How can you avoid burnout in software testing? (2024)

Software Testing can get repetitive and overwhelming. Imagine watching the same movie over and over again for months at a time and you have to find defects in it. It's the same with websites, it can get boring seeing the same pages over and over and sometimes you think you're done testing but really you're just too familiar with the site. Try a new perspective, what would a new user do? what would a 4 year old click on? How would someone who's never seen the site before navigate? Is it accessible to people with disabilities? Try testing without a mouse. If you are totally burned out, remember there are many industries that need testers, try testing healthcare, banking, streaming apps, gaming, etc. No job is forever, switch jobs ;)

Quality Assurance (we prefer not being addressed as testers anymore as we are much more than that), unlike other domains focusses primarily on common sense more than anything else. To put oneself in an end user's perspective to figure out what 'might' go wrong. To quite literally become the stakeholder themself to analyze and arrive at the defects to report out. But all this comes at a cost: being the scapegoat of any project team, being blamed for project delays, inconsistencies in the UI and functionalities, the process set forth or lack thereof, the list could go on. For a Quality Assurance analyst to put forth their very best everyday takes so much effort. However, it does get tiring after a while due to the issues highlighted above.

First non testing related requirements need to be covered from personal lifestyle (exercise, sleep, nutrition) to work related; cozy and healthy work environment, which takes care of employees on several levels (team building, fun activities, etc.)Then, general SW related principles to be covered like; good, well organized WoW methodology implemented which promotes transparency and process improvement capabilities. Now we can start talking about software testing where you can do the following... Work intelligently by avoiding repetition and manual work through automation, external tools and framework. Constantly review and optimize the testing process.Take breaks and clear your mind.

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Set practical expectations communicate with your team, managers stakeholders have regular 1:1s focus on the important and priority task first ,distribute the work load properly and delegate few task to others. learn saying 'No' when the things are not in right place push back the task" Recognise and celebrate your accomplishments, no matter how small. This can boost morale and motivation across the team " Seek support from colleagues,mentors discuss challenges and seek advice and help others work together Learn New skills explore new testing techniques, tools, or technologies to stay updated and enhance your skills.Schedule regular breaks throughout the day to rest and rechargePlan and take regular vacations to disconnect from work

Try to stay in between your own boundaries. Never accept more than you can safely handle.Testing is a serious job and overstressing the tester will lead to less quality over time.

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As a tester it's easy to fall into "I can do that" or "I can help with that".Manage your own expectations of how much help you can offer. Work with your manager and team to help identify when your at the limit.Set clear boundaries in your commitments listen to friends and family when they start to notice.Push back when your pressured to unreasonable timelines or deliveries. Be kind to yourself.

It all comes down to effective communication. Take some time to analyze the issues you face and speak out to the relevant stakeholders, be it the PM or your own Lead. List out the various concerns you face and try bringing up some sort of fix which could potentially sort out those issues. Again, keep in mind that it could only potentially be a fix so keeping expectations in check and moving forward with other possibilities would greatly help your outlook. Try exploring the possibilities of switching projects after sometime. If that's not feasible, try exploring ventures where you could contribute to the project outside of QA. You could try becoming a BA or a TA. Additionally, try out options outside functional testing - Automation, Perf,..

Whenever any project is assigned with any deadlines, first gather the info about what's the proper priority of the validation and what are the scopes of testing that you will be needing to perform.Perform each testing cycle with respect to requirements submitted by the client.If multiple projects are being assigned then categorize their priority as per dev team's work handling or delivering ETA.After categorizing projects, prioritize them according to their delivery ETA and bug count expectation and prioritize project with higher level of fixes necessary and then alternatively lineup the rest.After categorizing projects, tester should have evaluation whether he can deliver if not then proceed to ask PM/Lead for more resources.

I have found remote work is the best way to have a normal work-life balance. I have 3 kids, my baby is still nursing and I just can't see me going back to an office anytime soon, especially when I had to use a maternity room. I get more done while my kids are at school, even with the baby here I have no co-worker distractions, no in-office ridiculous celebrations, no politics, no trouble attending meetings. Just pure focus and productivity while at the same time I spend more time with my kids because of the zero commute.

Try to keep work out of your regular life. Go out and enjoy time with friends and family.Do stuff that makes you forget about work, it's not going anywhere.

Remote work has it own pros and cons. Few people might like it that we are saving money rent, commute, food etc. But we are missing out on the office collaborations, team discussions in-person. In this covid era when i joined I heard a lot about my organization. I am lucky to meet leaders from my org and that opened up new opportunities which we could not do for remote work.

