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SDETRole
SDETRole

Learning path 05 · Intermediate

DevOps for QA

The DevOps skills SDETs are expected to have: version control, CI pipelines in Jenkins and GitHub Actions, Docker for test environments and the Kubernetes concepts you will meet.

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0/8 lessons completed

What you will be able to do

  • Use Git branches, rebases and conflict resolution confidently in a pull request workflow
  • Write a declarative Jenkins pipeline that runs tests in parallel and publishes JUnit results
  • Build a GitHub Actions workflow with caching, secrets, artifacts and Playwright sharding
  • Package a test runner in Docker and start dependent services with Docker Compose
  • Explain pods, deployments, services and running a test suite as a Kubernetes Job
  • Design quality gates and a flaky-test quarantine policy that a team will trust

Prerequisites

  • An automated test suite you can run locally, in any framework
  • Command-line basics

Who this path is for

Automation engineers whose tests need to run in pipelines, and SDETs expected to own CI for their suites. Interviewers for SDET 2 and senior roles assume most of this.

Syllabus: 8 lessons

  1. 01 Git for Testers The Git you need as a tester or SDET: commits, branches, switch and restore, merging, rebasing, resolving conflicts and keeping test code history clean.
  2. 02 GitHub Pull Request Workflow How testers work in a GitHub pull request flow: branching, opening PRs, reviewing test code, required status checks, CODEOWNERS and keeping main green.
  3. 03 Jenkins Pipelines Write declarative Jenkins pipelines for test suites: stages, agents, parallel test runs, credentials with withCredentials, JUnit results, archived reports and timeouts.
  4. 04 GitHub Actions for Test Automation Run automated tests in GitHub Actions: workflow anatomy, caching, secrets, artifacts, Playwright sharding with a matrix, merged reports and fast, trustworthy pipelines.
  5. 05 Docker for Testers Use Docker to make test runs reproducible: images vs containers, a Playwright runner Dockerfile, version matching, Docker Compose v2 stacks with healthchecks, and CI usage.
  6. 06 Kubernetes Fundamentals for QA Kubernetes for testers: pods, deployments, services and namespaces, running test suites as Jobs, essential kubectl commands for debugging, and Selenium Grid on a cluster.
  7. 07 Designing CI/CD Quality Gates Design CI/CD quality gates that teams trust: placing tests by pyramid level, fail-fast stage ordering, required checks, flaky test quarantine and post-deploy verification.
  8. 08 Cloud Testing Platforms How device and browser clouds work, when they are worth it, and how to connect Selenium RemoteWebDriver and Playwright to remote browsers securely and reliably.

Why DevOps skills matter for testers

Tests that only run on one laptop do not protect a release. This path teaches you to get tests into the delivery pipeline and keep them trustworthy there. It starts with Git for testers and the GitHub pull request workflow, because every later lesson assumes your test code is reviewed and versioned like product code.

It then covers two CI systems you are likely to meet: Jenkins pipelines, still common in enterprises, and GitHub Actions for test automation. Docker for testers and Kubernetes fundamentals make environments reproducible, and designing CI/CD quality gates ties it together.

Hands-on exercises that fit this path

Common pipeline mistakes

  • Running the entire end-to-end suite on every commit instead of ordering stages from fast to slow.
  • Retrying failed tests silently, so flakiness is never measured or fixed.
  • Different browser versions locally and in CI. Pin the Playwright Docker image to the same version as the package.
  • Secrets echoed into logs or committed to the repository.
  • No artifacts on failure, so nobody can debug a red build without rerunning it.

Suggested study plan

Plan on three to four weeks. Take one existing suite and move it through the path: put it in Git with a PR flow, run it in GitHub Actions or Jenkins, containerise it, then add gates. Test yourself with the CI/CD interview questions, Docker questions and Git questions.

In interviews, expect to be asked how you would speed up a slow pipeline or what you do when a test fails only in CI. Good answers name concrete levers: sharding, running fast suites first, caching dependencies, pinned browser images, trace artifacts and a written policy for quarantining flaky tests with an owner and a deadline.

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