Software Tester to SDET Roadmap

Move from manual testing to automation and become the engineer who builds quality into the pipeline.

7 milestones · ~195 hours total

1. 1

   Testing fundamentals

   ~20h

   Test levels and types, test design techniques, bug reports and the testing life cycle.

   Practice this →
2. 2

   Programming for testers

   ~40h

   Python or Java basics, data structures and reading application code.

   Practice this →
3. 3

   Web UI automation

   ~40h

   Selenium or Playwright, stable selectors, page-object pattern and handling waits and flaky tests.

   Practice this →
4. 4

   API testing

   ~30h

   HTTP and REST, Postman, automated API tests, contract testing and test data management.

   Practice this →
5. 5

   CI and reporting

   ~20h

   Run tests on every commit, parallelise, report failures clearly and quarantine flaky tests.

   Practice this →
6. 6

   Performance and security basics

   ~20h

   Load testing with simple tools, interpreting latency percentiles and basic security checks.

   Practice this →
7. 7

   Interview preparation

   ~25h

   Test-design questions, automation framework design and coding problems in your language.

   Practice this →