Tech Talks With Prashant Hegde

With time, quality assurance has become an integral part of digital DNA. From enterprise solutions to user-dedicated applications, advanced testing practices have transformed the web completely. Be it high-performing software or need for security, the aggressive focus on QA benchmarks have helped millions of users to have smooth technical support.  

However, the continuously expanding tech landscape and ever-evolving needs of the consumers makes it a mandate to identify any gaps surrounding the development lifecycle and existing software testing practices.  

Carrying forward our tradition to pursue interactions across testing community, this time, our in-house expert, Sandeep Vashisht, VP, Quality Assurance, interacted with Prashant Hegde.  

Prashant is present working as the head of QA at MoEngage which is a leading insights-led customer engagement platform. Besides, he is an extremely passionate software testing leader who has led several high-performing testing teams.  

Prashant is an empathetic leader who finds his happiness by helping others succeed. And therefore, Prashant never misses on any opportunity to contribute to the tech community, sharing his vision on software testing and test automation.  

Prashant has a knack for writing and he loves to work on subjects surrounding test engineering. Besides, he actively participates in the software testing and agile conferences as a guest speaker, enabling testers explore the depths of software testing and quality engineering.  

With all that details about Prashant, let us quickly jump on the conversation between Sandeep and Prashant to understand Prashant’s beliefs, his expertise on test automation, and his vision for the future of quality engineering.  

Sandeep: What makes you feel inspired and allows you to be the best version of yourself? 

Prashant: We all need the inspiration to reignite our inner fire. I have realized that inspiration does not have to come from outside. I find inspiration from the people around me, such as my family, friends, and colleagues. My family is my biggest source of inspiration. My parents inspire me to work hard and strive for excellence every single day. In the face of challenges, my wife has continually inspired me not to give up. My daughter inspires me to live every day to its fullest and to be happy no matter what. There is nothing in this world that can make me as happy as my daughter. Her smile fills me with joy, and I feel complete. I am grateful to my family for their support and love. Moreover, reading books, listening to music, traveling, and meditating helps me feel rejuvenated. 

In my opinion, to become your best self, you must discover who you truly are. Self-discovery is the continuous process of learning about yourself, your values, beliefs, and your inner potential.  The best way to start your self-discovery journey is to invest time in yourself. Search for answers to the questions- 

• Who am I?  

• What do I stand for? 

• What do I want from my life? 

• What are my goals? 

Unlocking your best self begins with discovering who you are, what you want to accomplish, and what happiness means to you. For great things to happen, we must first find ourselves. 

Sandeep: What are the biggest mistakes or myths in your niche? 

Prashant: Software testing is a subject that is not well understood by most people. It is common for software professionals to have preconceived notions about testing. The role of a tester is surrounded by so many myths and negative stereotypes. 

• Testers are gatekeepers of quality - It's not up to testers to decide whether or not a release should happen. Testers help stakeholders make informed decisions based on the experiments they conducted on the software.  

• Testing ensures 100% defect-free software - perfect software is a myth. 

• Testers are responsible for bugs in production - people fail to realize quality is a team effort and blame testers for bugs. 

• Test automation is the replacement for testers - learn to differentiate between testing and checking. Maturity in testing is when you understand that testing cannot be automated only checking can be automated.  

• All testing should be automated - Certain tests can't be automated and some don't need to be automated. Knowing when to automate, what to automate and the awareness of why we automate is essential. 

• Testing is easier than development. Anyone can be a tester - Testing requires specialized skills. Testing is not everybody’s cup of tea. 

And, the list goes on. 

As testers, it is our responsibility to educate everyone on the software development team about software testing. Debunking myths surrounding software testing is vital for building a testing culture in your organization. 

Sandeep: Could you name some cases when automation is really a must? 

Prashant: Testers should consider the context of the project or product they are working on to decide what cases should be automated. It makes sense to automate everything that adds value and can be automated. My suggestion is to automate the test cases that will provide the biggest return on investment. Therefore, you can gain the support of your stakeholders and team members for your automation initiatives. 

