“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Alan Kay
Sastri Munsamy is a digital native who knew from a very young age he was born to be in the IT space. “Computers, technology and programming all came naturally and there was no doubt about my future field of expertise.” His career started in 2003 and he says he thrived on dissecting a problem and analysing it from every angle to find a solution.
With extensive global exposure and a stint with the US Government, he believes that some of the most innovative solutions are actually the simplest. His role is to keep the company relevant, pick out future trends and find new solutions, working in collaboration with the company’s cloud-based DevOps teams.
Munsamy is as committed to internal growth and upskilling as he is to R&D. “We need to be able to implement what we develop,” says Munsamy. “We invest our time internally to find innovative solutions to clients’ business problems. We also need to ensure that our staff remain relevant in current and future environments.”
As a case in point, Munsamy wanted to give their manual testers a way of learning how to create reusable automation scripts in Java, without them having to learn Java in detail. He implemented a Technical Mentorship Programme with classes to teach automation testing. “Pretty much everyone who has been on this programme is now able to script with Selenium in Java, utilising reusable keywords, externalized input data and detailed test reports. This means our manual functional testers can be relevant in the current day and age.”
Munsamy’s role is pivotal to Inspired Testing’s R&D Programme as he and his team constantly develop new testing solutions. Their job is to step out of in-the-box thinking and bring an edge into testing strategy. “Research and development are a big part of technology,” he says. “It’s important that we lead the way with a pioneering mentality. It sounds complicated, but actually being innovative just requires seeing things with a different perspective.”
“In the AI space, we’re working on an AI exploratory tester that uses algorithms coupled with neural networks and deep learning, which has the potential to provide powerful problem solving. It’s a potential gamechanger,” says Munsamy. Other AI-related innovations in the team’s sights are test data management, AI-based mobile testing and AI-inspired framework improvement.
Munsamy is also happy to turn existing strategies and current thought processes on their head. Mutation testing is one such case. Munsamy explains: “Mutation testing offers an alternative solution to unit testing. We use a tool that injects defects into an application source code at the beginning of development. It checks if the unit tests fail and picks up the defects.”
Munsamy has plenty of passion and energy to inspire. “At Inspired Testing, we pride ourselves on being ahead of the game and finding new ways of testing, instead of waiting for the world to prescribe to us how we should be doing things. We don’t accept that something is impossible. Nothing is impossible.”