What is the most important asset that you should have to get that SDET job?

The most important thing that you should have is ….

It is not your previous job titles.

Your previous job titles are about the past and not the present.

They do not matter much because, in many cases, job titles are inflated and they do not correspond to responsibilities and to skills or project experience.

I met SDETs in various companies who did not know why a unit testing framework should be used in an automation project.

Or SDETs that did not know a programming language.

Or SDETs that re-invent the wheel because they don’t know how to use an automation library.

So calling yourself SDET or senior SDET is not that important.

It is not the name of the companies where you worked.

Maybe you worked for Microsoft or Amazon.

This does not mean much.

I met an SDET that worked for both these companies and who preferred MS Test to nUnit and xUnit because “it was more comfortable for him”.

When tasked to create API tests, instead of using an existing framework such as Rest Sharp or Rest Assured, he started building his own library because “this was better”.

It is not the certifications that you may have.

There are 2 types of certifications.

1. Certifications that you finished a course.

What does this certificate mean? That you went through the course from beginning until end? It does not mean unfortunately that you understood the course concepts well. It does not mean also that you know how to use them properly.

2. Certifications that you get after passing an exam.

The exam is most often a list of questions that you should answer. Any exam made of questions cannot show how good you are. You probably heard about TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). Do you think that getting 95% at it means that you know English at a high level? Sorry to disappoint you but it only means that you…