SDET Projects for 3–5 Years Experience: Enterprise Frameworks, Microservices and DevOps

Senior SDET projects should show architecture and ownership: frameworks that serve several teams, testing microservices, test infrastructure in containers, performance testing and quality metrics. These projects are designed to be discussed in senior and lead interviews.

Appium mobile automation, advanced CI/CD, cloud testing, test architecture, and leadership-level projects.

Project 31: Appium Android Automation from Scratch

Objective

Automate an Android application (use a sample APK like ApiDemos.apk or any calculator app) end-to-end using Appium.

Environment Setup

• Install Android Studio and set ANDROID_HOME environment variable
• Create an Android Virtual Device (AVD) in Android Studio — API 30+
• Install Appium 2.x using: npm install -g appium
• Install UiAutomator2 driver: appium driver install uiautomator2
• Install Appium Inspector for element identification
• Start Appium server: appium --address 127.0.0.1 --port 4723

Step-by-Step Automation

• Step 1: Configure DesiredCapabilities — platformName, deviceName, appPackage, appActivity, automationName=UiAutomator2
• Step 2: Create AppiumDriver<AndroidElement> driver = new AndroidDriver<>(url, caps)
• Step 3: Use Appium Inspector to find element locators (resourceId, accessibilityId, xpath)
• Step 4: Use driver.findElement(By.id("com.app.package:id/element")) for Android resource IDs
• Step 5: Implement touch actions — tap, swipe, long press using TouchAction class
• Step 6: Handle Android-specific interactions — back button, home button, app switching
• Step 7: Implement scroll using driver.findElementByAndroidUIAutomator() with scroll strategies
• Step 8: Create POM classes for mobile screens — extend AndroidBaseScreen
• Step 9: Take mobile screenshots using ((TakesScreenshot) driver).getScreenshotAs()
• Step 10: Run tests on emulator and real device (if available)

App to Automate

Use Google's sample apps, or automate a simple Android app like Calculator: test addition, subtraction, division by zero (expect error), large numbers.

Project 32: Hybrid Mobile Framework — iOS + Android

Extend the Android framework to support both iOS and Android from the same test code. (1) Create PlatformFactory.java that returns AndroidDriver or IOSDriver based on a platform parameter; (2) Create abstract base screen class with abstract methods each screen must implement; (3) Create Android and iOS implementations of each screen with platform-specific locators; (4) Tests reference only the abstract screens — no platform-specific code in tests; (5) testng.xml passes platform parameter; (6) Same test runs on both iOS Simulator and Android Emulator. This matches your Appium experience for Android and iOS on your resume.

Project 33: Appium + Web Hybrid App Testing

Test a hybrid mobile app that contains WebView components. (1) Start with native app context: driver.getContext() returns NATIVE_APP; (2) Detect WebView: driver.getContextHandles() returns available contexts; (3) Switch to WebView: driver.context("WEBVIEW_com.app.package"); (4) Now use standard Selenium locators to interact with web content inside the app; (5) Switch back to native: driver.context("NATIVE_APP"); (6) Build a test that interacts with both native navigation and embedded web pages. Use any hybrid demo app from GitHub.

Project 34: Cloud-Based Testing with BrowserStack / Sauce Labs

Run your existing Selenium tests on BrowserStack cloud. (1) Sign up for BrowserStack free trial; (2) Update DriverFactory to create RemoteWebDriver when 'remote' mode is set; (3) Configure BrowserStack capabilities: bs.user, bs.key, os, os_version, browser, browser_version; (4) Run tests across 5 browser/OS combinations simultaneously using parallel threads; (5) View video recordings, screenshots, and logs in BrowserStack dashboard; (6) Integrate BrowserStack session name with TestNG test name; (7) Mark sessions as passed/failed via BrowserStack REST API based on TestNG result. Also run mobile tests on real device cloud.

Project 35: Docker-Based Test Infrastructure

Set up a containerized test infrastructure using Docker and Selenium Grid. (1) Pull Selenium Grid Hub image: docker pull selenium/hub; (2) Pull Chrome/Firefox node images; (3) Create docker-compose.yml with hub + 3 Chrome nodes + 2 Firefox nodes; (4) Run docker-compose up to start the grid; (5) Update DriverFactory to create RemoteWebDriver pointing to hub URL (http://localhost:4444/wd/hub); (6) Run 10 tests in parallel — observe them distributed across nodes in Grid console; (7) View running sessions at http://localhost:4444/grid/console; (8) Integrate with Jenkins to spin up Docker grid before tests and tear down after.

Project 36: GitHub Actions CI/CD Pipeline

Create a GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/test.yml) that: (1) Triggers on every push to main and pull requests; (2) Sets up Java 11, Maven, Chrome; (3) Runs headless Chrome tests: mvn clean test -Dheadless=true; (4) Publishes TestNG HTML report as GitHub Pages artifact; (5) Posts test results comment on PR with pass/fail count; (6) Sends Slack notification on build failure using Slack webhook; (7) Runs on a schedule (cron) for nightly regression; (8) Supports manual trigger with browser parameter selection. This is standard in every modern engineering team.

Project 38: Security Testing Basics with OWASP ZAP

Integrate OWASP ZAP security scanner with your Selenium tests. (1) Start ZAP in daemon mode with REST API enabled; (2) Configure Selenium to use ZAP as HTTP proxy; (3) Run your normal Selenium tests — all traffic is proxied through ZAP; (4) After tests, call ZAP API to run active scan on discovered URLs; (5) Retrieve scan alerts — sorted by risk level (High/Medium/Low); (6) Assert zero High-risk vulnerabilities; (7) Generate ZAP HTML report; (8) Common vulnerabilities to test: XSS (inject script in form fields), SQL injection patterns, missing security headers. This is a unique skill very few QA professionals have.

Project 39: AI-Powered Test Generation

Use OpenAI API to automatically generate test cases from requirements. (1) Call OpenAI Chat API with a system prompt defining test case format; (2) Send user stories/requirements as input; (3) Parse the JSON response to extract test scenarios; (4) Auto-generate Selenium test code skeletons from the scenarios; (5) Run generated tests and collect results; (6) Feed failures back to AI to suggest fixes. Also explore: using AI to analyze screenshots and detect UI anomalies, and using AI to generate test data that covers edge cases.

Project 40: Complete Test Automation Framework — Open Source Portfolio

Build your signature open-source framework published on GitHub. It should include: (1) Multi-layer architecture — UI, API, Mobile, DB testing; (2) Dual runner support — TestNG and Cucumber; (3) Docker Selenium Grid integration; (4) Jenkins pipeline as code (Jenkinsfile); (5) GitHub Actions workflow; (6) 50+ test cases covering login, product, cart, checkout, user management APIs, and mobile app; (7) Allure or ExtentReports with trend analysis; (8) README.md with architecture diagram, setup guide, and demo GIF. This is your professional showcase — potential employers will review this repository.

Use practice websites built for automation as targets, never live production sites you do not own, and publish each finished project on GitHub with a README explaining how to run it.

FAQs

What makes a senior SDET project different?

Scope and decisions: it solves a problem for several teams (shared framework, test infrastructure, contract testing, dashboards) and you can explain the trade-offs you made.