By James WhittakerIf your name is Larry Page, stop reading this now. Let me first admit that as I write this I am sitting in a company lounge reminiscent of a gathering room in a luxury hotel with my belly full of free gourmet food waiting for a meetin…
By James WhittakerI am pleased to confirm 3 of our keynote speakers for GTAC 2011 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View CA.Google’s own Alberto Savoia, aka Testivus.Steve McConnell the best selling author of Code Complete and CEO of Construx …
By James WhittakerThe Life of a TEThe Test Engineer is a newer role within Google than either SWEs or SETs. As such, it is a role still in the process of being defined. The current generation of Google TEs are blazing a trail which will guide the next …
By James WhittakerI am happy to announce that GTAC 2011 is now open for nominations. We’re going to try and have an executive session, depending on interest, the afternoon/evening of October 25th at the Googleplex in Mountain View. This session is inte…
By James WhittakerNew material for the this series is coming more slowly. I am beginning to get into areas where I want to start posting screen shots of internal Google tools and describe how our infrastructure works. This is material that takes longer…
By James WhittakerThe Life of an SETSETs are Software Engineers in Test. They are software engineers who happen to write testing functionality. First and foremost, SETs are developers and the role is touted as a 100% coding role in our recruiting liter…
By James WhittakerHas it only been 179 days since the last GTAC? My how time flies when you have lots of testing to do!It is my pleasure to announce that not only is our collective attention being drawn back to this most intriguing test conference but …
By James WhittakerI’ve had a number of questions about the SET role and it seems I have confused folks when I say that the SWE is a tester and the SET is a tester and at the same time the SWE is a developer and the SET is a developer. What could possib…
By James WhittakerInstead of distinguishing between code, integration and system testing, Google uses the language of small, medium and large tests emphasizing scope over form. Small tests cover small amounts of code and so on. Each of the three engine…
By James WhittakerCrawl, walk, run.One of the key ways Google achieves good results with fewer testers than many companies is that we rarely attempt to ship a large set of features at once. In fact, the exact opposite is often the goal: build the core …
By James WhittakerThese posts have garnered a number of interesting comments. I want to address two of the negative ones in this post. Both are of the same general opinion that I am abandoning testers and that Google is not a nice place to ply this tra…
By James WhittakerIn order for the “you build it, you break it” motto to be real, there are roles beyond the traditional developer that are necessary. Specifically, engineering roles that enable developers to do testing efficiently and effectively …
By James WhittakerThis is the first in a series of posts on this topic.The one question I get more than any other is “How does Google test?” It’s been explained in bits and pieces on this blog but the explanation is due an update. The Google testing st…
By James WhittakerI know many people who laugh at the concept of resolutions, easily made and easily broken. All true. However, I am a runner now because of a resolution I made about a decade ago and my personality has undergone a successful renovation…
By James WhittakerI’ve given all the talks I am going to give and said all that I am going to say for 2010. Breath a sigh of relief and raise your glasses to the sweet sound of silence. The aftermath of the uTest webinar is here. Thanks to uTest for ho…