In today’s software industry, the pressure to deliver features faster—without compromising quality—is higher than ever. As teams transition toward Agile and DevOps models, automation testing has become essential. Companies are investing heavily in automated testing pipelines, while the scope of manual testing is shrinking and is increasingly reserved for areas that automation cannot yet cover.
This shift means the demand for pure manual testers is steadily declining. If you only know manual testing, you may face fewer job opportunities, reduced value in the eyes of employers, or even risk being replaced over time. To stay competitive and grow in your career, learning automation is no longer optional—it’s a necessary step for any tester who wants to thrive in modern software development.
But getting started with automation is not always easy. Even testers with IT or computer science degrees often struggle with questions like:
- Where do I begin?
- What should I learn first?
- Do I need a course before I can write automation tests?
- How do I find time to learn while manual testing already takes up my entire workday?
From my personal experience, the easiest way to start learning automation is on-the-job training. In other words: jump directly into your team’s current automation project.
Start Small: Modify What Already Exists
At first, you might feel overwhelmed by the project structure or the unfamiliar syntax. That’s normal. Instead of trying to understand everything at once, pick one simple automated test—just a basic method that checks a simple action.
Then:
- Think of a similar scenario.
- Clone the existing test.
- Modify it step by step to match your new scenario.
Each small adjustment teaches you something new: a bit of syntax here, a new function there. Most importantly, you’ll see your test run successfully. That sense of progress is incredibly motivating. It’s far more effective than studying theory for weeks without knowing how it applies.
With this approach, you learn from practice first, and theory follows naturally. You study only what you need at the moment you need it.
You’ll Learn By Doing—One Scenario at a Time
As you modify tests, you’ll quickly discover what knowledge you’re missing:
- Need to interact with a new element?
→ You’ll start reading about Page Object Model and how your project organizes pages. - Need to locate a new button or field?
→ You’ll learn selectors and strategies for identifying elements. - Test not behaving as expected?
→ You’ll learn how to read test results and debug step by step to find the root cause.
Bit by bit, your automation knowledge grows—and everything you learn is directly applicable to your real project.
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Guidance
Of course, jumping into automation doesn’t mean you must do it alone. In the beginning, you’ll probably need guidance to understand your team’s test framework and project conventions. Be proactive—ask an automation tester in your team to mentor you. Most will be happy to help.
Company Support Matters
For this approach to work, companies also need to provide time and space for testers to learn and contribute to automation. Fortunately, with the strong industry shift toward automation, most organizations are eager to support testers who want to upskill.
In the end, the most important step is simply to start.
Don’t wait until you “know enough.”
Don’t wait until you “finish a course.”
The best way to learn automation is by doing automation—one small scenario at a time. Every automation expert was once a beginner—start with what you can do today.