What’s so cool about automated testing and why it should be part of every development? And how is it related to localization? Learn the basics of automated testing in this interview with Michal Trúnek from Lokalise.
Andrej Zito
Michal, Welcome to the podcast.
Michal Trúnek
Hi, Andrej. Thanks for having me. I was really looking forward to be here. And go with this.
Andrej Zito
This is the first time that I hear you speak English. So yeah, this is for everyone who doesn’t know this will be two Slovak guys talking about localization in English, I think a little bit awkward for us. But I think we both agree that it’s easier for us to talk in English about work, rather than Slovak. Anyway, let’s start with the question that I usually ask everyone. How did you end up in the world of localization? Did you study for that? Or it was a pure coincidence?
Michal Trúnek
To study for localize differently not. I’m I’m quite new in the industry. I’ve been with my current company for seven months, I think for eight months. It’s been quite quite a while though, it feels like maybe like two years already. I know everyone, the company is quite small. And
Andrej Zito
Is it small? Like, all the posts I see, we are hiring, we are hiring, we got another round. We are hiring.
Michal Trúnek
To be honest, I joined I was around 100th employee, 110th. And now we have around 230 employees, 250. It’s going quite fast, to be honest. I think the company got some injection, some financial financial injection. So you know, one of the maybe terms and conditions, I guess, was like they need to grow, you know, they need to maybe hire someone every month. So they need to have some numbers, right? But it doesn’t mean that we are hiring everyone. Right?
Andrej Zito
Right. Well, of course. Wait, so Lokalise was your first touchpoint with localization?
Michal Trúnek
In my previous company, we used to have the application in German because the German was the main language that everyone speaks, everyone that uses the application in Germany and Austria. And then we had the English. And also I think it was Spanish and some other languages, because we are located in many countries like Italy, Denmark, Austria, Germany, and so on. So we need to keep the application like multilingual, but slowly, slowly with the market and with all the license regulations, we limited everything to Germany, and we focus on the German market. So before I was even touching a bit of automation regarding localization, but in a, like, you know, we were trying they were we didn’t read any, any, any forums, there was nothing much like online, you know, so we need to invent it. Kind of.
Andrej Zito
Okay, I see. But I think I quickly checked your profile again, before we connected today. And I think like one of your earliest jobs, there was like a translator. Is that true?
Michal Trúnek
It is true. Yeah.
Andrej Zito
So maybe that was your first point or actually for you, for you, for you. So do you do you distinguish personally like translation is different from localization? Or would you consider the role of a translator what would you did back in the days to be sort of localization?
Michal Trúnek
Yeah, I think it’s the early stages it’s kind of the hardcore way you know, you needed to pick up something and translate it properly. Now you have tools you have automatic tools as well which helps you with this, with one click you can translate the whole whole article that bit more took you like a day you know, and now you do it in 10 seconds and then you just run maybe some some automated quality checks you know, did some some tools like have and it’s much easier you know, in then you just read it, kind of proof proofread, you know, just that everything that is there is correct.
Andrej Zito
So tell me about your translation career that didn’t maybe go that well.
Michal Trúnek
So it was when I was studying in the university. I tried to earn some more money because you know, the poor students you know, we have some future crowns we’re going out with the future crowns just to to survive the night. Right. So I needed some extra money and I found back then, you know, articles about marijuana and stuff. They were like kind of legal. It was not regulated in Czech Republic and so I didn’t really care what is the content about there was just I had I needed to sign something that listen, I’m gonna do it but I don’t want to be like charged for anything, you know. So I wanted to make sure that okay, I’m gonna translate it but I was translating all the articles about the marijuana help. How to grow it? How to take care of it, you know, from Czech to Slovak, which is just super weird, but I don’t know why they even did it, but it gives me like a little money that I could I could afford something else something extra and then use it.
Andrej Zito
Okay, you could buy some marijuana.
Michal Trúnek
I think it’s legal right now, there.
Andrej Zito
Is it?
Michal Trúnek
In our country? Definitely not. But in Czech Republic they have, like, you can grow it, but in a way that it’s still legal, you know, you can’t produce it, just for your own.
Andrej Zito
Okay. But you still cannot buy commercially right? There are no shops legal.
Michal Trúnek
Ah no, I don’t think so. But I wanted to say that, even though it’s like illegal there, but I’m strictly like, against the drugs in any way, you know, to me, was like, a matter of survival. You know, I was like, right.
Andrej Zito
Right, right. Right. Right. Okay. Well, it’s still, yeah, anyway, I wouldn’t make it. Let’s, let’s move on. So okay, so what did you actually study?
Michal Trúnek
Yeah, so I studied IT. For everyone that is not into industry of, of computer science, and so on. Let’s say, I just studied IT. And later on, when I when I finished my three years and move to the master’s degree, I chose computer and communication, which is everything that, it’s, just imagine telephones are mobile, and they they are using the signal that the mobile phone is, is kind of receiving. And this was more about microcomputers. There are some PLCs, which you can use, which you can program the small things that are in the high towers that produce the signal, and then the mobile phone is receiving. So I was kind of programming this small, small boxes.
Andrej Zito
Why did you pick this specialization? Did you really want to work with something like this?
Michal Trúnek
It was out of curiosity. Because what’s the other kind of streams otherwise that I could choose was was nothing that I really like there was automation, which was more something and it’s it’s funny because it’s automation or automatisation is a bit different from automation and automatisation.
Andrej Zito
Please explain I would never think up.
Michal Trúnek
Yeah, so automatisation is like the program small boxes again is the books is the PLC and you can control it’s a robot, you can control the whole house like a like a smart smart houses we have right now we can buy, you can buy these devices that you can control the lights, you can control everything in the house, basically. And when I was studying back then this was just just in the beginning. Like really simple houses, you had some some basic coding, and then just you were just controlling the lights with the switches, so and so on. And also with your mobile phone, I was not great at it. Or if it’s let’s say the teachers didn’t give it to me the same way as because the degree or the study that I chose, I had already like a Teacher’s Day and venue that they are good. And they can explain things and they can learn a lot. On the other side, no one really like the kind of the teachers that are teaching the automatisation that that was the main reason.
Andrej Zito
And then on the other hand, what is automation?
Michal Trúnek
That’s very slight, broad topic, you need to ask me like, automation of what, because we have now automation basically for everything right? All the processes in the company are kind of automated, you can automate marketing, you can automate social networking, then there is test automation, and so on. You have also robots, you know, you can automate the robots that are in the factories, right? So right, they just need one person to to control the robot.
Andrej Zito
Going back to the thing that you started, like, what is the difference between automation and automatization?
Michal Trúnek
Automation is the process that goes in one direction. It basically almost doesn’t it just repeating one action all over again. The automatization is to make the manual process or the manual work, kind of being controlled by the robots.
Andrej Zito
Right. So if we’re if we’re going to talk about QA, are we talking about automated QA, QA automation or QA automatisation.
Michal Trúnek
I really don’t like the word automated QA. Because, for me, it’s still a myth. You know, like, always there is a QA in general; I would literally even my company when streamline and say, Listen, every automation QA would be the QE, which is quality engineer. So it’s more more accurate. You know, even when we are hiring people, we, and they are curious more about automation. We told them directly, “Listen, we don’t just automate things, you know, you need to be part of the team, you need to also make the exploratory testing and when you can, you need to test the feature itself.” But the automation itself, it’s also involved heavily, we are investing heavily in the automation as well, when it comes to delivering or so. So the manual testing is not needed, you know, because manual effort on on testing, it’s really expensive. And all the companies wants to get rid of this and move more into automation, right.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, we will discuss the, I don’t know, let’s say the benefits or the comparison a little bit later. So are you okay? If I, if I call it automated QA for this this interview? Or how would you like me to call?
Michal Trúnek
Of course, of course, automated QA is fine.
Andrej Zito
Would you have a different preference? I mean, like, we can teach the everyone who will be listening to this, like, like, this is the right term that Michal wants everyone to use?
