30 topics. One clear sequence. From 'what is a test case' to 'CI/CD pipeline automation' — using the best free YouTube videos, not a ₹15,000 course.
Start your roadmapMost 'software testing courses' do one of two things: they stop at manual testing (test cases, bug reports, JIRA) and call it done — leaving you at 3–4 LPA forever — or they throw Selenium at you on week 1 without explaining what you're even testing or why.
This roadmap is built in three clear phases. Phase 1 (topics 01–09) covers the testing fundamentals every professional needs — not just theory, but the real daily work: writing test cases, reporting bugs in JIRA, understanding Agile sprints, using Git. These are the skills interviewers expect even from freshers at service companies.
Phase 2 (topics 10–20) is where you become an automation engineer. Java, Selenium, TestNG, Page Object Model, Playwright — built in sequence so each topic prepares you for the next. This is the tier that takes you from 4 LPA to 10–14 LPA.
Phase 3 (topics 21–30) is the SDET tier. API automation with REST Assured, CI/CD with Jenkins and GitHub Actions, mobile automation with Appium, performance testing with JMeter. This is the engineering layer that gets you to 20–40 LPA at product companies. Every topic in this phase exists because interviewers at Freshworks, Razorpay, Amazon, and Atlassian test it.
In priority order. Learn these in sequence, not all at once.
Start from 01 and work forward. Each topic unlocks the next. Don't jump to topic 21 before you own topic 9.
We are not another course provider.
Every topic below is backed by the best free YouTube videos for that exact concept — handpicked, not random. Everything you need to become an ML engineer is already on YouTube. You just need someone to find the right video, put it in the right order, and tell you what to actually do with it. That's what this roadmap does. No ₹10,000 course required.
Ready to start? The roadmap is live.
Click any topic, read the concept, see the resources. First 7 topics are completely free.
CTC vs in-hand: always ask for the breakup before celebrating an offer.
The salary story in software testing is entirely about which phase you reach. Phase 1 skills = service-company manual QA = 3–5 LPA. Phase 2 skills = automation engineer = 6–14 LPA. Phase 3 skills = SDET at product company = 14–40 LPA. Same domain, completely different career. Benchmarked from AmbitionBox, Glassdoor India, PayScale (July 2026).
TCS, Infosys, Wipro. Dead-end tier — learn automation to escape.
Freshworks, Zoho, BrowserStack, Meesho. The real entry into SDET.
Razorpay, Atlassian, Walmart Global Tech. Near-SDE pay.
Amazon, Microsoft, Google. Full engineering scope.
One clear path. Follow it in order. 2–3 hrs/day after college or work.
Understand what software testing is, how the SDLC and STLC work, how to write a test case, how to report a bug. Learn JIRA and Git. These 9 topics take 2–3 weeks and are the foundation everything else sits on. Skipping them means your automation later will be poorly structured.
Topics 10–12 cover Java OOP, collections, exception handling, and HTML/DOM for testers. Don't rush to Selenium without these — every Selenium bug you hit later will require Java debugging skills. 3 weeks here saves 3 months of confusion later.
Selenium setup → locators → advanced interactions → TestNG → POM → data-driven → Cucumber. This is the core of 80% of Indian SDET interviews. Build a real automation suite for a practice site (OrangeHRM, SauceDemo) using Page Object Model. Don't just follow tutorials — build it yourself.
Playwright is what modern product companies are moving to. After Selenium you'll understand exactly why Playwright is better — the comparison makes you a stronger candidate. TypeScript for Playwright, advanced POM, parallel execution, and Allure reports.
Postman for exploration, REST Assured for automation. API tests are faster, more stable, and test at a deeper layer than UI tests. Every mid-to-senior SDET role requires this. Write automated API tests for a public REST API (ReqRes, JSONPlaceholder) to start.
Maven dependency management, Jenkins/GitHub Actions pipelines, JMeter load testing, Appium mobile automation, SQL for data validation, and interview prep. These are the skills that unlock SDET at product companies. Even knowing 3–4 of these puts you ahead of 90% of automation engineer applicants.
SDET interviews for product companies cover 3 things: automation code (write a Selenium or Playwright test live), API testing knowledge (REST Assured / Postman), and 1–2 DSA questions (arrays and strings). Most people fail because they only prepared manual testing theory. The framework you build while following this roadmap IS your interview preparation — you'll be explaining real code you wrote, not theory you memorised.
Topic 17 (POM) is the most-tested topic in SDET interviews — know why POM exists, not just how to implement it
Topic 16 (TestNG) questions: difference between @BeforeMethod and @BeforeClass, how to run tests in parallel, how to skip a test conditionally
Topic 24 (REST Assured) — write a GET request with header auth and assert on response JSON field. Practice this until it's fast
Topic 26 (CI/CD) — be able to explain how your test suite plugs into a Jenkins pipeline or GitHub Actions YAML. Even a basic demo counts
Topic 14 (XPath) — write both absolute and relative XPath for a login form without copy-pasting from DevTools. Interviewers watch how you build it
Topic 30 is dedicated to interview prep — do it last, after you've completed the framework. The questions hit differently when you've written real code
Complete Phase 1 + Phase 2 (topics 01–21) before applying to mid-product companies. Complete Phase 3 (22–30) before targeting SDET at Amazon, Atlassian, or Google. BrowserStack is the best first SDET job in India — it's a testing-infrastructure company, the work is real, and the brand carries weight on your next resume.
Stop collecting tabs. The roadmap is here, the questions are curated, and the first 3 topics are free. One step at a time.