I just started my work on month ago as Automation Tester, after I had some training. I feel I am struggling in the work especially as we are only two testers.
It is my first job but sometimes I feel I want to quit. If anyone had the same experience, please tell me how long it takes you to get confident and should I quit if I am struggling at work ? I do not want them to let me go.
Just to expand a bit on Peter's notes in comments, provide some starting points and link resources.
"A lot of people live in fear because they haven't figured out how you're going to react when faced with a certain set of circumstances. I've come to terms with this by looking deeply into whatever makes me fearful - what are the key elements that get the hairs up on the back of my neck - and then figuring out what I can do about it." - Chris Hadfield
I would mainly focus on investing into learning at this point. The more information you have about the problems you are facing - the more confident you are when dealing with them.
To accelerate learning and make the transitioning step shorter, more productive and rewarding, surround yourself with learning activities about testing, test automation and good test practices - make it a part of your life not only at work but free time as well. I found these two books about testing and Quality Assurance pretty inspirational and motivating:
The latter also thoroughly covers psychology and challenges of working in Quality Assurance field.
Look into Software Testing online courses on Coursera, Udacity, Udemy or other online learning platforms. A lot of the material is available for free and on demand.
There is also a utest project where you can put your testing skills into practice.
SQA site itself is full of hidden treasures - sort by votes and start reading the topics - there are so many things to learn here. Then, think of asking and answering as well - this is a great way to get feedback, learn and keep in touch with colleagues in the QA field.
“A ship is always safe at the shore, but that is not what it is built for.” — Albert Einstein
If you want to learn new things, you will have to go through all this in the beginning but there will be a time when you will look back and laugh at these days. So, do not quit.
What I have understood from your post is that you are new to coding. Since there is limited information in your post, so I would rather give a generic answer.
This is a tricky situation, you take longer to complete your tasks and sometimes stuck for hours with no progress.
It did happen to me too. The first thing that you need is, someone around you who is good at coding.
Befriend a developer who can help you when you are stuck. Make sure that you are not disturbing him\her too much. Whenever you are stuck, try to search on internet and get an answer. If still don't get an answer; note down your question. I would suggest that take all your open queries and if possible try to meet this fellow two or three times a day (morning, afternoon and evening). Limit each meeting to 5-10 minutes and ask all your queries everyday. You will gradually see that your dependency on this fellow will gradually reduce. But the key is, don't stop self learning and be completely dependent on your helping hand.
And this is a faster way to learn and achieve your goal. You can do it by self learning too but that will be a time taking affair. When you are new to coding, a helping hand is your best bet.
should I quit if I am struggling at work ?
No, you could create a plan to improve.
how long it takes you to get confident
Possibly forever, 70% of humanity has the Imposter Syndrome. You are probably good enough for the stage of your career, define your road to becoming an expert. Understand you cannot be an expert of your whole field it is always to broad.
Thinking of quitting job should be of last priority. As there are only two testers you mentioned, so there is huge work load I am assuming. It is obviously tough at the first stage because there is greater responsibility. But this is also a great ooportunity to work in all phase of a software life cycle.
Rather if you were in a large company, you will get relaxation with specific sector to work on where there are so many testers. But in a company where there is only two testers, there is a big possibility that you will also be able to work on continuous integration, load testing etc which may be very helpful in your future career. You will probably get access to test the whole software whereas in big company almost everyone is busy with their own modules or features.
At first, try to automate the most used and repetitive parts. If it's rarely used, then do it manually temporarily and save it for automate in near future. It will lessen your work load and struggle hopefully.
You can follow the online tutorials, read automation related books, attend interesting webinar, take help from the fellow developers whichever suits you most. After few weeks you will grow your confidence gradually and will start to enjoy your automation works hopefully.
