Software Testing Blog

In part II of our Testing the Limits interview with Jon Bach, we get his thoughts on responding to change in the testing world; what his brother James Bach has been up to; his criteria for hiring testers at eBay; mobile challenges; searching for defective pocket change and more. If you missed the first session, you can read it here.

uTest: It looks like eBay wasn’t able to keep you off the testing speaker circuit (woohoo!). In fact, you were at STPcon earlier this month – care to give our readers who couldn’t make it a summary of what you covered?

JB: Two things: A workshop with Dan Downing of Mentora, who approached me at the last WOPR (held at eBay in November) and had a cool idea to bring a little slice of WOPR to STP.  It’s for anyone who needs to build a game plan for performance testing.  He called it “Arming Yourself for Performance Testing: War Stories from the Trenches” — http://www.stpcon.com/Item/1032/.

I also spoke about an idea that I’ve been experimenting with after James came back from a business trip and talked about how to respond to project change and chaos: http://www.stpcon.com/Session/13/My-Crazy-Plan-for-Responding-to-Change

uTest: Speaking of James, he has been doing some interesting things the past year as well. What’s the latest testing topic of conversation among the Bach brothers? And did he have any words of advice for you in starting your new job?

JB: He came to eBay and spent a week with me.  I sat him in the cube next to mine and he did some testing from outside the firewall on the guest wireless. I gave him a charter and he executed it beautifully.  The secret about James is, he’s really friendly and service-minded if you’ve managed to win his respect.

We talked CAST 2011 (I’m conference president, he’s my program chair); we talked about new tester games; we shot a new CAST promo video; we talked about Egyptian democracy and systems thinking (how it affects the price of gas).  But just when we were in the thick of testing eBay site page compatibility with IE 9.0, the Japan quake hit and we took time to watch the footage with the rest of the world.  Then we did impromptu research and found out more on nuclear plant  meltdowns, which led to being curious about microseiverts, which led to an article about Byzantine failures.

About eBay, he gave me no advice per se, just ideas for tactics.  He offered some free consulting, which he gave, then said, “I’m proud of you, man. Kick ass.”

uTest: Part of your new role at eBay will be to hire and recruit a top-flight team of testers (in addition to the ones already there). What sort of traits/skills/attributes will you be looking for in particular?

JB: The ability to come up with ideas – either old or new – and execute them in a way that helps us improve notions of Search.  For years, I used the triangle program in test auditions.  Now I use something more simple.  I draw a long horizontal rectangle on the whiteboard with a little “Submit” button below that.  I say “this is a text input field for Search, just like the one you see on the eBay site. Help me create a test plan for it.”  I’m hoping that instead of an interview, it comes across more like an invitation to a real collaboration.

What I look for is someone who pushes back with questions first before answering.  I look to see if they answer not with test cases (which everyone seems compelled to do), but instead provide ideas around testing considerations (like the long list of “ilities”), or considerations about risk, or contextual factors that affect testing like Platform or Data.

If you want a shot at working for eBay, there are many open reqs on the eBay live site.  Email me to get a list of which ones are for my team.  (Hint: If it involves Search, it’s most likely mine.)

uTest: Mobile is becoming a bigger part of almost every test team’s responsibilities. How well do think the big web companies (and their test teams) have adopted to this new reality? Ahead of the curve or behind the times?

JB: On the curve. I have friends at Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Expedia, F5 Networks, Intel, HP that all seem pretty savvy.  Julian Harty is the foremost expert I know in that space.  He is the star of an article I wrote for STP recently about getting started with mobile device testing.

uTest: You’re a Californian now, working out of the San Jose office. What will you miss most about Seattle? The Seahawks? Starbucks? The Space Needle?

JB: You had to go and say those things, didn’t you… <sniff>.   I miss all of the above, but what I miss most is not being able to meet Seattle colleagues for coffee.  Specifically I miss Seattle Lean Coffee (Jim Benson), SASQAG (Tracy Monteith), SeaSPIN (Steve Smith and Jeff Smith), and QASIG a lot more than I expected.  Maybe that’s because I’m an extrovert and people fuel me.

I will NOT miss the traffic or the new tolls on the 520 bridge into and out of Seattle during peak hours, or the 60-mile round trip commute I had, or the snow up where I live.

uTest Rapid Fire:

• Buying a tablet? No. I’m waiting until Apple comes out with the Caplet. It’ll be easier for me to swallow. (Oh, wait, I already have an iPad.  It’s called the IPHONE 4!)
• Oldest piece of technology you own: my Dad’s 1960’s era Smith Corona electric typewriter. I used to practice typing as a kid, and now, so does my iPhone-savvy 4-year-old daughter.  We share the same love of the typewriter’s main feature: “Real-time hardcopy backup.”
• Technology that should exist by now, but doesn’t: “Real-time hardcopy backup.”
• Most over-rated inventor: Dean Kamen.  He implied the Segway Human Transporter was supposed to change transportation as we knew it back in 2001. Now it just seems it’s used by Parking Enforcement Officers and security guards.
• Favorite waste of time: Looking for defects in pocket change — http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=strike+it+rich+pocket+change&_armrs=1&_from=R18&_ipg=

Editor’s note: That will do it for this month’s Testing the Limits interview. We have a great lineup planned for the Spring season, so don’t miss out. You can keep tabs on uTest by bookmarking the blog, or by following us on Twitter or Facebook. Until next time!