As the demand for Test Automation grows, many Test Engineers - especially those specialising in automation - are finding that transitioning into a DevOps role is a logical next step. The skill sets overlap significantly, with both disciplines focusing on process automation, efficiency, and software quality.
That’s exactly the journey our colleague, Kevin Frey, embarked on. In this blog, we explore his transition from Test Automation to DevOps Engineering, uncovering key insights, challenges, and best practices. Whether you’re considering this career move yourself or simply want to understand how testing expertise translates into DevOps, Kevin’s experience offers valuable takeaways.
How do you see the role of a DevOps engineer intersecting with traditional testing practices, and what unique insights can you bring from your testing background?
As a Test Automation Engineer normally I create scripts for automation based on test cases, when I transitioned to the DevOps role I saw myself doing automation as well, creating scripts to automate processes and make them more efficient for stakeholders and Developers. What I try to say is, coming from a test automation background, you're already familiar with automating processes. In DevOps, this extends to automating everything, from infrastructure provisioning (Infrastructure as Code) to continuous integration and deployment pipelines.
What's the most exciting aspect of transitioning from test automation to DevOps engineering for you personally?
For me the most exciting part is to learn new tools and frameworks, for example I got to learn about the cloud which I wasn't very familiar with, this made me gain different perspectives about the software development process. In DevOps, you're not just responsible for automating tests. You need to understand the end-to-end flow, including code deployment, monitoring, and scaling. Getting to know tools like Docker for containerization, Kubernetes for orchestration, and cloud platforms (AWS or Azure) for scalable solutions was very exciting for me.
How do you stay updated on emerging trends and best practices in DevOps, and what resources or communities do you engage with to further your learning?
My main source of knowledge comes from doing courses and certifications, I think Udemy is a great way to get courses for DevOps and best practices, I also think is very important to get certifications for AWS or Azure for example, for cloud solutions, as well as certifications/courses for Kubernetes and Docker, there are many different tools you can learn. As far as communities the classic stack overflow always help, or asking a colleague for help is always a good way to get more knowledge about a specific problem, here at spriteCloud I have many different colleagues that have more knowledge in DevOps than me and are willing to help whenever there’s need, I appreciate it.
Can you provide examples of how you've collaborated with development teams to implement automated testing solutions and streamline the release process?
One example is when I implemented a tool called scrutinizer, which is a static code analysis tool, which is a form of white box testing, to identify potential issues like bugs, security vulnerabilities, code smells, and style violations. I implemented this tool to perform a code analysis every time a developer creates a pull request. Another example is when I implemented a suite of test cases with playwright, in integration with GitHub Actions, to test the application automatically every time a deployment to the test environment is made.
What are your biggest tips for anyone looking to transition into a DevOps role?
Learn automation across the lifecycle, embrace tools like Terraform, Ansible, Jenkins, or GitLab CI/CD. Understand the full development pipeline, learn the end-to-end flow, learn about cloud, containerization and orchestration tools. Use your own expertise in writing automated tests to create a testing framework that fits into the CI/CD pipeline, to make sure deployments are reliable. And more importantly get into a DevOps mindset, this includes getting in close communication with the developers and stakeholders, and understand the challenges that they face to improve processes and systems.