key roles of testers in automation, it will help you understand the impact of automation on testers.

Automation and role of testers

Quality minded people can ensure quality product - Machines are noting just pieces of metal until they are used well. If a qualified and experienced tester knows how to use automation tools for the purpose of testing only then the software quality can be ensured. Obviously a machine is idle if it is not receiving potential inputs from humans. It is important for a tester to know how to test an application or software from different angles, tactics, and practices.

Delivering Quick Feedback - Testing must be a source of value addition and provide quick feedback to the team. All other things in the delay feedback loop must be taken seriously and improved; delay hinders the speed required in the continuous delivery pipeline. We believe that testing should be conducted concurrently with development to make the feedback loop in testing as short as possible. Testing should not be a bottleneck for continuous delivery teams. It should help the team reduce errors in production and increase product launches.

Root cause fixture - In addition to visualizing quality, testers should control quality by actually fixing the root cause of the problem rather than narrating symptoms. This can help in solving uncertainties in specifications or technical implementations such as code complexity or redundancy. Make sure these problems do not happen again.

Impact of Automation on Testers

Lack of testing knowledge - With the advent of automation, at one hand business processes have become more efficient but a gradual loss in the tester’s potential has been widely observed. Testers might lose their control of the test, with the revolution of test automation. Nowadays, testers are not educated enough and do not have domain knowledge, and instead use automation tools and technical skills to create test scripts.

Lost Passion - Real testers are passionate about testing but with the advent of automation, a decline in the passion of testers has been widely observed. This is due to the heavy dependence upon the machines and automated tools that have made the lives of testers dull and relaxed.

No need for Q/A - Most organizations today think that they don’t have a need of quality assurance teams as they have implemented modern automated tools. But this is surely a misconception because the need of manual testers can not be avoided. And the companies who avoid it will surely face a loss because after all machines need some inputs. This conception of organizations has lowered the morale of manual testers and more testers are today not having jobs.

Conclusion

There are both favorable and unfavorable results on a testers’ performance, career and morale. To get the most out of your testing efforts, you must understand what actually automation has for you and what actually manual testers have for you. A mix of having machines along with skilled and qualified testers is always a good and better option, either you are having a startup or a large scale business owner. It completely depends on you how you plan and strategize your testing method because, in the end, it’s a matter of your product safety and security, which not even a single organization would like to put on a stake, at any cost