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Test automation, written down properly

Manual QA SDET

I interview SDET candidates for a living. Before that I was a manual tester trying to work out how to cross over. This is what I wish someone had written down.

WhoMayank Chaudhari
Day jobSenior SDET, testing AI agents in production
AlsoI interview SDET candidates
DegreeMechanical Engineering. Never once asked about it.

Start here

Three things worth your time, in the order most people need them.

The plan

Manual QA → SDET in 90 days

What to learn, what to skip, and what you should have to show at the end. Built for 30 minutes a day around a full-time job.

Read it →
AI testing

Checking the shape before the answer

The first test I write for any AI feature has nothing to do with AI. A schema assertion, and why it catches more than an eval suite.

Read it →
Craft

Flaky tests and the wait that hides them

A failing-sometimes test is telling you the truth. Here is the routine I actually run instead of reaching for a sleep.

Coming soon →

Why this exists

Most advice for manual testers moving into automation is either a tool tutorial or a motivational post. Neither tells you what a hiring panel is actually looking at.

I sit on that panel. I also made this exact transition, recently enough to remember which parts hurt — a Mechanical Engineering degree, manual testing on kiosk software, and now a Senior SDET role where the thing under test is an AI agent whose output changes every run.

Everything here is written from that seat. No affiliate links, no course funnel.