Playwright Modern Automation Engineer

Before writing code, understand why automation exists.

You will learn

• What is software test automation?
• Why organisations automate testing
• Manual testing vs automation testing
• What should be automated?
• What should not be automated?
• UI testing vs API testing
• Smoke, sanity and regression testing
• Risk-based test automation
• Test pyramid and testing layers
• Quality Engineering mindset
• QA vs QE vs SDET
• Why automation frameworks become difficult to maintain
• Selenium vs Playwright mindset
• JavaScript vs TypeScript for Playwright

Learn the JavaScript concepts you actually need for Playwright.

JavaScript Fundamentals

• Variables
• let, const and var
• Primitive and reference types
• Operators
• Type conversion
• null and undefined
• Conditional statements
• Loops

Functions

• Function declarations
• Function expressions
• Arrow functions
• Parameters
• Default parameters
• Return values
• Scope
• Lexical scope
• Scope chaining
• Closures
• Callback functions
• Higher-order functions

Arrays and Objects

• Arrays
• Objects
• Nested objects
• Arrays of objects
• Destructuring
• Spread operator
• Rest operator
• map
• filter
• find
• some
• every
• reduce
• Method chaining

Modern JavaScript

• Template literals
• Modules
• Import / Export
• Error handling
• Optional chaining

Understand await. Don't just type it.

You will learn

• Synchronous programming
• Asynchronous programming
• Call stack fundamentals
• Callbacks
• Promises
• Promise states
• Resolve and reject
• .then()
• .catch()
• .finally()
• Promise chaining
• Async functions
• await
• Error handling
• Sequential vs parallel execution
• Promise.all()

await page.getByRole('button').click();

You don't need to become a TypeScript language expert before using Playwright.

We teach the TypeScript concepts required for modern automation.

Topics include

• JavaScript vs TypeScript
• Why TypeScript helps automation
• Type inference
• Explicit types
• Function types
• Arrays
• Object types
• Union types
• Type aliases
• Interfaces
• Interface vs Type
• Optional properties
• Optional chaining
• Enums
• Generics fundamentals
• Classes
• Constructors
• Access modifiers
• public
• private
• protected
• readonly

Before learning commands, understand how Playwright works.

You will understand

• Playwright architecture
• Playwright Test
• Browser
• Browser Context
• Page
• Locator
• Fixtures
• Workers
• Test isolation
• Browser lifecycle
• Context lifecycle
• Page lifecycle
• Multi-browser architecture
• Chromium
• Firefox
• WebKit

Architecture Flow

1. Playwright Test
3. Browser
5. Browser Context
7. Page
9. Locator

Build your automation project like an engineer.

Topics include

• Installing Node.js
• Installing Playwright
• VS Code setup
• npm fundamentals
• package.json
• Dependencies
• devDependencies
• npm scripts
• Playwright configuration
• Project structure
• Running tests
• Headed execution
• Headless execution
• Debug mode
• Environment variables
• .env
• .gitignore
• Git repository setup

We don't just write:

test('login', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto('/');
});

We explain

• What is test?
• Why is the function async?
• What is { page }?
• What is destructuring?
• Where does page come from?
• What is a fixture?
• Why do we use await?
• What happens if await is removed?

This is where JavaScript knowledge connects directly with Playwright.

Learn how to create stable automation that survives application changes.

Topics include

• Understanding HTML
• DOM fundamentals
• Playwright Locator
• getByRole
• getByLabel
• getByPlaceholder
• getByText
• getByAltText
• getByTitle
• getByTestId
• CSS selectors
• XPath
• Filter
• has
• hasText
• Locator chaining
• nth
• Dynamic elements
• Browser developer tools
• Playwright Inspector
• Codegen
• Locator debugging

Stop solving timing problems with random sleeps.

Learn

• Playwright auto-waiting
• Actionability
• Visibility
• Stability
• Enabled state
• Event receiving
• Auto-retrying assertions
• Timeouts
• Waiting for URLs
• Waiting for responses
• Waiting for UI state
• Network synchronisation
• AJAX applications
• Race conditions
• Why waitForTimeout() is usually a bad solution

Master real application interactions.

Topics include

• Clicking
• Typing
• Clearing
• Checkboxes
• Radio buttons
• Dropdowns
• Multi-select
• Keyboard actions
• Mouse actions
• Hover
• Double-click
• Right-click
• Drag and drop
• File uploads
• File downloads
• Alerts
• Confirmations
• Prompts
• Multiple tabs
• Multiple windows
• Frames
• iFrames
• Shadow DOM
• SVG
• Calendars
• Web tables
• Pagination
• Infinite scrolling
• Dynamic applications

Writing actions is only half of automation.

The real purpose of a test is validation.

