Roadmap to Becoming Most Effective Test Architect

“Roadmap to Effectiveness: Unlocking the Secrets of Test Architect!” 
To become a test architect, first, let’s understand what a test architect needs and how it can help you in career growth. The roadmap to becoming an effective test architect is not a straight path. It’s a journey that involves various steps and stages that may take you to different levels of expertise. This blog outlines the 8 major steps for becoming an effective test architect.
If you are passionate about automation/ test architecture, the milestone to becoming a test architect is just a few years away. You can follow this roadmap and reach the role of a test architect in 2023.

Test Architect Population

Looking into the test architect population in the entire industry, the statistics show that very few intend in becoming test architects.

As per data, we can see only 8% of the people in the market have set up their careers as test architects. Test architect is an individual contributor role that has particular openings and creates rare market demandsRoadmap to Becoming Most Effective Test Architect.
Now lots of openings are coming in, so choose your predominant organization like Service, Captive, and Product companies. On analyzing the average salary for test architects, it is around 32 lakhs. Great, it is a very reasonable amount of money, right?

Now lots of openings are coming in, so choose your predominant organization like Service, Captive, and Product companies. On analyzing the average salary for test architects, it is around 32 lakhs. Great, it is a very reasonable amount of money, right?
If you are a person who spent 8+ years in the testing field but does not know how to reach the spot, then here is the digestive road map to follow to become a test architect,

8 Milestones to Follow

1. Enable a Growth Mindset
   Consistent learning and adaptability are important for your career growth; nobody can reach heights without a growth mindset. If we watch successful people carefully, their first step is to believe in themselves and dream about what they want to be. So first, we should know where we want to go and why we need to be there.
2. Identify the Missing Skills
   If you wish to uplift your career, first choose the top companies you want to place on, then start to identify the missing skills you need to reach there. Here I listed the top 10 skills you need to be a Test Architect
   • Test Case Enumeration (functional)
     Indeed, as the tester, you may be good at test case writing, but maybe not exactly. Sometimes mistakes in a test case might cause leakage in a revenue or performance issue in the system, which takes time to resolve. We must focus on 360 coverage in the testing process to overcome these issues.
   • Programming and DSA
     As a test architect, there is no need to know multiple programming languages, depth in a single programming language is more sufficient. Most companies are looking for basic proficiency in data structures and algorithms. Ultimately the matter of approach is more important than problem-solving techniques.
   • Design Patterns
     Test architects must possess skills to efficiently design a new automation framework. A design pattern is a basic structure; hence you should have a complete understanding of frameworks and design pattern types like,
     Creational – class and object composition
     Structural – the relationship between entities
     Behavioural – communication patterns between object
   • Agile, TDD (progress)
     Test Driven Development is the best approach where the test cases are tested first, and in case of failure, the new code is written with the agile principle; this makes code simple and avoids duplicate code. As the test architect, you should know to build unit test cases. When you design TDD, you should remember to write positive test cases instead of negative ones.
   • Front-End Automation (UI)
     There are a lot of tools in the field for performing web-based automation. As the test architect, you should focus on tools architecture, internals, and their differences. The preferable tools are WebDrive, puppeteer, playwright, and cypress… ensure that you are an expert in one of these tools and know the use of it.
   • Back-End Automation API
     Back-end testing ensures the web application is free from database corruption or errors. To be a test architect, you should additionally want to be skilled in in-service automation, preferably using Microservices. Working on API is good, but you need a special focus & understanding of messages, events, and queues.
   • Non-Functional Testing
     Preferably, you should be able to work on performance testing and security testing in a professional style. Especially Focus on performance engineering helps to find the source of the problem, and it will help to solve the issues easily. In addition, directing on accessibility and usability will greatly assist the process.
     It is recommended to use the following testing tools: JMeter, Gatling, Locust, and vulnerability.
   • Cloud Automation
     You should first be proficient in cloud fundamentals and cloud solutions; next, you should be capable of handling edge test cases. Also, Know Cloud computing platforms like – AWS, AZURE, and GCP.
   • DevOps Automation:
     DevOps include a variety of technologies, but you don’t need to cover all. Make it simple with these three tools at any build, source control, CI-CD tool – Maven, Git, Jenkins.
     In addition, you should also be skilled at containerization and orchestration – Docker & K8S
     
   • System Automation
     System automation is the most important top skill you need to be an expert at, which helps to know the internal structure execution. Knowing these steps gives you depth understanding of the system automation process and be skilful in structure execution
     • Understand the problem and create the design scope
     • Propose high-level design and get buy-in
     • Design deep dive
     • Contribute to test-driven development
3. Study & Implement
   Find out the skill you are lacking and work up on it. Then Study the missing skill then implement it practically.
4. Assess & Practice
   Evaluate the implantation output and practice it. Consistency is the most important thing to becoming an expert in what you want to learn.
5. Mock Interview 
   Do more mock interviews before attending the interview; this helps you to crack opportunities in desired companies and gives you better ideas.
6. Attend Interviews
   An interview is a door to the opportunity you seek; this makes you stronger technically. Attend a lot of interviews with top companies and gain more experience.
   
7. Refactor skills
   Refactor your skill from the experience of an interview you have attended and improve your learnings.
8. Offers, Negotiate (career switch)
   As the path was clear, enjoy the offers you have. Finally, move into the position you looked for – “Test Architect.”
   

Conclusion
I am not saying you will become a test architect overnight by reading this article. But I can assure you if you keep an open mind and follow the roadmap in this blog to its exact word, then success won’t be far behind. So, what are you waiting for? Follow the roadmap we have outlined above and reach your goals!

Always keep an eye on improving your testing skills, as these will help you become an even better test architect.

Thank you for reading!

Author’s Bio:

As CEO of TestLeaf, I’m dedicated to transforming software testing by empowering individuals with real-world skills and advanced technology. With 24+ years in software engineering, I lead our mission to shape local talent into global software professionals. Join us in redefining the future of test engineering and making a lasting impact in the tech world.

Babu Manickam

CEO – Testleaf