How to prepare for your next SDET Job in 6 steps
I recently joined Adobe as a Software Quality Engineer at almost 300% more salary than my previous organization. I also had offers from several other companies like PayTm, Sprinklr, Airtel, Practo, and Nutanix.
These are some simple steps that I followed and you can also follow them to get your desired job.
Understand the roles and responsibilities of an SDET or Automation Test Engineer
As a Software Development Engineer in Test, you would be responsible for automating test scenarios, developing and maintaining test automation framework and tools for your team, helping debug defects, and performing manual tests when required.
If you are a fresher, you may not get an opportunity to work on an automation framework from scratch. But, you should at least be comfortable writing automation test cases.
Shortlist the companies first
There are 1000s of companies hiring for SDET roles. And you can only interview for some of them, So you should have a list of companies where you want to work.
I wasted a lot of time interviewing for companies that I did not want to work at because of not having clarity about what I wanted.
Glassdoor and AmbitionBox are the best websites to understand more about any company. You can also message people working at that company to understand more about the work culture.
Prepare for the Interview
Once you shortlist all the companies, go through their job portal and understand the most common skills required by them.
According to my experience, the most common skills required for SDET are Problem-solving, Java/Python, Selenium, Appium, and RESTAssured.
Applying for the Job
It is always better to get a referral from someone working at that company because your chances increase significantly of getting a call from that company.
Even if you don’t know the person, you can simply send them a connection request with a message on LinkedIn.
Hey ABC, I found this job post on the XYZ company portal.
[SEND JOB POST LINK]
I have 2+ years of experience working with Java, Selenium, Appium, API Testing and have most of the skills mentioned here. I have attached my resume to my profile.
Can you please refer me to this job? Thanks.
If the person believes that you are the right fit for this job. They will surely provide you with a referral.
You can also directly message the recruiter who is hiring for the job on LinkedIn.
The Interview Day
So, you got a call for the interview, And it’s all up to you now.
Introduction — Talk about your previous experiences which are relevant for this job.
“Hey ABC, I am Devashish Thakur. I have been working for the past two years at XYZ company as an SDET. I have worked on the EFG project by XYZ with tools like Selenium, RESTAssured, Appium, and Java.
Programming Language (Java, Python) Questions — Make sure you understand the question first. Don’t just answer in one word. You can explain how it works behind the scenes, give some examples, etc.
Coding Questions — Again, first understand the question and ask any questions if you have.
Don’t rush into solving the question first. How I approach any coding problem is -
Understand the problem and ask any questions.
Talk about the worst way of solving the problem, and suggest what can be a better way to solve the problem.
Once you solve the problem, optimize it. Improve time complexity, space complexity, handle edge cases, handle exceptions, etc.
When I am at step 2, I try to think about how I can optimize it. So that by the time that problem is solved, I already have an idea about how to approach step 3.
Negotiations
Money is important, But there are some more things you may want to consider while deciding which company you want to go for. like, Work-life balance, brand name, learning opportunities, growth opportunities, etc.
Companies generally offer you a salary with a structure similar to this -
- Base Salary
- Yearly Bonus
- Benefits (Medical, Insurance, etc)
- Joining Bonus
- RSUs (Stocks)
Make sure you know what you want. You can also negotiate your salary. Companies are generally willing to increase your RSUs and Bonus if they think you are a deserving candidate.
I hope these points may help you in your job search. Best of luck!!
You can follow or connect with me on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/devashishoo/