Michal Trúnek
Listen, automated QA can be in the company. But the company needs to have a really clear picture of what QA is doing, you know, so for example, if QA wants to join us automated QA, that means he’s gonna do just automation, right? He will be in a team that takes care of the framework or creates the automated tests or maintain them, he is not part of any team, he is not part of any planning or, you know, or this feature creation. So that there is a possibility, but not every company is going this way. Every company is trying to maybe kind of help these people like Jack of all trades, you know, from something, you know, from something, at least small thing that you can kind of even replace, some companies even have QAs that can program the features. Right. I was doing this also in my previous companies, I was also able to replace the front-end developer with a small fixes, you know, small bug fixes. So it really depends on the company that how its structured, and how is the approach to the whole quality and testing.
Andrej Zito
Okay. Maybe since we’re talking about the terminology, maybe this will be boring to people. But what is the difference between QA and testing? Is there a difference? Or is it just a different way to call the same thing?
Michal Trúnek
I don’t like to be called tester.
Andrej Zito
Okay.
Michal Trúnek
You know, it’s it’s like quality engineer, and that sounds better.
Andrej Zito
But maybe not specifically, like talking about roles? Like, are you a QA engineer, or QA tester, but as a function as a role? Are we doing a QA? Or are we doing testing?
Michal Trúnek
Yeah, there is a difference. Because if you are talking about the QA, the quality can be everywhere, right? We are trying to have quality in in all the processes, even from the early stages, when creating the feature, because the quality is already there, when the developer creates the unit tests or for this for this unit, integration tests. This is already automation that the developer is already implementing together with the feature and this is a must, then many developers are also testing their product, you know, like testing, what would they develop before they ship it to the QA. If the company works agile, you know, it’s, it’s really going back, you know, sometimes developers don’t test the product at all, you know, they don’t even see how it looks, they just purchase the code. And then just simply ship it to the QA and the QA sends it back and back and forward. But if you tell him, “Listen, just, this is the way this is the best way how you can do it. Just please give it this five minutes to run it to see how it looks. So I don’t need to send it to you back and forth. You know, like you spend an hour sometimes two hours just with the small small things that can take sometimes five minutes.” And the testing itself I really but in the this theoretical terms, you know, like. Right. So it’s basically a process of evaluation, verification, that the product itself does what it’s supposed to do, you know, this prevents bugs, reducing development costs and so on. And this testing can be performed not just by QA, it can be performed by anyone, it can be performed even with the product. There is also like beta testing, alpha testing games, there’s also same thing.
Andrej Zito
Okay. Let’s go back to the original question. So how did you end up testing something.
Michal Trúnek
I was studying at the university, back in Czech Republic in Moravia. And I was already there for five years. So I finish my master and study started the post grad, I started to teach mathematics, which is a calculation, not automation, but programming of mathematical algorithms and so on. But I realized that this is really not the way that I want to go. In many aspects. And then, my colleague, he told me, “Listen, I, my company is hiring a junior QA.” I was like, “Oh yeah? Junior QA, let me see what is it.” And I was literally like, Googling, like, “what is the QA?” You know, I had no clue. The only thing that I knew was a little bit of English, you know. So okay, so just try to organize a meeting, you know, or interview. And this was basically my first interview in my life for the job, as well. And then it sounds great. I mean, it sounds great in a time that they will teach you everything from scratch, you know, they have great people, that gives you this, this opportunity and the support. Not many companies can do this for you, right? Everyone is like requesting already a knowledge of a problem, like some basics of this thing. I didn’t know anything.
Andrej Zito
So do you think that anything that you learned in your studies helped you with your first job or wasn’t really mostly what they taught you?
Michal Trúnek
It helped me in a way, there was also an English part of the interview that I needed to explain something, let’s say, what is a hockey to were five years old, you know? So that was the question in English, I need to explain myself. But in overall, I think the studies helped me to be more organized, you know, and to, to grow up, in a way in many ways. So because you are there alone, no one is gonna help you, you know, all your classmates, they’re just focused on themselves. But sometimes you also be focused on this. And in your own life, you know, you cannot depend on someone that is going to help you in any way. So this, I think, made me a better person.
Andrej Zito
I’m interested in your opinion, would you would you say that being a tester is one of the best ways how to get into the industry? And I think we can apply this also for localization. But I also interviewed some people from from the gaming industry for other jobs. And they say that, at least for the gaming, yes, it’s one of the best ways because technically, you just need to be, I don’t know, I enjoy playing games. But it’s not only about playing games, but it’s also about you know, like reporting the bugs in the right way and having the stamina to to do the same things all over again. So I know that like, like hiring testers to I don’t know, test, check version of something or select version of something has probably the least amount of requirements. Would you Would you agree with that?
Michal Trúnek
For example, when I am trying to hire a new person, recently, we hired not too senior because when I joined the company, we were trying to hire just seniors, you know, but in the long term in the long run, it’s not great, you know, and they didn’t have a limited amount of resources of amazing people that that can join the companies. But me personally, I would say that you need things that is hard to start to, to study for, you know, you need to be really keen on detail sometimes, you know, so if you’re a person that really don’t care about, about the details, is maybe not good, not, not for you. Also, like when I was a kid, I was very young, I used to build Legos, you know, I used to do the paper models and so on. But I also sometimes try to kind of destroy it. You know, I was like, Okay, I build it and then I was like, trying to destroy it. And I put, you know, the small bets that are like in our countries like For the fireworks, you know, put them in and just see what’s gonna happen. And this is kind of, in a way and like comparison to be a QA, because you as a QA needs to have the mindset of to kind of try to destroy something, you know, because if you’re a developer, you you are building something is the same as with the Lego. So this is also very important to have the engineering mindset to be able to build something, even if you are following the tutorials, or your own imagination to create something from the blocks or from from from anything. And as a QA, you also need to have the mentality to do not to treat it as a, you know, like, No, this is a glass I need, careful. But you need to have the mentality to really go go be behind this beyond the engineering and try to decompose it or kind of destroy the, right, right, the loopholes or the bugs, that you can, that’s the really opposite of being an engineer.
Andrej Zito
Right. Right. Because you’re basically mimicking what the end users might do. And it’s like them don’t really care about your product, right?
Michal Trúnek
And developers don’t have this mindset, right. So sometimes they don’t think as the customers.
Andrej Zito
Now that let’s say, I don’t know, you’re working as a as a QA, how did you get to automation? Was it from your first job, or was it later on?
Michal Trúnek
It’s basically my first project. And it was the perfect project, actually, to learn. I came across with programming languages in the university, I was studying basically everything that exists. But the problem with some universities are that they don’t teach you it in a proper way, you know, they just give it to you. And then just, it’s not, like no one cares about, you know, sometimes it just you study for this, and you pass or not, and they don’t really give you this, they just give you basics, but you need to be on your own, right. So they give you let’s say, the basics of C language. And then I really like it, maybe I want to explore it more. And sometimes they didn’t give me this kind of passion for the language, you know, they didn’t show it to me in a way that I want to be passionate about. So basically, my first job was moving automated tests from C++, C++ to C Sharp, in, in a tool that was written in C Sharp back then it inciting not, it doesn’t exist anymore, right now. But that was the perfect opportunity to for me to learn because I already saw all the all the methods, you know, all the all the all the files that were written in C++, so I needed to just convert it to the language that I was trying to teach, still trying to learn. And I can I also had very good colleague that was willing me to, to explain even go like beyond the working hours, we were working together on many projects, and I learned with him. Very important to have someone that mentored, you know, reading for us. Yeah.
Andrej Zito
But but to understand it correctly, that your very first job was already automation. Correct. Have you ever done manual testing?
Michal Trúnek
Yes.
Andrej Zito
Oh! You did.
Michal Trúnek
Yeah, we were, we were testing it at the same time, we had the project. So we were moving test, automated tests. And at the same time, the developers were developing, like new features. So we were also being involved in in manual testing. And I was also involved heavily in manual testing later on in my next companies.
Andrej Zito
Okay, so maybe let’s start getting into into this this whole area. For everyone who’s I don’t know, let’s say very junior, how would you? I mean, it it can be obvious from the names, but how would you describe the difference between manual and automatic testing?
