What motivates you to be a Cypress Ambassador?
I joined the program as one of the first members in the world, which I am very proud of. Being a part of the community that gathers people engaged, at least to a small extent, in the development of the testing technology which is so amazing and friendly to testers and developers is something which motivates me a lot.
I started using Cypress in 2016. Back then, as a developer with not that much seniority, I was looking for a solution to write tests which would be easier and more available for professionals with less commercial experience than those which were popular and pervasive on the market. It has always been my ambition to create the most performant, secure, and bug-free applications possible, so even though it was not required by my employers and was not the main purpose of my work, I have always written unit tests and end-to-end tests.
Unfortunately, as I have already mentioned, the most popular solutions at that time were not always the best ones, tests often had various problems, such as issues called async-hell or flakiness, and the threshold of entry to the technology was also quite high, so I decided to try something less known, i.e., Cypress.
I participated in closed tests and after that I started using this technology in every commercial or private project. I could say that when I learnt what this technology has to offer, it was love at first sight.
How do you currently help others that are either using Cypress or interested in using Cypress?
In every company where I work, I always recommend using Cypress and, of course, I support this recommendation with arguments gained over many years. In addition, I participate as a speaker in many events on a national and global scale where I also praise Cypress and suggest using it to everyone, because of its accessibility for people new to the topic of test automation. In addition to the aforementioned activities, I have been conducting weekend on-site courses in various cities in Poland since 2018, which have already become recognizable across the country. During these courses, I have had the pleasure to teach hundreds of ambitious people who want to deepen their knowledge and get their first dream job in the industry. This is something I am incredibly proud of.
What is your favorite Cypress feature?
It is difficult to choose one feature that is my favorite because I think Cypress as a whole is simply a game changer in the world of software engineering and quality assurance. However, if I had to choose just one, it would probably be time travel debugging, thanks to which we are able to understand very easily where a bug occurs in our tests or applications.
What is your favorite "Cypress Best Practice" and why?
In my opinion, all best practices have been carefully thought out and bring a lot of benefits not only when using Cypress but also during regular work. I think that a very cool and useful best practice, which allows us to pay more attention to the HTML semantics of the code, also improving our software in many other aspects such as SEO and accessibility, is to give data-* attributes to the so-called “clickable elements” or “containers” in order to write good selectors. Thanks to that, our tests are less fragile and the code is much more understandable and written in a more aesthetic way. I also really like the fact that we do not have to do unnecessary waiting, which practically excludes flakiness of tests. However, since I was to indicate only one best practice, let’s stick to the DOM tree elements with data-* attributes :)
Outside of work, what are your favorite things to do (hobbies, passions, etc.)?
I love cooking, which is one of my favorite activities next to coding. My signature dishes are BBQ ribs, mushrooms stuffed with pesto and blue cheese and lemon cheesecake. I also love motorization and driving on the track, and I have even fulfilled one of my dreams recently and bought a brand new Porsche 718 GT4. In addition, I love traveling – I would love to visit Africa (Safari in Kenya), Asia (especially Tokyo) and the United States (to drive Route 69 in an RV).
What is one professional milestone you are proud of? (an accomplishment, celebration, recognition, etc.)
I am a person who, regardless of success and seniority in the industry, still wants to grow. For example, this year alone I have already obtained 4 internationally recognized industry certifications. Moreover, I also got the chance to work for one of the largest companies in Denmark, which creates recognized products helping people around the world. What is more, I could point out that thanks to my training, I have helped many people to enter the IT world, but also to spread their wings, as I have been a mentor for persons who are now seniors in their organizations, authors of best-selling books and even professors at universities. Therefore, it is hard for me to choose one thing, so maybe I would indicate the online meeting with Brian Mann, the Founder and Creator of Cypress, to which I was invited. It was a great honor for me and a very memorable event in my life. On this occasion, I would like to send my warmest greetings to Mr. Brian Mann.
For new users - what is the best way to "get started" with Cypress?
I always say that the most important thing in our profession is practice. They should start testing their own applications, or, if they do not have such an opportunity, they can use cypress-realword-app repository on github prepared by Cypress.io. Additionally, it is important not to forget to always have documentation open, which by the way is incredibly well and clearly written, and over almost a decade I have seen a lot, so I have a point of reference. What is more, I suggest following professional events and social media of experienced professionals in the industry, such as Gleb Bahmutov, Marie Cruz or Filip Hric.
What is your favorite quote or saying?
“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
About the Ambassador Program.
The Cypress Ambassador program supports the top Cypress advocates around the world. Through this program, Ambassadors are offered speaking opportunities, a personalized hub, and visibility within our extensive network.To learn more about these wonderful ambassadors visit our Official Ambassador webpage.
The Cypress Community Team has been working on the official Cypress Ambassador program to include a variety of new experiences, support resources, benefits, contribution areas, and much more. One of our main priorities is to highlight our current Ambassadors and the amazing work they are doing. They truly embody the community spirit through their advocacy to help empower others. We will be having more opportunities to connect with our Ambassadors this year. Make sure to stay updated on upcoming events and opportunities.