Optimize your testing process with expert Selenium developers! Ensure robust and automated testing for web applications, improving quality and efficiency.
Any quality assurance (QA) engineer knows how time-consuming, inefficient and repetitive manual testing is. This was the reasoning behind the initial creation of Selenium by Jason Huggins at the beginning of the 21st century. Initially called “JavaScriptTestRunner”, Selenium would later become Selenium Core, eventually evolving into the comprehensive, automated testing framework it is today.
The web application testing tool is used across a wide range of industries and by large companies like Google, Alibaba, LinkedIn, Accenture, Penguin Random House, and many others. If you want to hire selenium developers here is what you should know.
What is selenium?
Selenium is an open source framework used to automate testing of web applications. Intended to make the testing process faster and more efficient than manual testing, it has become a fundamental part of the software development life cycle (SDLC). You can use several languages: JavaScript, Python, Java, Ruby, PHP and C#, to name a few.
Selenium was the first tool of its kind to be applied to a browser. After its initial development, other engineers began to address some of the drawbacks of the Selenium testing process. Today, the automated testing framework consists of 4 main components:
- Selenium Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
- Selenium Remote Control (RC)
- Selenium WebDriver: API, Library
- Selenium Grid
Together, these tools make up the Selenium suite.
How difficult is it to find a qualified selenium tester?
Although Selenium has a fairly steep learning curve, especially if you are trying to learn it without guidance, there are many materials and resources available to help you get used to it. And once a QA engineer learns how to use this web application testing framework, it becomes relatively simple to execute. Furthermore, in-depth knowledge of programming languages is not necessary, although it can be useful.
Selenium is widely used and you can be sure that most of the experienced QA engineers and testers you are considering hiring have extensive experience using the framework – although you should, of course, verify this knowledge. This means you shouldn't have much trouble finding a Selenium tester.
What to Look for in a Selenium Tester
Experience is the first quality to look for in a candidate. Since Selenium is only used for web application testing, if you want the potential hire to work on other projects such as mobile applications, they will need experience with additional testing tools and frameworks.
Other qualities and skills to look for in a Selenium Tester include:
- At least a basic knowledge of programming languages
- Interpersonal skills like analytical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, communication
- Ability to interact with developers and report bugs and other issues
- Manual testing skills
- Test Script
- Experience with different types of tests – functional, performance, etc.
- Experience working within the desired development methodology, especially agile
- Selenium DevOps
- Curiosity and desire to learn
Additionally, ensure any candidate is aware of the Selenium Development Process and key trends and happenings in the testing field. QA professionals must stay up to date on best practices and news.
Selenium Interview Questions
What are the advantages of using Selenium?
Selenium is one of the most popular testing tools out there, and for good reason. For one thing, it's open source, which means the costs associated with using it are lower. It can also be used for a wide variety of testing purposes and with all major browsers and operating systems, along with several programming languages.
Selenium also has a huge community, which offers support and resources to testers who encounter problems or need help.
What types of tests can you do with Selenium?
Selenium allows QA experts to perform many different types of tests. Just a few examples are:
- Acceptance
- Functional
- To load
- Performance
- Regression
- Sanity
- Smoke
- Stress
- UI
How does QA testing fit into the Agile SDLC?
Agile depends on collaboration and quality. It also seeks to constantly improve products so that they are even better versions of themselves. Because the focus is on consumer satisfaction, QA testers enter the development process from the beginning. They play a key role in the process, testing modules to ensure their quality as early as possible. This is repeated several times.
What browsers does Selenium support?
According to the developer website, Selenium supports the following browsers:
- Chrome, all versions
- Edge, versions 84 and newer
- Internet Explorer, versions 6 and newer
- Mozilla Firefox, versions 54 and newer
- Opera, versions 10.5 and newer
- Safari, versions 10 and newer
When can you not use selenium? What are some disadvantages of using the framework?
Selenium can only be used to support the development of web applications. That is, you cannot test mobile apps or any other type of software other than web-based products.
There are some other disadvantages to relying on Selenium. For example, the tool requires the tester to have some coding knowledge, which is not always a prerequisite for QA specialists. Additionally, because it is an open source framework, users do not have technical support from the developer, although there is a substantial community that offers support.
What is Selenese:
Selenese is the name of language testers used to create commands in Selenium. These commands tell the framework what to do.
Job description
We are looking for an experienced QA engineer with extensive experience using Selenium to perform web application testing. You will write test scripts and use a combination of automated and manual testing.
Responsibilities
- Develop and create automation test cases with Selenium
- Monitor tests and modify them as needed
- Report bugs and fixes
- Use best practices in automated and manual testing
- Build on existing frameworks
- Collaborate with team members, including software developers
- Work with stakeholders to meet requirements and meet expectations
- Stay up to date on best practices in quality control
Skills and qualifications
- At least 5 years of experience with Selenium
- At least 7 years of testing experience
- Knowledge of Java and other programming languages
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Experience writing SQL queries
- Experience with API testing
- Experience working with agile methodology
- Knowledge of web technologies
- Analytical and problem-solving skills
- Preferably bachelor's degree