Michal Trúnek
Manual testing is exactly like what I said before, it’s just the following certain steps. In this scenario, maybe an executing them manually, which means if you have a mobile application, you have a new feature, you grab the phone and try to execute the commands or the test steps in this scenario, that this may be already somewhere. Let’s say for example, if you’re using TestRail, or any any this tool, even if you’re starting as a junior, you already have some test scenarios that are written by maybe senior senior QA s. So your only job is to go every two through every scenario and just just mark it PASS test passed test failed. If test fails, you need to report the behavior and you do. This is also one thing about QA that you need to be able to describe things, you know, like, in an easy way that everyone understands. Because it’s not just you that is reading the description or the back itself. Right. You also need to put steps how to reproduce it back. And you need to know the behavior, what it’s supposed to do and what, what it what is it doing right now and what it’s supposed to do, and then you move it to the developer. And then if it’s really clear, the fix come back. If not, you need to have like a conversation.
Andrej Zito
Okay, so that was the manual testing, right?
Michal Trúnek
Yes.
Andrej Zito
And then at some point, do we start automating these these manual steps? Is that what automated testing is about?
Michal Trúnek
Yes, some companies don’t. Which is, for me, like a no brainer, because automation, I think, is becoming more and more and more popular, especially when you see that everything that is around you is becoming. They try to adapt things to be more efficient. You know, like, they you don’t have the scooters, you know, the scooters, and electric scooters, you don’t have them anymore, like we used to have, you know, you’re using one leg to move forward. But now we have the engine that moves moves it so so everyone is becoming lazier in a way that and it’s this is also I think about automation that everyone tries to reduce the manual labor, manual work that you need to execute. And it’s really expensive. It’s very expensive, but you need to have a lot of QAs. You cannot just have one QA because if the QA goes on a sick leave or holidays, there is no one. So you need to have a an army of manual QAs to test it, and manual QA, manual testing is also very prone to errors, the human errors that can that can happen. And the automation on the other way is making these processes smooth, is reducing the human errors, it’s more is better when it comes to the results because it’s produced the constant results. So the automation or the script that the the automation testing is producing, and then you’re executing it automatically. It’s it’s like from point A to point B without any any differences. You know, I can also talk about differences when it comes to the data testing that you have a different set of data, which always goes like different data and there is a different output as well. So that’s that’s another part but when it comes to the automation itself, it saves like the resources it makes everything faster, reliable. And when you’re shipping the product or when you’re shipping the the feature to the production, everything is automated. You have, you just the only your only job is just to open the reports and see if there any any behavior or any bugs or any filters. That’s the only thing that sometimes we do.
Andrej Zito
And so far it it seems like it’s only a win-win for everyone to introduce automation, testing, automation QA, I feel like I’m gonna say the wrong words for you. What do you think are the drawbacks? Like? Are there any cons with automation testing? Like, are there places or I don’t know some type of, I don’t know, software applications that you might want to prefer manual testing.
Michal Trúnek
I would say that it depends. And I don’t think we are gonna get rid of manual testing anytime soon. Because we still need someone to drive the automation, right, someone has to produce the test someone needs to maintain the flaky test. Flaky test is to test it sometimes fail sometimes pass. It is mainly that if I go more technical, it’s just let’s imagine that there is a pop up. That should appear after you click a button. But your test sets a timeout for the failure to seconds and the pop up still loads. There’s something wrong with the network in the popup shows after three seconds and the test fails. The next time the pop up shows after one second and the test pass. So this is also about the design itself. This design of the test, design of the engine, design of the framework and so on. Automation that there are a lot of a lot of advantages of automation but it needs to be done in a good way in a in an efficient way, right? So if you do it correctly, it does reduce the manual work and the repetition that every QA needs to go through manually, which can take five hours, the automation can do it in 10 minutes, you know, you can run 1000 tests in 15 minutes, that’s what we are currently having. But still is not perfect. Not it’s not not perfect in a way that still, okay, you run the automation, but you have also all the dependent all other dependencies that can be like, for example, if you have just UI tests, that don’t really test the design, you know, like the feature can produce a small issues more back that the automation cannot, cannot track, you know, cannot catch. So, even if so if the QA because we right now, we are testing in the early phase, like a manual effort we are putting into feature testing, because we don’t have yet, let’s say you don’t have yet the automated tests with a new feature, you’re, let’s say you’re going with a new feature that is doing something that is not yet automated. And this, this needs the manual testing, right. So the QA needs to go through the acceptance criteria needs to go. So this thing does this thing. And also try to kind of go around it, see if it’s maybe back back free. And then you move it to the to the next next phase, right, we want to release feature. So we run the automation, suit, regression, which makes sure that this new feature is not breaking anything. When you let’s say you merge this feature into the whole whole chunk, or like a development or the master branch, whatever you want to call it. The regression testing or regression tests, make sure that this new feature is not breaking anything, right when you see it in the whole picture, when it comes to the functionality. But when it comes to the design, as I was mentioning before, it can happen that the QA missed it, you know, or something happened, you know, in a CSS file, because the automation only cares about the web elements, let’s say you know, so you’re finding the web elements by ID of the element or by any locator that you can imagine. But it doesn’t really care about how it looks, you know, it will click on the button even even if the buttons like this, you know, so it doesn’t really care how the mind looks right, then you have another automation, when you want to get rid of these. And when your application is more keen on the detail. You have these visual testing, which is taking the snapshots of the of the elements or the website itself? And is it comparing to the previous one. So let’s say you introduce a new feature. And this visual testing makes sure that nothing else is broken, you know, so when when there is an issue, it will clearly even highlight the element or thing that is supposed not to be there. Are we supposed to be different? Why no, that design is not broken as well.
Andrej Zito
Okay, but so, I assume that in your ideal world, every company would be doing automated testing. But I can guess that for a lot of the people, there will be the question of the budget, the money and whether the investment is actually going to pay off. So I don’t know what say if you are a company that’s currently doing only manual testing, what would be the I don’t know the parameters or I don’t know some numbers, that you would check to advise the company if they should start thinking about automation or not.
Michal Trúnek
I would say its really complex. Because I think the automation is now the essential, it’s it should be involved and whoever says the opposite is really old guy and automation, because automation is everywhere, right? When you see the pyramid, the testing pyramid, which have the unit tests on the bottom unit tests are the tests that test the small unit small classes and small functions in the code is the static analysis, you know, so first, automation is already unit testing. So in every good software is already shipped with with the unit with the huge numbers of unit tests that test this small chunks you know, then you have integration everything is for now you don’t need a QA everything is written by the developers right? And therefore this minimum you just need to have a good tool and the tools are free. Right. So the tools for the automation are free, so the only thing you need is may be just one QA. If you don’t want to invest in QA, in general, you want to keep it in a low level, you want to automate, let’s say, only the APIs or unit tests. And you don’t want to have any any UI test to reach for, for you need a QA, you still want, you can still keep the QAs as manual. But the automation is already there, right? So if we are talking about the automation, in general, it’s already there. Even when you when you think about delivering stuff, it’s already automated, this is not the automation that what would I am working with, but there is also automation provided by DevOps, right? So they need to automate the process of merging the code or the feature to the to the master, then to run with maybe some checks, some basic checks for the code, some unit test, and then ship it automatically to the production. Because without that, you would need to do everything manually, you know, all the scripts, you need to execute manually one by one. And from here, the human errors, that’s what I was talking about that someone can miss something, you know, once that and then ship the product that is completely incorrect. You know, so you, you also need to end with this automation, you make sure that is constant, right? It is delivers you in a way that you want. Like, there is no human error kind of involved in, in idle world. And everything is created correctly. It’s so yeah, automation. For me, it’s a must.
Andrej Zito
Okay, so maybe I don’t know if this will be a crazy idea. But let’s say I’m the developer of how was the game called I don’t know, flappy wings, or like, you know, like some very silly mobile game device. Do you still think I need Michal to? Do I need to hire someone like like you? Or to do the automated QA or no? Like, are there some cases where you really do something very small, where the automation doesn’t make sense? And let’s focus on the on the on the QA, like, like what you do like not what the developer should be doing.
