V. Narayan Raman

Organization – Tyto Software Pvt. Ltd.

Role/Designation – CEO

Location – Bengaluru, India

Narayan Raman is the founder, CEO of Tyto Software Pvt. Ltd, a Bengaluru based software Product Company, specializing in software automation products. Narayan is the author of Sahi, an award winning open source web test automation tool. He has over 10 years of experience in the industry and holds a B. Tech degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Bombay. Tyto Software, started in 2008, helps organizations simplify and achieve success in their test automation process. Tyto is now a small, successfully growing company.

1. How long have you been associated with software testing?

Close to 6 years. I have been a developer since 2000.

2. How did you become a software tester?

I am not a software tester by profession. I started off as a developer and started writing testing related tools after seeing the testers in our team struggle with testing and automation

3. Tell us about Sahi. How did it evolve?

The financial application we were developing in 2005 was fairly involved and a couple of bugs would happen after some 47 steps of setting up data. Due to the complexity neither the developer nor the tester was happy to test or fix these bugs.  We needed something which could automate this process, and after evaluating existing tools and failing, I started writing Sahi. It solved our problem and testers started experimenting with it and using it. It was open sourced in 2005. Our focus was very much on productivity so we built recorders, in built automatic waiting, rejected XPaths and wrote our own simple but effective APIs. Sahi has come a long way now, with a commercial version “Sahi Pro” developed and supported by my organization Tyto Software

4. What are Sahi’s future plans? How are you planning to move Sahi to next level?

The web and HTML based technologies have arrived and are here to stay. Browsers have become very powerful, and tools and technologies and browsers are all evolving at a fast pace. Sahi’s focus is to make sure that our automation keeps pace with the evolution of browsers and browser based technologies.

5. Do you think automation can replace manual testing?

This question is fairly commonly asked. No, automation cannot replace manual testing. When a feature is implemented some needs to critically assess the behaviour and find ways to break it. This cannot be done using automation tools in a generic way. Automation helps in running the same test repeatedly. Automation is a valuable tool for any tester.

6. What will you suggest to people who want to join IT industry as software testers?

Focus on understanding your domain/applications in depth and continuously work on your ability to think critically. There are 2 reasons why testers exist in the industry. Those who ease the load of developers/team by testing out what the developer is writing. This is to make sure that the highly paid developer’s time is used optimally. (Much as others may want to protest, this is how the industry works.) This is not where you should be, though you may start out in this role. One should build enough expertise to be able to assess any application and say that these may be the points of failure based on prior experience, and help the team weed out such points of failure. One has to at some point transcend from the “cheaper resource” to “invaluable resource” and that can only happen with critical original thinking, reading up on technologies and domains, and generally keeping updated about what is happening in the industry. Magazines like Testing Circus definitely help. And my personal advice: For everybody’s sake, please don’t get into “testers are better than developers”, “they ensure quality better” and all those political conversations. Everyone has a role in the team and everyone works as a team. Keep yourself focused and concentrate on your work/career. If you write blogs, stick to original factual content if possible.

7. What qualities will you look for in a candidate when you want to recruit someone for software testing job?

Good critical thinking capability. Ability to explain in simple words what a particular domain does (clarity of thought). Some programming skills. Humility and communication skills (One needs to communicate bad news to developers all the time, and should be able to do it in a way that the team does not hate you). Confidence: Too many testers in this industry have a victim mentality. I would prefer someone who is self assured.

8. What do you do when you are not working?

Apart from spending time with family and friends, I do bird/wildlife watching, photography, run, cycle, travel. I also code for fun.

9. How important is social networking to you? How often do you use twitter or facebook?

Not much. I generally meet people in person or through emails. Even when I use these, I use them for business, community and not for personal stuff.  They are good for marketing, but we have realized that managing them is distracting and time consuming for a small organization like ours.

10. Last question – Do you read Testing Circus? If yes, what is your opinion about this magazine?

I do, and I love it. Keep up the good work.

https://i0.wp.com/www.testingcircus.com/wp-content/uploads/Narayan-Raman_Testing-Circus.jpg?fit=193%2C200&ssl=1https://i0.wp.com/www.testingcircus.com/wp-content/uploads/Narayan-Raman_Testing-Circus.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1Ajoy Kumar SinghaInterview with TestersInterview with TestersV. Narayan Raman Organization – Tyto Software Pvt. Ltd. Role/Designation – CEO Location – Bengaluru, India Narayan Raman is the founder, CEO of Tyto Software Pvt. Ltd, a Bengaluru based software Product Company, specializing in software automation products. Narayan is the author of Sahi, an award winning open source web test automation tool....