4 Ways To Land A Role As An Automation Engineer

As businesses look to become more resilient and tech-forward—automation is becoming an increasingly popular area across all industries—primarily manufacturing and advertising. “Automation reduces time, effort, and costs, while eliminating the chance for manual errors—making it a logical next step for many businesses,” says Trish Spina, Senior Director of Technology at Tandym Group. “Therefore, tech roles will typically remain in high demand amid various business and economic uncertainties. This is especially true for automation engineers.”

If you’re currently looking for a career change, you can expect to see more of these types of positions during your search. For those interested in applying, here’s how to set yourself apart from other candidates:

Keep your core skillset sharp

Automation engineers help increase efficiencies by automating certain processes—however, to do their jobs, they still need to rely on programming languages and know how codes are formatted. That’s why, as an engineer looking to get into automation, it’s important to keep your core skillset sharp. Here are a few ways to ensure your knowledge is up to date:

Use online resources such as LeetCode and Coderbyte to perform practice assessments
Focus on expanding your knowledge of languages such as Python, Java, and C#

Ensure you are familiar with common automation tools

Along with coding languages, there are tools that are frequently used by automation engineers. Here are common tools you should be familiar with:

HP ALM
Cucumber
Selenium
Maven
Jenkins

“If you currently are looking to break into a new tech discipline or even add to your existing skillset, consider applying for an Automation Testing role. Doing so will allow you to get your feet wet in automation and decide if a job as an automation engineer is right for you,” says Trish.

Update your resume

Before embarking on any job search, it’s important to ensure your resume highlights your most recent skills and accomplishments that will help land you the role you’re looking for. “Aside from updating your resume with your latest skills, it’s also important to consider the format in which your resume is presented,” advises Trish. To ensure you’re following the flow of a typical technical resume, we recommend organizing yours in the following order:

Summary
Core technical skillset (be sure to include skills you are proficient in)
Professional experience
Education
Certifications

Keep an open mind

As the workplace and economy evolve, business have begun to slow down their hiring. While jobs in tech are still very much in high demand, the inflated salaries we were once seeing as a means to entice skilled candidates, have begun to stabilize. While salaries remain competitive, you may not be seeing the base salary numbers you were seeing at the beginning of this year. However, that does not necessarily mean you should turn down an interview or job offer. When it comes to compensation, it is important to consider the whole benefits package, which could include bonuses, remote work options, and flexible scheduling.