Michal Trúnek
If there will be a QA, there will be definitely manual testing involved, like you need to still test the product, right? Yes, things to go through some. But automation, honestly, I cannot tell you how they automate stuff. They definitely have unit tests. And I cannot imagine how I would automate again. That’s, that’s one thing I want always wanted to know. I was reading some stuff, but you know, I play sometimes, like PC games, but I was always wondering like, do they have automation QA? You know, like, do they kind of automate it? I cannot even imagine how would you automate it.
Andrej Zito
I’m not not sure if I seen it, but there must be a way how you can, let’s say, program what the character does in the game. So technically, in a way, you could automate that? And I don’t know, maybe to some screenshots or like record a footage of the gameplay? I don’t know. And maybe then have someone review it? I don’t know, I’m just thinking out loud.
Michal Trúnek
It’s interesting, I would definitely try to go more in a quote, I would not go. Because then what you see that that is verify but someone else, right? And you need to really have a hands on to, you know, to see if the character is built correctly, the environments correctly, or the character acts correctly. I would imagine automation, maybe just imagine the character walking in the environment. And maybe there can be some set of tests or a set of data that, like simulate the movement, because in the end, it’s just a mesh, right? And then it’s everything is everything is on it, like all the model. So I would maybe, I don’t know, maybe some unit tests that interacts with the environment, what would happen if this touches the environment, you know, so for these, maybe they have already some unit tests. But it’s just like, I haven’t even read them all the time. We’re just imagining it how how it could work.
Andrej Zito
Right, right. Right. Okay, so that was one of my questions like, like, what are the types of I don’t know, things that we can test automatic? Like a games, we talk about games right now, like probably potentially, there could be a way and yes, you are not an expert on that. What are the more typical cases like can we automate testing for any software? Is the desktop, is it, I don’t know, web-based? Is it mobile, anything? Could we even automate testing for I don’t know, you mentioned the smart homes, right. Do you think there’s automated testing there as well? Is there something that can be automated or shouldn’t be automated?
Michal Trúnek
Definitely because I I already mentioned the unit tests that are basically done by developers. Usually, sometimes it can be even a QA. So that is the first thing that even let’s say, my field, imagine my field, and the unit tests are for us the basic right, then we also have the integration tests that are interacting with the unit itself. So the unit is interacting with another unit, like on a on a code perspective. And then you have the API automation, which are the basic endpoints that kind of serve. So that is another level of automation, which should be I think, it’s really stable, the tests themselves are not dependent on on the application, you know, or on the server or just imagine the UI or the website, and the APIs are behind it, right. So they’re a bit though they’re level down. And they are more stable because they, you don’t need the UI, you know, you don’t need the interaction, you just interact on the APS. And then as I mentioned, on the top should be this this UI, which should, sometimes in an old term, which stuck into classic testing pyramid, which in my experience is like, not many companies are following it, many companies have the UI test, like, they are investing heavily in the UI test. So this is from the point of view of web application or website, right. So similar is also for the software that you mentioned. So I used to automate a software in my previous company, and it was a big, it was very tricky back then it was like six years ago, and you know how these frameworks evolve. So definitely there are like, more and more things like on the market, and sometimes even for free, you know, that they can interact with the elements themselves. What one thing kind of compared to this one is also automation of the mobile applications, right? Which is a bit better, a bit easier, because, for example, I don’t know if you know, Appium, it’s really famous for mobile automation. So it literally can even spin up the simulator. So you don’t even need the real devices, you can have even the simulator on your machine, it pops up the real phone, install the app. So the tests are starting on the really low level installation, and installation. And then you load the app. And then you are working with the elements and trying to mimic the user how how he would click you know, or and then you verify the the output then when I mentioned also, also on their mobile devices, you can spin up the browser, right? So which is really similar to the one that you’re running on your on your computer, for example, but it just means the the web, or the web browser on your phone, right? So you’re interacting with elements inside the app, but just the elements like Web Elements, because when you’re interacting with the elements in the native app, that the locators are a bit different, the structure is a bit different, you know? So you also need to use different locators. It’s more complicated, I would say.
Andrej Zito
Well, that’s funny that you mentioned that it’s complicated, because I would like you to actually simplify it because, like, I have some idea about like how this whole thing works. But for people who are probably not very familiar with QA in general, they will be like, Okay, what are these guys talking about? Like, how can something I don’t know, imitate clicking? Let’s leave the unit testing and the integration testing aside, because that’s like the code thing. But maybe let’s talk about I don’t know, let’s let’s take example of, I don’t know, Spotify. Let’s say I have a Spotify and let’s focus on the mobile app. How can we automatically test something like what is the principle of the tools? Like how can they do something that a human normally has to do like, okay, like I launched the app, put in my I don’t know, username, password, I log in, and I don’t know, start playing a song. How can something automate this and and if you can simplify it, it’s okay. But also don’t be shy to talk more like on a technical level, if like, if you understand how the tools actually work?
Michal Trúnek
Yes, so So the basic principle of automation is to automate everything that you try to do manually in an automated way, in a scripted way, kind of. So first, I will put just an example of a website. Just imagine the type the google.com. So everything that you do from the beginning. So imagine that you start fresh ripping your laptop, you open the browser, which is also first step in the framework or in the script. So the first first step in the script is to do spin up the instance of the browser, which is specifically modified like a Chromium. It doesn’t is not called Chrome, but it’s called as a Chromium, which is the engine of the chrome. It’s specifically built for the automation to interact with the elements on the website. So imagine, you have you have your browser up, and then you type in the URL, the google.com. So everything spins up. This is also the first step, or the next step in the test. So it it opens the website, which there are like specific methods or actions that the framework you choose can do. So let’s say my first method will be called go to google.com. This is the first step while test, the next step would be anything that you want, we will be can see the input. And so we would like to type something. In the same way, we use another method from the framework, which is really simple. You can even if you are a junior, and we are starting with automation, these frameworks offer like really nice tutorials and really nice step by step, what you should do, which is super nice. Like many of them already have this feature, which is which is very nice. So you have your your input, and then you type, whatever is inside, to find the elements, this is also really important step. So first, you need to know, right? So to open the website, you don’t need any elements, right? So you just need to have to have the browser type it open it. But for the input, you need to know and you need to locate the input itself, right. So for example, me personally, I like to do it the old way that I go to the browser, click, click with the right mouse, and then go like, inspect element. Every browser has this functionality to inspect the element. And this is the main tool where many developers or many QAs are using, you can do many things, you can see the code, you can see what is behind. So not everyone tried to open it maybe ever. But if you do, you can you can do anything you can do even simulating the clicks, you don’t even need the framework or the code, you can just do it with a console that this inspector offers.
Andrej Zito
Interruption here. So just so that I understand that what are you looking for in the code? I can only have some idea based on what what I do when I inspect things. So are you looking for IDs, like C CSS IDs? On the on the thing? Or what are you looking for? How can you identify that let’s say the field, the input field.
Michal Trúnek
The field, you can identify in many ways, if you don’t really know how to write the syntaxes for the locators, you can inspect it manually, which you just grabbed the button and then you just point on it, you know, it automatically highlights you the element. And from the element, you can even right click and go like give me the XPath. XPath is one of the ways that checks the code. XPath is going through the XML which converts the whole website to the XML format. And then by by some is quite quite difficult to kind of explain that before someone that never across about it. But you can do it even if you don’t know anything. Locator would be terrible, like every good will tell you what the hell is this. But still, it will run the test maybe the first time you know, but as you mentioned, IDs, the best way, the easiest way, if the element has the ID that that’s the way. So sometimes there are also opinions that also text is is quite popular to to search by text. So let’s say you have the button which is called Login, right? So you can also search by this by this button. Then you have the CSS selector, which goes through the HTML, this is the best and the fastest way. But not met not many times not not many applications are written in a way that are really QA friendly. It’s automation friendly, some of them needs super complex XPath, you know, and these produce also the errors in the latest phases. When you change the code. You change the class and the test break. Let’s that is also another point is maintenance basically.
