Chapter 3. The Test Engineer

Testability and long-term viability of test automation infrastructure is the purview of the Software Engineer in Test (SET). The Test Engineer (TE) plays a related but different role where the focus is on user impact and risk to the overall mission of the software product. Like most technical roles at Google, there is some coding involved, but the TE role is by far the most broad of all the engineers. He contributes to the product, but many of the tasks a TE takes on require no coding.1

A User-Facing Test Role

In the prior chapter, we introduced the TE as a “user-developer” and this is not a concept to take lightly. The idea that all engineers on a product team fit the mold of a developer is an important part of keeping ...

Get How Google Tests Software now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.