“In software testing, we do not make software; we make software better.”

Study Plan for QA.

As I already mentioned in my About section, I am into IT and I dream of securing a job in Software Testing field.

I started my career in Manual Testing and going further I wanted to learn more skills and upgrade in my career. So with the help of online resources like YouTube, I learnt the roadmap to becoming a QA and then again with the help of online platforms like Udemy, I did a course in Automation Testing covering Automation testing with Selenium and Cucumber, and also API testing.

I then applied the same learnings in my career and upgraded.

Do connect with me on LinkedIn and also follow me on GitHub where I post Software Testing related content.

LinkedIn — linkedin.com/in/amulya-pabbu-a11429302

GitHub — github.com/AmulyaPabbu

So I made a daily routine study plan for QA which I would follow for three months.

Here’s the detailed study plan, divided into weekly goals and daily tasks to ensure I cover all the topics. Each week will focus on specific areas.

Month 1: Foundation and Basic Testing Concepts
Week 1: Software Testing Concepts

Day 1–2: SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)
Learn the phases: Requirements, Design, Implementation, Testing, Deployment, Maintenance
Day 3–4: STLC (Software Testing Life Cycle)
Learn the phases: Requirement Analysis, Test Planning, Test Case Development, Environment Setup, Test Execution, Test Cycle Closure
Day 5–6: Types of Testing
Manual vs. Automated, Functional vs. Non-Functional, Unit, Integration, System, Acceptance, Regression, Smoke, Sanity
Day 7: Testing Techniques
Black Box, White Box, Grey Box, Exploratory, Ad-hoc

Week 2: Agile Methodology and Bug Tracking Tools

Day 1–2: Agile Methodology
Scrum, Kanban, Agile Principles, Roles (Scrum Master, Product Owner, Team), Ceremonies (Sprint Planning, Daily Standup, Sprint Review, Retrospective)
Day 3–4: Bug Tracking Tools
Introduction to JIRA, Bugzilla
Day 5–7: Test Management Tools
Introduction to TestRail, QTest

Week 3: Programming Languages

Day 1–2: SQL
Basic queries (SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE), Joins, Subqueries, Indexes
Day 3–7: Java
Basic syntax, OOP concepts, Exception handling, File I/O, Collections

Week 4: Web Automation — Selenium and Related Tools

Day 1–2: Selenium WebDriver Basics
Setup, Browser automation, Locators (ID, Name, XPath, CSS)
Day 3–4: Advanced Selenium
Handling Alerts, Frames, Windows, Implicit and Explicit Waits
Day 5: Cucumber
BDD basics, Gherkin syntax, Writing feature files
Day 6: Maven
Project setup, Dependency management
Day 7: Git & GitHub Basics
Version control, Basic commands, Creating repositories, Branching, Merging

Month 2: Advanced Automation and API Testing
Week 1: Continuous Integration and Containerization

Day 1: GitLab and Bitbucket Basics
Creating repositories, Managing code, CI/CD pipelines
Day 2–3: Jenkins
CI/CD concepts, Job configuration, Pipeline creation
Day 4–5: Docker
Containerization basics, Dockerfile, Docker Compose
Day 6–7: Setting up a CI/CD pipeline with Jenkins and Docker

Week 2: API Automation

Day 1–2: Postman
API requests, Collections, Environment variables
Day 3–4: SoapUI
SOAP vs. REST, Testing web services
Day 5–7: RestAssured
Writing API tests in Java, Integrating with Maven, Running tests

Week 3: Mobile Automation

Day 1–2: Appium Basics
Setup, Writing and running test cases, Locators
Day 3–4: Advanced Appium
Gestures, Mobile browsers, Parallel execution
Day 5–7: Project: Automating a mobile application (choose a simple open-source app)

Week 4: Performance and Security Testing

Day 1–2: JMeter Basics
Creating test plans, Thread groups, Listeners
Day 3–4: Advanced JMeter
Assertions, Timers, Distributed testing
Day 5–6: Burp Suite
Setting up, Basic scanning, Manual testing
Day 7: Project: Performance testing a web application

Month 3: Cloud Testing and Final Projects
Week 1: Cloud Testing with AWS

Day 1–2: Introduction to AWS
Basics of cloud computing, AWS services overview (EC2, S3, RDS)
Day 3–4: AWS for Testers
Setting up test environments, Using AWS for load testing
Day 5–7: Project: Deploying and testing an application on AWS

Week 2: Integration and Practice

Day 1–2: Integrate learned tools
Combine Selenium, Cucumber, Jenkins, Docker in a single project
Day 3–4: Real-world scenarios
Test a complex application, Write end-to-end test cases
Day 5–7: Review and Debugging
Common issues, Best practices, Code reviews

Week 3: Portfolio Projects

Day 1–4: Project 1: Full-stack test automation
Automate a web application (UI, API, Performance)
Day 5–7: Project 2: Mobile application testing
End-to-end mobile app testing (UI, API)

Week 4: Final Touches and Review

Day 1–2: Review all projects
Ensure completeness, Add comments, Refactor code
Day 3–4: Document your work
Write detailed README files, Create documentation
Day 5–7: Prepare for job interviews

Happy Learning!