Andrej Zito
And another thing that again, I can’t imagine this, when you were talking about you’re adding the steps to the script. How does it look like does it look like like writing code? Or is it something that that looks more like I don’t know, no code, low code thing where I can just add in no select depths from like some big pool of like, well, you can do this. You can do this. You can do that.
Michal Trúnek
You have many frameworks that you can choose from, you can choose even the hard way, which is you just have the framework. But just put in an example you have the Puppeteer or Playwright Selenium, Selenium is very popular, WebDriver that’s the way that is like full cold, right, you don’t have any any UI that you can see and interact. Then you have Cypress, which is really popular as well, right now it’s becoming like more and more popular. So with the Cypress, you can spin up spin up kind of any UI way that you see everything, basically. So you, you just read the clicks, you can generate even the load code, which is then being generated by the clicks into your code directly. So we are starting with don’t even need to code, you know, you can you can learn with this.
Andrej Zito
Is there a way? I’m not sure if I if I got this right, the Cypress one, is it that I first actually do the action myself as the user? And then it kind of like records where I clicked? Or is it just like selecting the steps from some UI within that?
Michal Trúnek
You can basically do everything by clicking. So you open the website, which when you pick up, I don’t know, I not really user of Cyprus, but I know how the product looks. And I know how it’s how is the execution. So you can maybe record it, you just imagine that you simply hit the record button. And everything that you do on the website, either It also records you in trust, transform it into the code, which you can execute, like, you execute everything and just hit play, and it will repeat everything that you executing. And you see step by step, and even the visual one that what this is actually doing.
Andrej Zito
I see. I see. So it’s kind of like recording a macro, right?
Michal Trúnek
Yeah, exactly.
Andrej Zito
Okay.
Michal Trúnek
Not my thing.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, I remember one thing that the last macro that I recorded, it was, I don’t know, like, couple of years ago, there was this popular Facebook games from I think Zynga. Zynga was the big game game producer on Facebook. And there was this No, like farm, some farmland, you know, and you had to remember there every time and you know, just get the crop and plant new seeds, and so on water it and everything. So I just created a recorded a macro for that. And clicking.
Michal Trúnek
Yes, there are many things that you can automate. Like, it is not about testing, right. So sometimes, just imagine that there is a really important football game going on, or there is a really important like a concert that you want to see. And everything is about the speed, right. So there’s like a like a countdown. So you can actually automate it in a way that it do everything. So it even buy you the ticket. So you don’t even need to see the browser. It will do it headless in headless mode meant so in automation, you can run the test in headed mode, which is everything that it pops up the the website, and you see every every action to the end. But then you have also headless mode, which doesn’t run the browser, you just run it in the background, but it’s still clicking on everything. So so it removes the need of spinning up the browser, like like, you know, with the UI. And this way, the many people are just running macros and automation to buy many tickets, you know, like, but that’s another way.
Andrej Zito
I see. Yeah, that reminds me of something else from my last job because we created this. I don’t know work distribution system. Basically, it was running on the Redmine. Not sure if you know Redmine. You do, right? Because it’s technically related. It’s a defect tracking system, I think originally, but we were using it to create something where we created automatically tickets for different jobs. Like let’s say we had a project and that you have, I don’t know 12 tickets for 12 languages to do QA on them. And we would just send this tickets to like a pool of people and they could go and claim the ticket kind of like, “hey, I’m interested in this job.” And I know that one guy told us that he had some automated script, which was just grabbing all the jobs right away. So he was hoarding the jobs for himself. So I guess automation can earn you some money. Alright, so we mentioned the tools. Just Just briefly, my interest would be which tool do you like personally and why? And maybe which tool would you recommend to someone who’s starting with automation?
Michal Trúnek
I used many tools in my career so far. I started with the one that I mentioned in my first job that is in doesn’t exist anymore. But later on, I was using Selenium which is really, really, really popular as well. WebDriver IO, which is another framework that you can use. But currently that I really love that we are using currently in the company is the Playwright and is basically, from the developers of Puppeteer, I guess. And now the Playwright is being owned by Microsoft. And this is completely free. I would go differently for for Playwrights, when it when it comes to the UI testing, of course.
Andrej Zito
Okay. But yeah, I assume that as you know, like I mentioned, seeing the posts from Lokalise that you get some investment rounds, I assume that the reason why you like this, too, is not because it’s free. I mean, like, if there was something better, I assume that you would be able to get it. I mean, the company would be able to get it. So why do you like this one?
Michal Trúnek
Honestly, when I joined Lokalise, I didn’t know anything about the tool. I was using different tool before, it was also also free. But I guess we chose the tool because it has so many benefits. Compared to others, it has really nice debugger. So the keyways know what I’m talking about. And also, it can use like a locators that are not not native, like native locators, I mean, like a CSS or ID, it can also use something that is created by playwright so they have their own locators, you know, so they can link the locators in a way, that is incredible how they do it. And also, like, there is like a, sometimes battles between what to do is better if it’s high praise or play, right. And then many times, me personally, I would never go for four Cypress, for example, I don’t know, it’s, it’s just my preference, my preference. And I really like to be able to control the framework, right? So because, because right now we can, we can really control like, how we want to have the methods how we, everything that we do, as the engine, we can basically tune it for our own needs, you know, if you, if you need to repeat the tests, when it fails, you can just simply, you know, so you can code, you can code, anything that you want even the report. So, I would always go for Playwrights, for example.
Andrej Zito
So far, we’ve been mostly talking about testing in general. So just to give the folks an idea, so Michal, of course is doing the automated QA for Lokalise, as the product as like an adviser to the clients have Lokalise, but in some time, in the near future, Lokalise will also start localizing their product, which is called Lokalise. And this is where maybe I would like to tie it back to, I would say, typical audience of the podcast who actually have to deal with localization, or people who are having to deal with English product, and then localization of the products. So everything that we’ve covered so far, I’m trying to think where to start, like, okay, like you have a bunch of scripts for the English product, okay, localized? How would you start to develop even some kind of automated localization strategy for testing?
Michal Trúnek
Yeah, I have a picture in my mind. So we have the framework already, right? So, as the main framework that executes the scripts, you can use basically anything, right? So WebdriverIO, Playwright, anything that you can imagine, but to be able to maybe automate, also the localization or internalization? If we would need also another tools, right. So we need something that we that will scan the the application that you’re that you want to test. So, we need a scanner, that checks the language that the product is already having, right. So there are a few for example, in my previous company, we used to as I mentioned, we used to have the product in the German, the English and so on, we and we used I18N, which is the library of NodeJS, and we were able to tell the test, “hey, set this website to English right? So you can set that, you can send the parameters or some website have this nice feature that already in the URL you can you can change the language. So, so just imagine that you have these three versions, let’s, let’s go for the English, German and Spanish. So we have the main framework that writes a script. So the first step would be maybe to open the browser in a different languages, right? So, so we needed to test that. So we will tell the script, open this test three times in a different language. So all the time that is going to open it, and the next time, it’ll be in a different language. So we have this. And we need a tool that kind of scan the website and checks which language actually is the website, right. And there is like, as I mentioned, 18. And then a really nice one is called France. So France is like, for the detection of the language. So it has some library. And basically, basically, it reads the text of the elements. So we were talking before about the elements about the locators, we have the ID, and we will, let’s say you have the pop up, we are going to test the pop up or just the content of of an element with with the ID that you were mentioning before, and you have some sentences there. And this France takes the content of the element and basically detect the language. And then from these, it generates the ISO code, which is the ISO for let’s say, it will be in English, it will be EN right? Then it will send the response back to the to the framework, and it will tell them, “Listen, this, this website is in English.” And then so we have the content, we have everything scanned, we have all the content that we need, from the website, let’s say it will be few sentences, we will send it to the framework. And in the framework, we also need something that we compare it with, right. So we need some some kind of data provider, I would say, and something that can also check that the content that is on the website equals with the one that with the extracted one we that we have saved right in in the dataset, or in the data provider, that it’s kind of feeding you the content, the expected result of the content that is on the website. And this content I was now thinking like this content can be even from a tool that provides you the translations, right. So you just fetch the data from the provider to the framework. And you don’t need to set even a data like sometimes with these data providers, you need to set the title or content of the website, let’s see about. So you will have the about and you will have the content that you want it to be on the website, stored in the framework. And from the France, you will get the content, and you need to compare it. Right. So it so if it matches, check, check, check, check passed or test passed, right. And then you need to have kind of repetition for every language that you have. So let’s say the application is in English, German, and Spanish. So the test will be executed three times for a different language. But we’ll be checking the content in the language that should be better. That’s how I would like imagine it to be.