Learn

• Playwright expect
• Locator assertions
• Page assertions
• Text assertions
• URL assertions
• Visibility assertions
• Negative assertions
• Soft assertions
• Custom messages
• Polling
• API assertions
• Screenshot assertions
• Avoiding unnecessary assertions
• Business validation vs UI validation

Fixtures are one of the most important Playwright concepts.

Learn

• Built-in fixtures
• Page fixture
• Browser fixture
• Context fixture
• Custom fixtures
• Test-scoped fixtures
• Worker-scoped fixtures
• Fixture dependencies
• Automatic fixtures
• Fixture setup
• Fixture teardown
• Reusable authentication fixtures
• Avoiding excessive beforeEach

Real systems have different users and permissions.

Learn

• UI login
• API login
• Storage state
• Authentication reuse
• Cookies
• Local storage
• Multiple user roles
• Admin sessions
• Customer sessions
• Role-based access control
• Multiple browser contexts
• Session isolation
• Permission testing

Test data is one of the biggest challenges in enterprise automation.

Learn

• Hardcoded test data
• JSON
• CSV
• Environment-specific data
• Data factories
• Unique test data
• Dynamic test data
• Deterministic data
• API-generated data
• Test setup
• Test cleanup
• Parallel-safe data
• Shared state problems
• Test independence

Database Fundamentals for Automation

• Why database validation is used
• SQL fundamentals for testers
• Read-only database validation
• UI → API → Database flow
• When database validation is appropriate

Go beyond UI automation.

API Fundamentals

• HTTP
• REST
• Request
• Response
• GET
• POST
• PUT
• PATCH
• DELETE
• Headers
• Query parameters
• Path parameters
• Status codes
• JSON
• Authentication

Playwright API

• APIRequestContext
• API fixtures
• Request configuration
• Authentication tokens
• Response parsing
• Response assertions
• Negative API testing
• Error validation
• API chaining
• Reusable API clients
• Schema validation concepts
• Contract-testing concepts

Modern automation shouldn't send everything through the browser.

Learn how to combine APIs and UI.

Example workflow

1. API creates test user
3. UI logs in
5. UI updates profile
7. API validates the change
9. API deletes test data

This approach can make automation faster, cleaner and more reliable.

Learn how to control application dependencies.

Topics include

• Intercept network requests
• Modify requests
• Modify responses
• Mock API responses
• Simulate server errors
• Simulate unavailable services
• Simulate slow responses
• Block resources
• Test failure scenarios
• Deterministic UI testing

You will also learn when mocking should not replace real integration testing.

Don't build POM because everyone else does.

Understand the problem it solves.

Learn

• What is Page Object Model?
• Benefits
• Page classes
• Locators
• Page actions
• Reusability
• Components
• Common UI components
• Domain-specific helpers
• Service objects

We also teach what can go wrong

• Giant Page Objects
• BasePage with hundreds of methods
• Excessive inheritance
• Hidden assertions
• Repeated locators
• Utility dumping grounds
• Over-engineering

Build a framework from the ground up.

Example structure

tests/
pages/
components/
fixtures/
api/
data/
utils/
config/
types/
reports/

But Mutate Code doesn't stop at showing the folders.

For every folder we answer

1. Why does it exist?
2. What belongs inside it?
3. What should NOT be inside it?
4. What happens if we don't separate responsibilities?

Learn how professional test suites manage multiple execution requirements.

Topics include

• playwright.config.ts
• Base URL
• Timeouts
• Retries
• Workers
• Reporters
• Trace
• Screenshot
• Video
• Browser projects
• Mobile projects
• Environment projects
• Authentication projects
• Smoke projects
• Regression projects
• Project dependencies

Writing 20 tests is easy.

Maintaining 2,000 tests is a different engineering problem.

Learn

• Workers
• Parallel execution
• Fully parallel execution
• Serial execution
• Test isolation
• Shared state problems
• Authentication under parallelism
• Test data under parallelism
• Resource conflicts
• Retries
• Execution strategy
• Suite categorisation
• Smoke vs regression execution

When one machine is no longer enough:

• What is sharding?
• Why use sharding?
• Local sharding
• CI sharding
• Multiple machines
• Distributed execution
• Merging reports
• Scaling large regression suites

You will investigate

• Incorrect locator
• Timing issue
• Authentication expiry
• Bad test data
• Environment issue
• API failure
• Overlay issue
• Network issue
• Parallel conflict
• Application defect
• Automation defect

Debugging tools

• Playwright Inspector
• Trace Viewer
• Screenshots
• Videos
• Browser console
• Network logs
• Debug mode
• VS Code breakpoints
• Logging

Don't hide flaky tests behind retries.

Understand why they fail.

