About This Site
Welcome to haselhurst.co.uk! I’m Michael Haselhurst and I’m thrilled to be your guide in the world of software testing. With years of experience an a passion for quality assurance, I aim to provide you with valuable insights and practical knowledge to excel in the field.
As a dedicated software tester, I’ve encountered a multitude of challenges and triumphs throughout my career. Through this blog, I aspire to share my expertise, lessons learned and industry best practices with fellow testers, aspiring professionals and anyone else interested in software quality.
Here at haselhurst.co.uk, you’ll find a treasure trove of resources covering various aspects of software testing. From in-depth articles on testing methodologies, automated testing, performance testing and security testing to comprehensive tutorials on testing tools and frameworks, we’ve got you covered. I believe in the power of knowledge-sharing and I’m committed to delivering valuable, accurate and up-to-date information to help you achieve your testing goals.
My aim is to empower you to become a proficient tester, armed with the skills and insights needed to deliver exceptional software experiences. Together, we’ll explore the latest trends, cutting-edge technologies and emerging practices in the ever-evolving world of software testing.
Join our community of like-minded individuals who are passionate about software quality assurance. Engage in discussions, ask questions and share your experiences. Together, let’s create a space where we can learn, grow and elevate the standards of software excellence.
Thank you for visiting haselhurst.co.uk. I’m excited to embark on this journey with you and help you navigate the intricacies of software testing. Feel free to reach out, connect and explore the wealth of knowledge we have on offer.
Happy testing!
About Me
My name is Michael Haselhurst, as you’ll already have gathered. What you won’t have gathered yet, is that I’ve had a pretty varied career. Let me guide you through my working life (but don’t worry, we’ll skip the boring parts).
The Beginning
My “tech” career properly started while I was studying at The University of Sunderland when I created several niche affiliate marketing websites to bring in some cash to help fund my studies.
Following University, I got my first “proper” tech job as a Software Developer working for a small software house. I primarily developed in PHP with my main responsibility being focused on the development of a custom CMS platform which I developed from the ground up. It was a white-label solution which we could easily customise to a customer’s requirements. I also provided technical support to customers, which often involved visiting their offices and troubleshooting networking issues, installing CCTV systems, managing their infrastructure… the list goes on. Despite the success of the product I’d developed, the company landed on hard times financially and my tenure at the company wasn’t as long as I’d hoped.
Knowing in my heart that I was ok as a developer, but not great, I set up my own SEO marketing consultancy business, as this had been an interest of mine for many years. I had way more interest at this point in driving traffic to people’s websites than making their websites look good. After all, what use is a good looking website if nobody visits it?
I parked this business when I was in need of a more steady and reliable income, as I wanted to be a homeowner and start a family – both of which can be tricky when self-employed.
Becoming A Software Tester
Being a not-so-good developer and not having any industry experience of SEO marketing outside of what I’d built myself, I felt that my options were limited. So I got a job for a tech company providing technical support to customers. Not the perfect job, but one that would get me into the door of a technology company so that I could figure out what direction my career should take next.
While at this tech company I put my name forward to do some user acceptance testing (UAT) of some pieces of software which we sold (which I also supported). I’d never done any “testing” before. I didn’t particularly know what it meant or what it involved, as the previous software house I’d worked at was so small that we didn’t have a test team. Armed with a solid understanding of how our customers used our products, though, so I was in my element when I could test the software in a way which a customer would use it to try and find issues and to provide invaluable feedback on proposed changes/improvements.
I was then asked to apply for a secondment to join a full-fledged testing team. This secondment was for 6 months, but after 5 months I joined the IT department on a permanent basis and pivoted from testing customer-centric software to testing internal software and services. This ranged from testing CRM software, to global websites, to customer portals, to finance systems… I could go on, but we’d be here all day.
Finding My Niche
The main service which I worked on, though, was an identity platform which was completely developed in-house. Most of the company’s products and services which we sold to customers were integrated into this identity platform, which they’d use to register accounts and log in. A single log-in would give them seamless single sign-on to all of the products and services which the customer had a license/registration for.
This identity platform has been my main focus for many years now. Too many years for me to accurately count. From falling in to testing to testing a service which I love has been an interesting and exciting adventure. I’ve gone from volunteering to do UAT testing on an ad-hoc basis to getting a secondment in testing, to becoming a fully-fledged Entry Level Tester (they’ve changed the name of that role now, luckily, to something more appropriate), to a Test Engineer, to a Senior Test Engineer. More recently I’ve been a Test Lead and I’m now a Test Team Leader.
So, day-to-day, I manage a team of testers while also remaining as hands-on as I can be with testing. It’s what I’ve grown to love, after all! Whether it’s manual testing, security testing or performance testing, I want to be involved! If it’s automation testing then you’ll struggle to keep me away.
My Current Role
A few things which my current role involves:
- Owning the test strategy for the team, as well as performing test planning, design and management.
- Developing and maintaining the UI and API automation frameworks which I have built from scratch, using C#, Selenium, RestSharp, SoapUI and Postman.
- Performance and load testing using Locust and JMeter.
- Manual test design and execution.
- Logging, triaging and re-testing defects.
- Tracking and reporting on the progress of test execution to key stakeholders and senior management.
- Coaching and mentoring other testers from both within my team and from other areas of the business.
- Perform non-functional testing, such as security testing, performance testing, usability testing, disaster recovery testing.
In addition to this role I am also a Security Champion. This means:
- I am the main point of contact on my team for any security-related matters.
- I am a security evangelist and I ensure that security best practices are defined, promoted and followed.
- I prepare documentation for the Application Security Team to request their sign-off for major releases.
- I liaise with internal and external contacts to arrange, scope and assist with penetration tests.
Testing Consultancy
Over the years I have built up a considerable amount of knowledge and experience in the world of testing and I have branched out into providing test consultancy services to other businesses, so if you’re looking to up your testing game then please reach out to me and we can discuss whether we’d be a good fit for each other.