Hi testing fam! We’ve all been there: you finally move from manual to automation, feeling like a wizard, until… the UI changes. Suddenly, your “saved time” is spent chasing broken locators.
The jump from clicking buttons to managing a dynamic test suite is the ultimate “Welcome to Automation” moment.
My Take
The hardest concept isn’t just writing the code—it’s Wait Strategies. Most newbies try to fix everything with a “Hard Sleep,” but learning how to use Smart Waits in Katalon is what separates a flaky script from a robust one. Don’t just automate the action; automate the patience!
What was the most frustrating “rookie mistake” you made when you first started? Was it hard-coding data or abusing the Thread.sleep command? Let’s hear those horror stories!
my biggest mistake was hardcoding test data everywhere. worked fine at first, then everything started breaking once we ran in different envs. took me a while to realize the problem wasn’t the test, it was the data
also didn’t think about test independence, so one failed test would mess up the next one
learned the hard way: it’s not just about making tests pass, it’s about making them stable
One of my biggest mistakes early in my automation journey was assuming automation = speed. Whenever a new test scenario came up, I barely spent time brainstorming or analyzing it properly. I would jump straight into scripting with a very one‑directional approach, focusing only on the immediate requirement.
As the test suite grew and the same scenario evolved from different angles, I often ended up refactoring the scripts, which cost more time than I initially “saved.” Now, I consciously spend ample time thinking through all possible flows and future extensions before writing any code. That upfront analysis has made my automation far more stable and maintainable in the long run.
We’ve all been there: you finally move from manual to automation, feeling like a wizard, until… the UI changes. Suddenly, your “saved time” is spent chasing broken locators.