Learn

• What is a flaky test?
• Synchronisation problems
• Shared state
• Dynamic selectors
• Test order dependency
• Data collisions
• Network instability
• Environment instability
• Retry strategy
• Retry masking
• Failure investigation
• Quarantine concepts
• Flakiness trends

Automation engineers work as part of engineering teams.

Learn

• Git fundamentals
• Clone
• Branch
• Commit
• Push
• Pull
• Merge
• Merge conflicts
• Pull Requests
• Code reviews
• Branching strategies
• .gitignore
• README
• Version control best practices

Understand where automation fits into software delivery.

Topics include

• What is CI?
• What is CD?
• Pipeline
• Job
• Stage
• Trigger
• Artifact
• Environment variables
• Secrets
• Quality gates

Practical Integration

• GitHub Actions
• GitLab CI concepts
• Jenkins concepts
• Running smoke tests
• Running regression
• Scheduled execution
• Pull Request validation
• Publishing test reports

Learn containerised automation fundamentals.

Topics include

• What is Docker?
• Container vs virtual machine
• Image
• Container
• Dockerfile
• Playwright Docker images
• Running Playwright in Docker
• Environment variables
• Volumes
• Reports
• Docker in CI

Build better tests by understanding how users interact with applications.

Learn

• Accessibility roles
• Accessible names
• Labels
• Semantic HTML
• Keyboard navigation
• Accessibility-first locators
• Basic automated accessibility checks
• Why accessibility improves locator stability

Learn where visual testing adds value.

Topics include

• Screenshot testing
• Baselines
• Visual comparison
• Pixel differences
• Dynamic content
• Animations
• Masking
• Stable visual tests
• False positives
• When visual testing should not be used

This is not a full performance-testing course.

Instead, understand the performance signals automation engineers should recognise.

Learn

• Response timing
• Browser network activity
• Slow resources
• Network waterfall fundamentals
• UI response behaviour
• Why functional automation is not load testing
• When specialist performance testing is required

AI should assist your engineering.

It should not replace your engineering judgement.

AI Fundamentals

• What is an LLM?
• Tokens
• Context
• Hallucinations
• Prompt fundamentals

AI for QA Engineers

Use AI to help:

• Analyse requirements
• Generate test ideas
• Review automation code
• Explain failures
• Generate test data
• Suggest locators
• Refactor tests
• Understand unfamiliar code
• Draft API scenarios

AI Verification

Learn to detect:

• Fake selectors
• Hallucinated APIs
• Weak assertions
• Incorrect business assumptions
• Unsafe generated code

Advanced Concepts

• AI Agents
• Tool calling
• MCP fundamentals
• AI-assisted Playwright workflows
• Human-in-the-loop validation
• Privacy and security considerations

Designed specifically for automation engineers coming from Selenium.

Understand the transition

Migration topics

• What can be reused?
• What should not be copied?
• Framework coexistence
• Pilot migration
• Prioritising scenarios
• Gradual migration
• Rewrite vs refactor
• Training teams
• Migration risks
• Measuring migration success

You won't finish this course with only isolated examples.

You will build complete projects.

Project 1 — Playwright Fundamentals Project

E-Commerce Application. Build:

• Login
• Search
• Product selection
• Cart
• Checkout
• Assertions
• POM
• Test data
• Reports

Project 2 — Enterprise Business Application

Work with scenarios closer to banking, insurance or enterprise systems. Includes:

• Multiple user roles
• Authentication
• Forms
• Business rules
• API integration
• Test data
• Role permissions
• Error handling
• Parallel execution

Project 3 — Production-Style Automation Framework

This time we don't give you every answer. You receive requirements. You decide:

• Framework architecture
• Folder structure
• Fixtures
• Page Objects
• Components
• API clients
• Test data
• Authentication
• Reporting
• Parallelism
• CI/CD
• Execution strategy

This project is designed to make you think like an automation engineer.

Building a framework isn't enough. You must be able to explain it.

For every major component, you should be able to answer:

1. What does it do?
2. Why did you create it?
3. Why is it located here?
4. What problem does it solve?
5. What alternative could you use?
6. What happens if you remove it?
7. Will it work safely under parallel execution?

Prepare for questions such as:

1. You have 2,000 automated tests and execution takes eight hours. What would you do?
2. Thirty tests fail intermittently. How would you investigate?
3. How would you manage test data during parallel execution?
4. When should a UI validation be moved to API testing?
5. How would you migrate a Selenium framework to Playwright?
6. How would you design authentication for multiple user roles?
7. How would you organise a scalable Playwright framework?

These are not memorisation questions. They test your engineering thinking.

Turn your learning into something you can demonstrate.

You will work on

• GitHub portfolio
• Project README
• Framework documentation
• Architecture diagrams
• Resume project descriptions
• LinkedIn positioning
• Playwright interview questions
• Live coding preparation
• Framework explanation
• Mock technical discussions