Tech Talks With Pricilla Bilavendran

At BugRaptors, we believe the entire QA community to be one team and keeping this thought in mind, we constantly aim to reach out testers from different origins and backgrounds.  

Keeping up with the tradition of reaching out QA-tech community, this time, our in-house expert, Parteek Goel, interviewed Pricilla Bilavendran, a QA expert serving as a team leader at Billennium IT Services, Kuala Lampur.   

Pricilla is an experienced test engineer who has been in the industry for over a decade. She brings on table a dynamic expertise on functional testing, EDI, ETL, Automation, and API testing.  

Being a Postman supernova, she has been a part of various events that focused on APIs and Postman. Besides, her passion for cloud community has even made her an AWS Community Builder. Pricilla is taking the essence of QA testing to the young testers and learning community through thrive.now a platform run by Test Tribe community.  

Also, she has been featured among “100 Women in Tech to Follow and Learn from" by Agile Testing Days and has been nominated for Globant Awards 2022 under the Techfluencer category. She is a global ambassador for WomenTech Network and is a certified mentor who has helped many test engineers through her blogs, webinar, and workshops.  

With all that information about Pricilla, let us quickly dive into the interview to learn her perspective on changing QA practices, API test automation, and her take on NoOps.  

Let’s begin! 

Parteek: What’s one thing that you are deeply grateful for right now? 

Pricilla: I am grateful for everything I have right now, especially my family, job, and friends. I am a staunch believer in Karma, and I believe that what you give, you will get back. 

Parteek: What do you think about changing QA practices? 

Pricilla: QA jobs are evolving, and the ways of working have changed significantly in the last few years. I believe that these changes are to be welcomed, but at the same time, we should be aware of the challenges they bring. Also, I still see that testing fundamentals are not given importance nowadays. I strongly believe every tester should know the details of the testing terminologies irrespective of the type of testing they do. And we should be part of the software life cycle from early on.  

We are seeing the involvement and importance of software testers. We as Testers are bringing more value to the table by doing our jobs better and implementing better testing strategies and approaches. We are adapting to the agile environment and working collaboratively with the team. 

All these changes are leading in the right way and we can expect more changes in the coming years. 

Parteek: How do you ensure there's no missing issue? 

Pricilla: It’s a myth, we cannot perform exhaustive testing. But we can implement some best practices to reduce the risk of missing issues.  

1. Have a list of high-priority use cases based on the production behavior 

1. Ask the devs and Business users to review the test cases 

1. Thoroughly review application requirements and related documentation such as design documents, functional specifications, use cases, and user stories before proceeding with testing. 

1. Develop test plans and test cases that include complete coverage of all test conditions, including positive, negative, and boundary scenarios. 

1. Perform regression testing/retesting to detect any issues that may arise from code changes during the development process. 

1. Leverage automation tools to speed up the testing process and ensure proper coverage of test scenarios. 

1. Ensure that sufficient time is allocated for thorough testing of all features before they are released to the public. 

1. Use thorough bug-tracking tools and methodologies to keep track of all discovered issues and manage the process of resolving them. 

1. Automate cross-browser and platform tests  

1. Employ peer review and pair testing  

1. Monitor performance and seek user feedback  

1. Re-evaluate testing objectives and goals periodically 

Even after strict validation, if some bugs are leaked into production make sure to add them to your test cases/regression suite.  

Parteek: Which tools do you use for API test automation? 

Pricilla: Based on our client's suggestion, we use Postman for API testing and automate using that.  

Parteek: On what basis can you map the success of automation testing? 

Pricilla: The success of automation testing can be measured based on the following criteria: 

• Efficiency – this refers to how quickly an automation test can be performed compared to a manual test. 

• Reliability – this refers to how well an automated test can accurately predict the outcome of a test. 

• Cost Savings – Automation testing can be used to reduce costs and time. So based on the efforts saved, we can decide whether automation testing is worth the cost. 

• Increase in test scalability – Automation tests enable testers to easily scale the tests they perform to accommodate changes in the product or in the testing environment. 

• Increased test coverage – Automation testing can help increase the test coverage area by running a single test many times or running multiple tests in parallel. 

• Frequency of test execution – In most of the projects, automation is done as a one-time activity, and they don’t use or execute the scripts. So, invest your time based on the usage. 

These are some common factors, and they vary based on the project and the team. So, it’s always better to plan for this before starting automation. 

Parteek: What are your viewpoints about NoOps & the future of QA automation? 

Pricilla: The NoOps approach is not possible in all projects, but it requires minimal human intervention. Maybe for some stable projects after a deeper analysis, the NoOps approach can be implemented. 

The future of QA Automation is something that I am looking forward to. I can say that it is going to become more and more popular, and we can expect more AI-powered tools. Also, these tools are still evolving, and they require extensive testing to ensure they are performing as expected. I am expecting a revolution around low-code and no-code test automation tools. I believe they are already doing a revolution, it’s much more than the “Record and Playback”. LC/NC AI-Powdered tools are more powerful and effective than traditional tools.  

Parteek: What's the easiest way to get in touch with you? 

Pricilla: LinkedIn is the best way. This is my profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pricilla-bilavendran/ 

Over the years, brands have realized the importance of creating sustainable business technology. And therefore, the trend for software testing has gained the attention of every tech enthusiast. Be it enterprise solutions or user dedicated applications, quality assurance and software testing has streamlined the development, deployments, and the use of technology. 

Since it is vital to work on continuously expanding tech landscape to complement the ever-evolving needs of the consumers, quality assurance teams need to be in constant sync to overcome any gaps surrounding the development lifecycle. 

BugRaptors is one of the fastest growing QA companies in the world and has been continuously adding value to the world of technology with its quality initiatives. With tech talks, we constantly work to bring the QA community closer and explore the depths of innovative testing.  

For more such interesting updates on changing perspective around quality assurance, stay connected with us by subscribing to our blog or following our social media channel.  

In case, you need any assistance on software testing, feel free to share your query at info@bugraptors.com