As a test engineer, building a portfolio that showcases your skills and expertise is crucial. However, it’s not just about the projects you’ve worked on or the credentials you’ve earned. Contributing to open-source tools is an excellent way to demonstrate your knowledge and passion for the field. The good part is that as of today (2023), only 1% of folks contribute to any form of an open-source project. This means that you can easily join the 1% club by working on any of the below ideas.
99% of Engineers want to use Open Source Tools. ✅
Rahul Parwal
99% of Engineers don’t contribute to Open Source Tools. ❌
Contributing to it is damn easy. 🧡
These ideas are based on my experience of working with open-source projects and I would love to know more ideas from you in the comments section 🧡 Let’s share to make this list more exhaustive.
- Documentation Fix 📝
🔸 Every documentation has some gaps.
🔸 Find those; Fill those.
🔸 Raise a Doc Bug | Suggest a Doc Enhancement
Get started 🚀
- Report Bugs 🐛
🔸 Come on, You know you find issues. We all do!
🔸 Instead of moving on, Report it!
🔸 Add your suggestions.
Leave the world cleaner than you found it 🚀
- Retest Bugs 🕵️♀️
🔸 In any active repos, there are bugs fixed and waiting to be retested.
🔸 Add your comments to it
Help the community move ahead faster. Alone, they cannot 🚀
- Advocate for Bugs 🗣️
🔸 In many repos, some bugs are long withstanding and pending.
🔸 Evaluate those.
🔸 Add your analysis, associated risk, and impact of the issue.
Help the decision-maker pick important bugs first 🚀
- Create a Cheat Sheet, Mindmap, and Sketch of the Product 📊
🔸 These are the kind of documentation add-ons that everyone likes to have.
🔸 Identity, what can you explain in a simple way?
🔸 Add it and send a PR.
How to send a PR? https://lnkd.in/d57veKPU by Testsigma
- Respond to Queries | Issues 💬
🔸 Got a query or issue in the forum?
🔸 Evaluate it. Over 30% of issues are usually duplicates or previously asked.
🔸 Respond to it if you already know the answers.
Help the community. This is pure bliss 🧡
- Respond to Surveys | Feedback Form 📋
🔸 Most products suck because we do not respond to them. It becomes a one-way street.
🔸 Engage Actively.
Help them to help you 🧡
- Blog your experience report. 📝
🔸 This is exactly what I am doing right now.
🔸 Unless you will talk about it; they will never know.
Please talk; express; share; give back 🧡
- Want a new feature? Add a request. 🆕
🔸 Start a discussion
🔸 Maybe there is already a workaround and you don’t know about it yet.
Help them groom their product backlog 🧡
- You like Coding! Okay, this is for you then: 💻
🔸 Add Unit Tests (They are always short of it).
🔸 Fix Bugs
🔸 Implement a Feature or Change Request.
Just do it ✔️
Now, after reading all the above points, if you are thinking of which open-source testing projects to start with; here are some good options for you:
- dacoaster/yattie: A tool to help testers test. (github.com)
- testsigmahq/testsigma: A powerful open-source test automation platform for Web Apps, Mobile Apps, and APIs. Build stable and reliable end-to-end tests @ DevOps speed. (github.com)
- cometa-rocks/cometa: Cometa.Rocks Source Code (github.com)
In conclusion, there are many ways for test engineers to contribute to open-source projects beyond just using open-source tools. By taking advantage of these opportunities to give back to the community, you can not only enhance your skills but also help improve the quality of open-source software for everyone. So, what are you waiting for?
Get started and make a difference!
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