Andrej Zito
Maybe maybe we’ll do part two once you actually start doing it. Before and after. I was curious about you know, like when we’re talking about the scripts within the framework, like would you maintain one script for, for everything like that cover all the languages? Or would you have script for each language. And why?
Michal Trúnek
I would have one script. Because that’s the thing you also need, especially when in automation, you need to make some things that you can reuse. So the reusability, and especially the repetition should not be there. Let’s say you have one test, let’s imagine you have three tests in a row. And you are changing just one thing in the test. But the rest of the steps is the same. So we also need to move the code that is common, like to a specific method that you will just call in the test, which will reduce the code as well. So in this way, I would definitely go for one piece of code, one test, let’s say testing, translation in about page, right. So this is one test and this test will be executed three times with with a different for a different language. So just imagine that if you’ll be looping, if you grab now the link in English, German, Spanish, and finished the same coat.
Andrej Zito
Right, right. I remember that. When I was doing some some some some bug fixing, I think it was actually with Microsoft when I started. And I was working as an engineer, I think they were doing a lot of automated testing. And they were sending us back screenshots. And I think the comparison was English, to the localized version, that the example that he gave us was more like, do we have the right translation in the right place? Maybe Maybe you’re not familiar with this. But a lot of the times when you do localization, the issues are that I don’t know, the strings are too long. Maybe you know, it doesn’t fit the button, is this something that can be also automatically detected? Or do we need to send this create the screenshots and send them to people to review?
Michal Trúnek
This is localization. I think, like, localization is making the whatever we get from the internalisation that it fits the people that we ourselves are on or the website is displayed in a way that that we want, right is not breaking anything. Like if you’re having English word, and then you go into German, which, from a four letter word can be two sentences, you know, sometimes, and we need to make sure that the button is not broken. Right, right. So this can be the I would definitely go for the visual tests, especially for the critical part that are like login registration. Sometimes it can even write the inputs, right. So the critical parts, I would cover with visual testing in a in a same way, exactly in the same way, as we were doing right now. But maybe I would add, also the visual testing, like a snapshot. So we have a snapshot, that is the one that supposed to how it’s supposed to looks. And then on the other side, you have the one that is the one that actual one, and then you just compare it with the different translations, right? You don’t really want maybe the whole website, you can, you can even compare the buttons themselves. So let’s say the registration can sometimes break the button because it’s too long, you will just compare the elements, right. So you don’t need to compare the text itself. Because I guess it’s not for the QA to decide how, how the tech should be this is coming from the product and designers, and whatever sounds better for the customers, right? Because not every translation that even the tools provide is the perfect, like, example, how the button should should be caught. Right? If if the translation is too long, it also doesn’t look nice to the customer. You also need to kind of improvise and make it shorter. Right.
Andrej Zito
You mentioned the the key think internationalization, and that is I think, a great thing to to mention, because I’m going to ask you, since you’re just going to start to localize the product, has it been properly internationalized already? Or were you testing if it was internationalized correctly somehow, like is Lokalise as a product ready to be localized well?
Michal Trúnek
The question is, if if our tests are ready to be localized, because we are using many locators with text, right? And the text is just English. So just imagine did you switch the language done, all the tests can happen that they fail. If they have just the locator that is keen on the translation. So but we already have like, already planned for the future that we also like to replace this locators. And also you will be fetching for the button different translations. So you would expect goals, different translations website, but we haven’t started it yet. The I think the plan localization of the localized product is in 2023. I think it’s Q2. But I, this can really vary because we have so many plans in right now and maybe more important because we also think that the localized product is being used mainly by developers or product you know, and they already being the friend.
Andrej Zito
Yeah, I assume maybe you heard about like pseudo localization where you just instead of like doing the actual translation or doing machine translation, you just replace the English strings which with kind of like a hash of like extended characters. Just to see if if the if this product you know, can display it correctly. Or maybe you just kind of like simulate you know, what we were talking about with German, that may be like English string is like this and then you know, like the pseudo will be like way longer, and if it would still fit in that. Have you already done something like this on the English product or not yet, because you’re not, you’re actually quite far from starting the localization.
Michal Trúnek
For our products, definitely, I do it. Sometimes for the new features that we added to the, let’s say you don’t have the translation, but you still need to make sure that the button doesn’t break when you add the characters. And also, when you resize the screen is especially like, being the you know, the order, the elements are moved to another side, the buttons change the size. So this is mainly like, but automation way, I haven’t just manual, just just to make sure that the button can consume this amount of characters, especially the input field, sometimes, you know, they they tend to break if the text is too long.
Andrej Zito
Good, I think, okay, let’s do two more questions about this one, maybe I should have asked him earlier because we were talking about it, but and you already mentioned some of the things. So we were talking at the beginning that being a QA tester, someone who does a manual testing is one of the easier ways how to get into the industry, would you say that it’s easier to start as a manual tests are done than someone who does automation, automation engineer?
Michal Trúnek
I don’t know if it’s easier to be honest. Because, for example, when we are hiring people, I really like when someone starts with the manual testing. And it’s because of the foundations, you know, and the mentality. Because sometimes the automation QAs can become like the developers, sometimes they don’t really like what they’re doing. So they, so they go for something easier, you know, so they cannot really do the development, they just go for automation, because they already know the code. And automation is not, if you are not creating the framework from scratch, or if you are not doing complicated things in the engine, then automation itself is a good start when you want to start even development, you know, if you want to be a developer, you can already start. But I really don’t like it when someone doesn’t have the foundations of the QA, especially in the, in the mindset, I would definitely even suggest to start as a manual QA, to see how it is, to see how hard it is sometimes, sometimes you can even struggle in a way that you repeat things all over again. And you struggle in a way that you don’t learn new things, and you don’t go up in your career, or you don’t learn new things. You know, if if you don’t really do it on your in your free time, at work, you will never learn new things. If you’re just a manual QA, you know, it’s really hard. And sometimes this can lead to frustration, right? So people that are just manual QAs. They say, “Oh, I have enough,” you know, they tend to they tend to leave because they it’s just a monotonous work. The whole thing’s for sometime.
Andrej Zito
But do you think that maybe that the routine could lead some people to finding a way how to automate their their work? I know that laziness.
Michal Trúnek
I hope so. And I think that’s how automation was invented. You know, like, I don’t know what to do, let’s just let’s try to find a way that more efficient way to reduce it in order to remove this manual labor.
Andrej Zito
You mentioned in the early beginning, if I remember this correctly, that would you definitely want to see in the people is having an eye for detail. And I think we can argue with that when we’re talking about testing. But what about automation QA engineer, like who are you personally looking for? Does the attention to detail still matter even for automation?
Michal Trúnek
Maybe not. But I still think if you have the foundations of the manual QA, you see, you still need to even even if you don’t have it, it can be developed, right? If you are hiring a junior, but you see the right right mindset, to learn new things and to really be patient on anything that is doing or not just sitting in is doing the things even to sometimes you can see in the person that maybe he doesn’t have enough skills, let’s say now, but maybe in five years, the person can be much better than me. You know, sometimes I feel like, “Oh, he’s so good,” you know, but you see like, “he’s so rude, but he’s really willing, and he’s really like what he’s doing, he is like reading books, or listening podcasts,” or this is already a sign that the person really wants to go somewhere. And when when you have these talents, you know, that can go even, that can be better, definitely the new, I would definitely go for a person like this, than for someone that is like, you know, from have skills and, but really not pleasant to talk to, or not willing to maybe mentor someone, you know, because there are people like that, they like to work on their own things, and they just leave me alone, they want to do my own things. And sometimes we are trying to hire people that are kind of better than us. But better in a sense, not right now, you know. It can even have like a skills that you don’t have, for example, there is a curated nose performance testing, right? And you don’t have it, you don’t even look looking for it. But he’s so good. Even if he’s lacking the other things, this can benefit us. And also, in other ways, like, not that person is good right now. But it can be good in 10 years. And it can even be like amazing, you know, so this is more important than.
