My 4-Week Journey to Mastering Selenium WebDriver

You can learn Selenium WebDriver yourself in just 1 month, yes, you read it right!

If you want the above statement to work for you, then you would have to come up with a proper study plan and follow it with discipline. Discipline is the key here. Let me help you make that study plan, and will also share very useful blog post links for the same later in this post.

Table of Content
1. My Story of becoming Selenium Professional

2. My Experiments with Selenium

3. Future of Selenium Automation Testing

4. Which language has a better career prospect with Selenium - Java or Python?

5. The 4 Weeks Plan to Learn Selenium WebDriver

6. What next after being Selenium expert?

1. My Story of Becoming a Selenium Automation Professional

I started my career way back in 2011 as a Manual Software Tester. I had an interest in Java, but didn't have much practical knowledge of it. I started learning Java slowly. It took some time to get some good knowledge of Java. Then in 2012, I switched to my first company, and I got exposed to Automation Testing in my second company.

I learned Selenium myself while I was working as a Manual Tester by going through various online Selenium blogs and tutorials. I practiced automation on my ongoing manual projects quietly. When I felt confident and made considerable progress then I decided to showcase my automation skills to the company’s management.

While practicing selenium, I already automated some of the important features of my project, which I showcased to my reporting manager and got appreciation for it. After that, our company decided to educate other manual testers as well on Selenium, and I got this opportunity. After some time, I was able to crack an interview for a core automation role, where I mastered my automation skills. Since then, I have gotten more and more exposure to Selenium automation and more complex automation frameworks, and got the chance to automate more complex features.

So the motive behind sharing my story is to tell that there is plenty of Selenium WebDriver learning material available on the internet, and to use this ocean of knowledge. Practice it on different types of websites or on your ongoing manual projects.

Now, I have gained 12+ years of rich experience working as an Automation Professional, and I decided to use my experience to build such a Selenium Tutorial Series, which could help other aspiring Software Testers for free.

2. My Experiments with Selenium

While using Selenium, I felt the flexibility it has; I can do whatever I want to with this tool. Let me highlight a few such things:

• Developed an automation framework for Map map-based web application by integrating Sikuli with Selenium WebDriver using Java. Sikuli is a tool used for image matching and an image-based automation tool.
• Developed automation framework and integrated WinIT with Selenium WebDriver. WinIT is used to perform actions on window dialogues. WinIT can be used for Windows-based application testing.
• By using Selenium WebDriver with Python, I performed Performance testing for some of the key features of a Web software.
• Integrated Python’s Paramiko module with Selenium WebDriver (Python) to automate Frontend and backend AIX/Linux console-based application. Selenium handled the frontend part, and Paramiko was used for backend automation (to run AIX/Linux commands on the backend console)
• Integrated Appium with Selenium to automate one of the complex features.

3. Future of Selenium Automation Testing

Automation professionals would be on a joy ride in the coming time!

Selenium is obviously the best and most famous web automation tool. And Appium is also there, which is made using the Selenium api and covers the mobile automation space. So, if you are a Selenium expert, then definitely your professional career is bright. I am going to prove this in the next section of my post.

3.1. We are living in a fancy internet age.

We are living in an internet age.  It's a world of fancy web space. Every company/business, whether small or large, wants to have a lively GUI or mobile interface, so that their presence can be felt on the internet and they can do good business. We are interacting with a lot of web and mobile interfaces every day, whether it is an e-commerce platform, or payments app, a grocery app, insurance, etc. Everything is on the web or a mobile platform. So, here is the area where automation testing is a must-have thing. No need to say, a lot of Selenium professionals are required to maintain the quality of all these platforms.

That's why, A “Big Yes” to include Selenium WebDriver in your skills list. And it would definitely Boost Your Career. Selenium could be the first step towards being a Complete Automation Expert.

3.2. Selenium is the talk of the town, and the future is bright.

I don’t foresee any other web automation tool in the market that can replace Selenium for the next 10 years. The reason is that almost every company is using Selenium due to its robust and flexible nature. A huge open-source community is behind Selenium, and they are updating and upgrading Selenium from time to time. If you do googling then you would come to know that Selenium conferences are going on in all parts of the world whole of the year. No, Selenium 4 is about to launch with brand new features.

Do a simple activity, search on any job portal with the keyword “selenium jobs”. You will find the answer yourself.

4. Which language has better career prospects with Selenium - Java or Python?

Don’t ever rely on just one language; be proficient in multiple languages for a successful career.

Being from an automation background and having worked with both Java and Python in combination with Selenium, I try to give you a better idea. I don't see any difference working with Java or Python as an automation engineer. I started my career with Java, and in the mid-years of my career, I learned Python. And for me transition from Java to Python was easy me. So, I suggest going with Java first and then learn Python. Java will teach you all the programming concepts, both simple and complex, in more detail. But if you become proficient in one of them, then you can learn the other language easily. 

4.1. Comparison of both languages:

1. Both support OOPS
2. Both are popular - Among the world’s top 3 popular languages.
3. Syntax - Easy to learn for both. Python's syntax is easier, but Java's syntax is more readable and easier to understand.
4. Performance- Python is slower than Java in various implementations.
5. Cross Platform - Both support cross-platform.
6. Applications - Both are used for Web, gaming, and Machine learning applications.

