Ford Arnett, Bottle Rocket’s Automation Engineering Lead, recaps the 2022 QA Automation Bootcamp and the successes they saw and what to look forward to for next year.
Back in 2016, we hosted our inaugural QA Bootcamp which included a variety of topics across Quality Assurance. Even though it was the first year, we knew that it wasn’t nearly enough time to talk about all the topics we wanted to cover. Ever since that time, we’ve been asking ourselves, “what if we had an entire bootcamp just dedicated to one of the many exciting areas of QA?” Well, after years of dreaming and planning, the automation team finally hosted the first-ever specialty bootcamp, the QA Automation bootcamp was born!
The bootcamp aimed to be a primer for those new to the industry or those looking to expand their automation skills. Participants were encouraged to ask questions, present problems, and engage in a forum for all things QA automation. We started off with an overview from our Vice President of Quality Assurance, Sandeepa Vemireddy, and embarked on a full day of topics and learnings across a range of speakers.
Learning from industry experts, participants were encouraged participate and ask questions which resulted in lots of great discussion and created an organic conversation for participants and presenters alike. One of the topics covered was automation tools, participants learned about various automation tools, how to choose the right one for their situation and what things to consider when picking a tool. We also talked about the importance of what we should choose to automate and perhaps more importantly, what should we not automate? The attendees engaged in a lively discussion about knowing your platforms, as well as the things to look for depending on what platform you are working on.
This bootcamp was open to anyone in the community and became our first online bootcamp, with attendees from all over the country. While the online forum provided a different experience than previous boot camps, it ended up being a great interactive and informative time for everyone. There were still various opportunities to get to know the team, as well as the attendees, and we learned some new ways to interact with others virtually.
We can’t wait for the next bootcamp where we can get to interact with our amazing community, and share all we’ve learned from this event to make the next boot camp even better. Hope to see you there next time!