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15 QA Tip Cards — share-ready for 1970

Punchy tips from real QA engineers. Download a card, tweet it, or post it to LinkedIn. Got one of your own? Post it in the QA Network.

Playwright

Playwright tip that saved my CI

Set `trace: 'on-first-retry'` in playwright.config.ts. You get a full timeline (DOM, network, console) for every flaky test — without ballooning CI storage. Debugging flakes went from hours to minutes.

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Automation

Stop using sleep(). Use waitFor.

Hard sleeps make suites slow AND flaky. Use Playwright's expect(locator).toBeVisible() or Selenium's WebDriverWait — they retry until the condition is true or a timeout fires.

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Testing Strategy

Seed state via API, assert via UI.

Building a 12-step UI flow just to test a banner? Hit the API to create the precondition, then load the page. 10x faster, 10x more stable. Save UI clicks for what only humans see.

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Selectors

data-testid > brittle CSS selectors

If your test breaks every time design tweaks padding, that's a selector smell. Negotiate `data-testid` with devs. It survives redesigns, is searchable, and signals intent.

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Bug Reports

The 5-line bug report devs love

Title, Steps, Expected, Actual, Evidence. That's it. Add env + version if non-obvious. Devs reopen vague bug reports — they ship the structured ones.

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Exploratory

Explore first. Automate second.

Writing automation for a feature you've never used by hand is how regressions hide. Spend 20 minutes exploring, write the script, then you'll know what to automate AND what to skip.

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CI/CD

Shard tests across CI workers

Playwright `--shard=1/4` (and similar in pytest-xdist) splits the suite across parallel jobs. A 22-minute run drops to 6. Cheapest perf win you'll ship this quarter.

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Architecture

Page Objects are not God classes

If your PageObject is 600 lines, it's now a maintenance liability. Split by component: HeaderNav, LoginForm, CartDrawer. Tests get readable. New hires get productive.

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API Testing

Contract tests catch the 3 AM bugs

Don't wait for end-to-end runs to find a missing field. Pact or Spring Cloud Contract verify the API shape on every PR. Cheap to run, brutal at catching breaking changes.

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AI Testing

Test LLM features with golden sets

Don't assert exact strings on AI output — it'll flake. Build a golden set of 30+ Q/A pairs, score similarity (BLEU, embedding cosine, or LLM-as-judge), and fail only on threshold drops.

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Visual Testing

Visual diffs > pixel-perfect snapshots

Don't snapshot full pages — snapshot components. Tools like Chromatic or Percy ignore anti-aliasing noise but catch real UI regressions. Reviewers actually look at the diffs.

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Interviews

Answer 'tell me about a bug' in STAR

Situation, Task, Action, Result. Pick a bug with a measurable outcome (saved $X / blocked release / fixed Y users). Hiring managers remember stories, not test counts.

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Career

Mirror the JD in your resume's top third

ATS scoring is shallow. If the JD says 'Playwright, Selenium, REST Assured' and your resume says 'browser automation, API tooling', you're invisible. Match the keywords exactly.

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Reviews

Code reviews ship faster when you review tests first

Skim the new tests before the implementation. If the tests are clear, the spec is clear. If the tests are confusing, send the PR back before reading 400 lines of code.

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Leadership

Stop reporting test count. Report escape rate.

1,000 passing tests means nothing if 12 bugs escaped to prod last sprint. Track escaped-defect rate, MTTR, and flake percentage. Leadership listens to outcomes, not activity.

from the QA Networksoftwaretestpilot.com