Some other reasons that should affect your decision:

1. Opportunities for Selenium with Java are higher in the market as compared to Selenium with Python. You can verify the fact by searching with keywords like ‘Selenium with Java’ and ‘Selenium with Python’ in any job portal.
2. Large support is available for Java online, as most of the professionals are using Selenium with Java. On the other hand, for Python, if you get stuck at any point, then it would be quite difficult to get help from the online community.

4.2. What does the data suggest?

So, now you have sufficient data and key points to choose one language. If you ask me, I would suggest you start with JAVA, it would be a better option as opportunities for Selenium with Java are higher in the market right now. Later, you can learn Python.

5. The 4-Week Plan to Learn Selenium WebDriver

Let's make a 4-week plan for learning Selenium. Selenium is easy to understand; the main thing here is the programming language. But making a schedule and following it regularly will help the cause.

5.1. Week 1 Study Plan

In your 1st week, you should target Software Testing concepts and any programming language in which you are comfortable. I have shared a study plan for Java. Go for installing and setting up Eclipse and Java basics.

5.1.1. Web Software Testing Concepts: You should have basic knowledge of how to test a Website. If you are already a Software Testing professional, then obviously you skip this part.

5.2.2. Learn a Programming Language - You have to learn coding concepts in any one of the languages that Selenium supports, i.e., Java, Python, Ruby, C#, PHP. Currently, Java is ahead in the race. Refer to this link to learn Java for Selenium. What all you need to learn in Java to start with Selenium? Java Tutorials Series

5.2. Week 2 Study Plan

In the 2nd week, go for Selenium Locators and all the Selenium WebDriver commands.

5.2.1. Fundamentals of HTML - You should have very basic knowledge of HTML, as while writing WebDriver code, you would need to find out locators of different web elements like text boxes, links, radio buttons, etc. So it would be good to have some knowledge of HTML.

5.2.2. Selenium Locators - There are generally 9 different types of locators by which you can locate a web element in Selenium, but the most important are XPath & css.

5.2.3. Selenium WebDriver - After learning any language, you have to learn WebDriver commands and their real-time implementation. You can first target the simple things to learn Selenium:

Selenium Webdriver Tutorial

• Selenium Locators
• Browser Commands
• Get Commands
• Browser Navigation Commands
• Web Element Commands
• Select Dropdown Commands
• Actions Class
• Selenium Waits
• Take a Screenshot in Selenium
• Handle Alerts or Pop-ups

5.3. Week 3 Study Plan

In the 3rd week, do practical implementation of Selenium Commands usage for on demo/practice sites.

5.3.1. Selenium Practice Exercises - You should keep yourself in check by trying to automate the Selenium practice exercises. You can find 10+ practice exercises here - 

Selenium Practice Exercises

1. 10 Demo Websites for Selenium Practice
2. Automate Demo Sig-Up Selenium Practice Form
3. Automate the GoDaddy.com feature with Selenium
4. Automate Google Search with Selenium
5. Automate Demo Web Table with Selenium
6. Automate an Amazon-like e-commerce website with Selenium

5.4. Week 4 Study Plan

In the 4th week, you should learn to implement the TestNG framework in your Selenium WebDriver scripts.

5.4.1. Unit Testing Framework: The Next thing in your learning is the unit testing framework of the language you learned for WebDriver. Every programming language has its own unit testing framework, like for Java, the most commonly used unit testing frameworks are JUNIT and TestNG. Refer - TestNG Tutorials Series

5.4.2. Automation Framework: Automation test engineers generally build an automation framework by using a programming language, WebDriver commands, and a unit testing framework, and then automate the test cases using that framework. Don’t write just linear scripts or one script for one test case. So, the framework is a very important part of automation. The main reasons for using an automation framework over linear scripts are:

1. Code re-usability
2. Scalability
3. Reduce test code maintenance cost
4. Report generation
5. Gives the flexibility to integrate more tools under one umbrella
6. Increase the test team’s speed and efficiency

6. What's next after being an Expert in Selenium?

What's Next? At some stage of your career, you'll ask yourself this question. If you are repeating the same automation activities again and again.

So, here is the answer: There are many directions that you can take to evolve and expand your career path.

6.1. Diversify Your Testing and Automation Knowledge - Learn new software testing technologies, acquire new skills, competencies, and start using them in your project. Being an Automation QA does not have to be a career end for anyone. It can also be the starting point of a brand new career!

• You can target to learn various other types of testing and automation technologies to become a complete Automation Testing professional like.,
• REST API Testing
• Selenium with Python
• Performance Testing 
• Mobile Testing
• Selenium IDE Tutorial
• Security Testing
• Think about how the automation framework can be made more scalable and Dockerized.
• Get hold of different programming languages and build a habit of writing effective code.

6.2. Become A Test Automation Trainer - You are a great candidate for becoming a trainer and helping others do what you do. 6.3. Do More Development - QA can bring value by creating some innovative applications to automate day-to-day tasks. - Participate in writing Junit test cases.
6.4. DevOps - Jump from QA to DevOps, start looking at designing and setting up CI/CD solutions.