Striking a work-life balance is very important. Spending time with your friends or family is always the best option. Engage in hobbies like yoga, meditation, or listening to music. Plan a weekend trip or activity. Work can become monotonous. At that point, it's possible to take a brief break, play some games, take a short walk, or perform some mild exercise. Having a pet can also be a stress buster and a healthy distraction away from work. It's always a good practice to set work hours. The most important thing is to find a job that you will always love.

First step towards balancing work life is to managing time efficiently. Whenever any project/product is given to the tester they should firstly get the documentations from production orDesign team. Assess the timeline for testing and divide them Hard to Easy in descending order. Doing the previous steps will increase time efficiency, inturn decreasing time consumption.This will make your work life easier and completion of work faster. This will prevent unnecessary sectors from eluding unyielding outputs, which will give more time yourself. Whenever hanging out with peers try to avoid work talk and keep it casual to keep mind clear.

Take advantage of your company's free trainings, free learning apps, free webinars. Almost all companies offer some sort of training platforms, use them. Also switch jobs, accept short contract positions. Waiting for that perfect salary job with all the benefits is wasting valuable learning time. Every company uses different software, different defect tracking apps, different systems, the best way to get exposed to all the variables is to switch jobs so accept anything that comes your way to grow your resume and experience.

In my opinion, in order not to burn out in testing, you need to constantly learn new technologies. If you are a manual tester, learn Selenium. If you are QA automation, look into load testing or security testing. That's the beauty of IT that you always can grow up.

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I personally suggest getting the most of your organization resources, there are many hidden learnings and resources which are available on the organization learning portals. Apart from this attend webinars from the company's which you are interested in and technologies. This will help you with updated technologies in market and trends. So keep the learning mind active all the times. You never know where the next opportunity

Look out for options beyond the scope of the project's SOW. Explore the possibilities of automating the regression suites that you manually perform which gives you some confidence and newfound excitement in trying something new. Speak with the developers and check if you poke around the databases and the microservices available. Take up courses that offer training on specialized fields like DB testing, Accessibility as well as gaining domain knowledge of certain types of projects like Banking, Healthcare, etc. In the end, it all boils down to you getting out of the rut which is your daily routine and browsing through the same PLP->PDP->Checkout pages.Most importantly, advertise your achievements which attracts potential employers for opps.

Developing your skills lets you do the work more dynamically and less repetitively. Try different approaches to avoid the "Pesticide Paradox" (trying to find different bugs with the same resources). Automate the most repetitive tasks, improve your process, and use new tools to explore what these new tools can bring to your daily work.

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Working as a QA analyst for a few years, I've noticed that attention to detail and the compulsion to overthink are somewhat common among our ilk. Remembering to take breaks, get enough sleep, and even maybe just taking a quick walk outside can do wonders for relaxation. Our job is to make sure the quality of the software is the highest it can be. We need to approach our own health and life choices with that same tenacity! If we do, I think we'll all be better for it.

I always recommend finding a sport that really you love. If you really love that activity, maybe you will train very regularly and continuously, and then you will be through a process of being worried about your performance.All of this worry and love, I'll carry you to a high state of health even unnoticed for you. This is the magic of the sports. And then you don't even be worried about moving for health, because this activity will be part of your routine.

Continously testing same feature or component for too long makes you ignorant to non-prioziting issues or some mistake which get missed out. Testing same thing again and again makes your mind lose your eye-to-detail which is why one has to always try to shift to different testing components, methods or projects even. Keeping your mind-organized in terms of what's the requirement and what's deliverable will create less stress and easy testing approach.

I have a stand up/sit down desk at home, I switch positions about every hour. I've been generally healthier just from not being near any co-workers or having to take the bus to work. Since there is no commute I also sleep in a little longer. I have quick runs to my local boba tea shop and latino restaurants all around my home. You can stay healthy if you give yourself breaks, don't strain your eyes or back for long periods of time. Take a walk if you can, it will give you energy and get rid of the burnout, you're more likely to find new defects after a walk!.

Include exercising in your daily routine, a walk, jogging, if not yoga and meditation can help you with your health and keep you in shape. Follow 20-20-20 principle which will help your eyes relieve from straining in front of the system. 20 minutes work, look around at 20 feet away objects, get up for every 20 minutes. Sitting for long hours is similar to smoking and worse. Sleep is more important than exercising, long working hours don't make you healthier. work on yourself :)

Learn about your specific type of Software Testing and improve your skills in that area. There are lots of types of QA and you can't do them all at once, concentrate on one area and master it, it will make job searching easier as well.

In this era of chat GPT, please make sure to keep up the latest testing trends. AI/ML may change the way of testing in the future data play a main part in testing. So leverage AI/ML models for test data prep or complex data preparations. Learn different types of testing, read blogs from experts and youtube podcasts where we can keep ourselves up to date