Andrej Zito
but are you looking like for the I don’t know, the ambition or the pursuit of growth as the main thing? Or are you, would you somehow be able to judge or evaluate the potential when it comes specifically to QA?
Michal Trúnek
Yeah, sometimes I’m trying to not follow the scripts that we have, you know, from the hiring managers. And sometimes I really go with my gut feeling. Kind of like recently, we moved the technical part from the home assignment. So sometimes, before we used to send a home assignment, that is like a create framework, and how automate these test cases, but create everything from scratch, right? Create a project and then ship it to us. And we just open it, and we see that everything works fine, you see how it goes and stuff. But we moved everything recently to live coding sessions, which can be super challenging, especially for someone this is really stage fright, is it called that can cannot perform in front of someone, you know, this is very common. And it happened to us, like many times, and happened to me recently, I had a candidate I saw the moves of the keyboard, you know how he was even, it didn’t even like the IntelliJ, this kind of publication that that you used to call them? And he was like, “I don’t, I don’t like really this this Visual Studio, no, I will, I will do it in a in, even in the in the terminal,” you know, he was some people are even able to call in a terminal, which is crazy. And I saw these moves of you know, the, and how he called and he doesn’t look up anything. And I was like, but he was not really succeeding in a way that he did some small mistakes, you know, like, the locator was incorrect. But everything around like everything else was was amazing was like, what to do? And I if I have to judge you based on what you would you did? It would be a no. And I even told him, “Listen, I will try to give you the assessment. And from there, we will see,” you know, and I even told him to just make sure that the assessment is great. You know, and then he sent us one of the best we ever, we ever got. So this is one of the things that sometimes matters.
Andrej Zito
You mentioned that the collaboration aspect, I think that’s, that’s one thing that I didn’t ask you about how big of a role does it play for a QA engineer, like in automation to collaborate? Is it really necessary? Like, do you really need to deal a lot with the developers or not so much.
Michal Trúnek
I think is the most important thing, especially when you’re working remote, you are not in the office. So the collaboration right now, it’s, it’s even more reasonable, you know, because you need to interact with everyone in order like everyone, and especially for QA’s, we need to discuss the, even if it’s acceptance criteria, even if it’s design, even if it’s the product, or the flow, what or what the product should do. So you need, sometimes you’re interacting with the product, then you being the design, then you go to the developer, and with the developer, you really need to have the bond, in a way it will be on a day-to-day basis, you know, the collaboration between the dev and QA is really essential. And sometimes there is also collaboration, even with DevOps, you know, you have collaboration with the whole company, basically, because you need to interact with the developers, then you need to, let’s say, run the tests on the pipeline, on the Jenkins, for example, and something went wrong, and you don’t have the right so you need to also contact with this person, because it’s not, not gonna be solved by itself. So the collaboration is important.
Andrej Zito
Does it matter if I’m a junior person or a senior or do do junior people, let’s say I start working and don’t know anything. I assume that you would be I don’t know, teaching me the basics. Would I still have to deal with other people or no.
Michal Trúnek
Definitely, definitely, you’re already dealing with me, right, as the main be.
Andrej Zito
True. Yeah. But I think even I have, you know, like, it’s different. They were dealing with someone one-on-one versus dealing with a group.
Michal Trúnek
Yes, some people don’t really like to be talking in front of a big group. Yeah. Some someone just prefer to be on one-on-one, and they can even explain themselves better when they are on one-on-one, especially when you have a QA manager. And the if they need to say something in front of the group, let’s say on the retrospective with the team. And sometimes they are afraid, you know, this, you know, I cannot say these maybe I don’t know what the material had. Right? Sometimes they can even go and sometimes that deal with it after you know, so they like being people like, I didn’t know why. I shouldn’t say it or so you know, so they sometimes they are afraid. And this is maybe more for juniors I would say. But yeah, it doesn’t matter if you’re a junior or senior, you’re dealing with the same same people. Sooner or later, you have to go there. And the sooner the better.
Andrej Zito
All right. Well, thank you for sharing all the information about QA, testing and automation. Is there anything else maybe that I didn’t ask you about when it comes to automation that you would want to mention? Or are we ready to move on to the personal questions?
Michal Trúnek
Actually, before this meeting, I didn’t think about things that I told you. Like, especially the internationalization and localization, like how would you deal with the automation? I was just saying this could be okay. So I was already thinking to like implemented, you know, like this could be possible. So I already have the solution for the future. Okay. Thanks to you.
Andrej Zito
Alright, so, now that you stopped thinking about how to how to do the localization testing, tell me what else are you curious about right now? Because you mentioned you know, that’s a funny thing. You mentioned them, the fact that you like people who want to learn. So what is it that you are maybe trying to improve on?
Michal Trúnek
What I’m curious about right now is just waiting, but I’m curious about the politics and way in my country, in my home country because I really care what is gonna happen because my family’s is there you know and and all the circus that is there, it’s, it’s quite interesting. I heard to talk about political is not the right thing so I’m not gonna do it. I just say it’s about the politics I also followed from the history and from the story point of view like after the ’89 when, when the communism ended and we become like, Czechoslovakia and then we split. I am most following like, the more to the dark history didn’t did not these 90s and the mafia. And I was really interested in this I read many books about this fictional nonfictional, I really love it. But apart from this, I really active person, I would say, and I do a lot of CrossFit, functional training and, and stuff like this, it’s everything about sport is it’s that what I’m passionate about, I would say.
Andrej Zito
So is there something that you are like trying to improve when it comes to CrossFit, like do more, I don’t know, reps or what is that you do?
Michal Trúnek
I also do calisthenics, which is the workout with your own bodyweight, without any weights, and there are some tricks that you can learn on the way. And they’re really challenging. That’s something that keeps me there like to, to keep pushing till you don’t know it, or writing a perfect record. Sometimes, yeah, this is something that they like about it, it’s not just that keeps you fit. That’s just the benefit of it. But you also need to because you like it, you know, when you are in it, you really enjoy it.
Andrej Zito
Anything about work-related?
Michal Trúnek
Work-related – I’m trying now to learn more into the elite role, because I was recently promoted to be a QA lead for our tribe. And that’s something that is super challenging for me, because I’ve never be I have never been a manager before. And there is a lot to learn. And, and that’s what I’m trying to improve right now. I’m I’m reading few books, and I’ve also started some following some podcasts and then some interesting, interesting things.
Andrej Zito
What kind of books are you reading for it?
Michal Trúnek
I would like to I don’t know the name. But I just Googled the best ones, I should check the best reviews, you know, like not the dinosaur manager style. But the new, the new one, like from the Simon Sinek there is this Leaders Dying Last.
Andrej Zito
Leaders Eat Last, I think?
Michal Trúnek
Exactly, exactly. That’s the one. Yeah, that’s the next one in the list.
Andrej Zito
But I was having this discussion with someone recently actually, one of my sort of like a customer. And he was that, that he’s not a good manager that he prefers to do tech stuff or creation stuff. So from what I understood, this is going to be like this new role will be kind of like a, like you’re going to try it and see if it actually works. Do you feel like internally for yourself that you would be a good manager? Or do you still think that maybe you would miss the more techie part?
Michal Trúnek
Yes. As you as you said, I have this opportunity to be kind of in a trial period. I think it’s called interim position. I need to see it to be honest. And but, but I already was, and I’m mentoring QAs and I really like it, you know, like it’s, you’re giving the knowledge. So in a way, sometimes the QA manager needs also to be a good mentor. Right? So you need to, need to know how to, and yeah, that’s one thing. I’m looking forward to it to be honest.