What to automate?  

• Firstly, the most obvious one is, automation is a must for repetitive tasks; automating your smoke and regression tests will save you time, speed up your testing, and give you early feedback. 

• Automate tests that are impossible for a human to perform. 

• Generating large amounts of test data - Test data generation. 

• Data-driven testing (testing the same feature with different data sets) 

• Tests that need to run on multiple browsers, devices, OS, etc 

• Visual regression tests, broken link checking, etc 

• A few parts of performance and security tests can be automated as well.  

In general, automation isn't suitable for one-time tests, tests requiring human intelligence, human intervention, features that are likely to change frequently, testing user-experience, etc. 

Sandeep: How does quality engineering go beyond traditional notions of quality assurance? 

Prashant: There are several ways in which quality engineering goes beyond traditional notions of quality assurance. Quality engineering (QE) is the process of building quality into the product. QE comprises a set of methodologies, processes, and principles for minimizing business risks. As a matter of fact, Quality assurance (QA) falls under the Quality Engineering (QE) umbrella. Quality Engineering (QE) encompasses a wider scope than Quality Assurance (QA).  In my opinion, QE is a more proactive approach. Rather than focusing on finding defects, QE focuses on preventing them from occurring.  QE requires teams and even departments to collaborate to ensure quality is built into the product right from the start.  

QE requires a cultural, process, and mindset shift. QE goes beyond just testing functionality or adherence to requirements. Today, Testers need to move away from a traditional Quality assurer’s role to a Quality Engineer’s role. Quality Engineer serves as an advocate, a teacher, an evangelist, and a champion for quality. They empower teams to build high-quality products through continuous testing. Customer satisfaction is their number one priority. Quality engineers help teams realize that quality is an engineering process. In addition, they take advantage of automation, continuous integration/continuous deployment, artificial intelligence, and data-driven decision-making to help businesses gain a competitive edge. 

Sandeep: What is something about your industry that has surprised you? 

Prashant: Software testing is a challenging job. Software testers must keep up with the latest trends, technologies, and tools to do their job well. The same is true of every other software profession, but testing is a bit more demanding. Agile, DevOps, Automation, AI, IoT, and other trends have continuously challenged testers to evolve and adapt. 

As software testers, we are fortunate to have access to so many amazing communities and industry leaders. Testing communities connect people worldwide and help people learn, gain skills, and exchange information. In addition, there is a wide range of amazing testing leaders to provide mentorship and training to testers. Testing leaders and communities continue to learn, teach, practice, and explore software testing in an ever-changing technological world. To me, it is incredible how testers are constantly reinventing themselves and adapting to meet new challenges. 

Sandeep: Are you planning to write any book on quality assurance? 

Prashant: I was surprised to hear you ask this question. How do you know what I'm thinking?  

I have always been fascinated by the idea of writing a book. It has been on my mind for quite some time. This year, I've set a goal of writing a book. Yes, there is a book on the way for testers. This is my first public announcement that I am writing a book.  

My writing schedule has been busy lately. As a guest writer, I have been invited to write for numerous testing tools, websites, and communities. My gratitude goes out to those who have given me opportunities to share my thoughts, and evolve as a writer. As I write this, I am working on an interesting idea. It’s in the early stages right now. Next year, hopefully, you will have the chance to read it. 

Sandeep: How can readers connect with you? 

Prashant: I am active on LinkedIn and respond to every message I receive. I would be delighted to connect with the readers on LinkedIn. Additionally, all my latest content can be found on my website and YouTube channel. 

 
BugRaptors is one of leading quality assurance and software testing brands that is working to disrupt the digital world through innovative and sustainable tech. From enterprise solutions to mobile applications made to reach the masses, we help you explore the real meaning of quality development.  

For any updates surrounding quality assurance services, feel free to reach our team or just in case, you have something interesting to take to the QA community, write us at info@bugraptors.com to plan a tech talk with us.