Andrej Zito
Okay, I think I, maybe once we published this interview, you can share it with your future team, so that they have some idea about who is going to be their boss. But yeah, on that note, actually, yes, this is this is the the girlfriend question. What’s something that people seem to misunderstand about you? So you told me before we started recording that you actually ask your girlfriend about it. So what was the what was the insight that she gave you?
Michal Trúnek
She told me that I came across as a very serious person. Like the first interaction with me It’s like, leave me alone. And don’t right, you know, but I think it’s just me how I am. But I’m not really that serious that sometimes I look. So I used to play poker as long before, that also helped me sometimes, you know, in some situations. This is the thing that, I also think the same, but I didn’t want to admit it.
Andrej Zito
Maybe because you first need to get accustomed to the people, like build some relationship until you I don’t know, open up, or is it just in general that you just like, like, your energy is more like midtone, and you’re not like crazy.
Michal Trúnek
I need to build a relationship first. I really don’t tend to trust people, when I first meet them. I’m really sometimes closed. But after a while, when I know that I can trust the person or I can trust the group, I’m quite open, right. But up until then, maybe I’m also a bit introverted. So that’s, that’s the thing that doesn’t help with this image.
Andrej Zito
I ask a lot about this, like introvert versus extrovert? What is your definition of being an introvert? Is it that you try to stay away from people? Or is it that if you’re with people? Well, you mentioned the collaboration aspect of your role in the first place, is it that like, being with a bunch of people kind of, like drains your energy, which is the definition that we that we try to agree on?
Michal Trúnek
The definition for myself is me personally, I don’t really need a lot of people in my life, to make my life happy. So I can be happy with just few friends, you know, family, few friends. And if I’m in big crowd, I don’t really care to even interact with anyone, sometimes, you know, I’m there like to enjoy myself. You know, and my perception of extrovert is the opposite is like the, sometimes sometimes they want the attention, you know or try to be friends with as many people as possible to just feel, I don’t know what sometimes they don’t really have, like real friends that they can rely on. Right? You know, they have like a many, but that’s my perception. It’s just my my opinion.
Andrej Zito
So, quality over quantity. Now, what do you think is wrong with our industry? And I know that you asked me like, if this should be localization or testing, but I don’t know, like, based on that conversation, you’re not that exposed much to the localization, or at least in the typical sense, you’re still technically just what localized is part of the localization industry? Because they create a product for localization, but on its own, it’s a tech company, right? So I mean, you can also answer like, what you think is wrong with, I don’t know, QA industry?
Michal Trúnek
No, no, no, I have something in my mouth. Because sometimes I don’t understand why some companies deal do the localization with the spreadsheets, you know, they’re really old fashioned sometimes. And that’s something I was like, “why don’t you use the tool? It’s so simple,” you know, like, it’s like, one click, two clicks, and you have the all the everything translated, you know, you don’t need to keep the spreadsheets and then just to be lost in the email communication, or, you know, just this taps. It’s crazy. I mean, if there would be a way to kind of tell them, “hey, this is easy.” You know, sometimes maybe, they don’t even know that this exists, you know, so they, there are companies that are really old, especially the bank systems or systems that are really monolith, you know, and they have huge fan base, which is 15 years old. I really enjoyed, and they are really keeping and rejecting all the new things like fancy things.
Andrej Zito
But do you think spreadsheets are mostly a matter of what we mentioned before, and that is internationalization, that they didn’t write the software or create the software in a way that you can just I don’t know, plug it into Lokalise, and it automatically extracts the strings?
Michal Trúnek
Yeah, that was the thing I mentioned that some systems can’t can’t do it. This is also a problem.
Andrej Zito
Now, my favorite question and I’m looking forward to what you’re going to say, what are the absurd or stupid things that you do something that’s for most of the people would actually be considered crazy or weird. But for you, it’s kind of like a normal thing.
Michal Trúnek
For me, it’s definitely I like swimming, but I like swimming in the ice water. So I really liked the exposure to the ice. I I just went for, for a swim in the Atlantic Ocean, you know, which the temperature is like 14 degrees of the water. And then they were like just maybe one person in the water and I was like, “Okay, well, let’s go.” And then, you know, I just love it. And it’s, I don’t know, my friend gave me a book for my birthday. Like, I think last year it was. I don’t know if you know Wim Hof is the Iceman is so called Iceman. And he is promoting this exposure to cold conditions during immunity. I really don’t follow with his breathing things, because I don’t know, for me, it’s really weird to lie down on them to breath. But I just like the cold, it’s amazing. I can swim anywhere.
Andrej Zito
Do you like just go into cold water and you’re like, like, enjoying it? Or are you actually struggling with the cold, but you’re enjoying the thing that you can survive in the cold? Like, like, did you already get used to it is like normal thing for you?
Michal Trúnek
It’s, it’s sometimes hard to start like scratch and just go to ice water is really dangerous, you know, so you build need to build the resistance. And I And for example, every morning I go with a shower, like ice in terms that the country can provide. You know, like, I live in Malta, and it’s really hard to get cold water, they’re in the summer. Okay, so sometimes I’m also buying the ice packs, you know, that you have in the freezer, right? And I put them in the in the bath and I just make a bath with the with the ice around. That’s the only way how you can get the cold water.
Andrej Zito
Okay. But then like, do you have like any, I don’t know, protocol, like, how long do you stay there? Like, do you try to approach it, I don’t know, scientifically or is it just like, “Okay, I’ll just jump into it, and…”
Andrej Zito
Okay. Is it like dangerous for brain or?
Michal Trúnek
So basically, if it’s really cold, let’s imagine outside is one degree and the water can kind of go lower, I think below two degrees. So because below that, it will just freeze. So you need to make, or you need to make your blood flow. So you, you do a couple of exercises, you know, like a small exposure just to the wind, small exercises in your blood really flows. And then you go in. I really don’t like to go slowly and just I just grow like immediately, I just sink. And then I have like a timer for two minutes for cutting two minutes is the safe, safe time. At least, at least for me. Like for two minutes, I feel super comfortable, you know, like, a few seconds, your whole body starts to burn, and you don’t feel the cold anymore. And then even when you go out for a couple of minutes, you don’t feel the cold. But you still need to keep the muscles like like moving or you need to do some exercise to just not to immediately, like lower temperature. You know? This, how I’m trying to do it. And I always I never I never go with the head under the water for example.
Michal Trúnek
Yes, it is dangerous. Many, I see many people doing it. But me personally, I have the winter winter hat, you know, and they go.
Andrej Zito
With the gloves? So you also keep your hands above the water?
Michal Trúnek
I have the gloves that are like, like five millimeters that you use the wetsuit, you know?
Andrej Zito
Oh, yeah. Okay,
Michal Trúnek
So this just glows like, here, I see I see. And love to see is completely.
Andrej Zito
So what would happen if you stayed in the water longer? Like, would your body temperature start dropping, shock or something?
Michal Trúnek
This depends, some people can go even. I think the word record is I don’t know how many hours in the ice, which was actually made by the spin off is able to be the breathing is able to convince his body that the water is warm. So because everything is about the brain, if if your brain you know, if you start to think that the water is super cold, then it is really cold for you. This is something I am also trying to me personally, I would never go for more than two minutes. I still think it’s crazy to be there for the long, but yeah, some people have the resistance that they can go for hours.
Andrej Zito
All right. So after the cold shower, what will be the final warm words from Michal? If you could speak to the minds of everyone in the industry and let’s say localization industry, you mentioned something that what you would tell to the people in the banking industry, but let’s say what you would what would be your final words?
Michal Trúnek
That it’s really important to be surrounded. But, but with the people that really want to move the company forward, like it’s really important, but for me is the number one to really be able to hold each other, you know, especially in some situations that are happening right now. You can see how the company we hold each other and support each other and for the localization, I think and I will just join or connect the question that you asked me before what is wrong with in the industry, I would say that really the good localization to make the life can make the life easier, I would say, you know, and smooth all the processes and remove the pain, if of course if the product is able to be connected with the tools.
Andrej Zito
Alright. Thank you Michal, very much for your time for the interview and we will speak in Slovak next time.
Michal Trúnek
Thank you very much, Andrej.
Andrej Zito
Right. bye bye.
