Episode 287 | Jason Huggins - Robotic Aspirations

Guest:

Jason Huggins

@hugs

Jason Huggins talks with Dave Rael about fortuitous circumstances, integrity, creating tools, and fulfilling desires

Jason Huggins is the founder of Tapster Robotics and is also the creator of popular open-source automated-testing tools Selenium and Appium (co-creator). Selenium is used to automate web browsers, while Appium automates mobile apps. These tools have become standard choices worldwide. In 2013, Jason Huggins was selected to join President Obama’s “tech surge” team tasked with fixing the troubled HealthCare.gov. At Tapster Robotics, Jason has combined this unique automated testing experience with his life-long enthusiasm for all-things-robotic. Prior to starting Tapster, Jason was founder and CTO at Sauce Labs and an automation engineer at Google.

Chapters: 3:03 - Dave introduces the show and Jason Huggins5:58 - Optimism and testing8:17 - How Jason fell into automated testing and the need for dealing with testing in JavaScript-heavy applications13:53 - The nature of testing17:16 - The problem addressed by Tapster and what you should test27:35 - The good fortune of circumstances beneficial for creating Selenium and open sourcing it31:33 - Doing things you haven't done before and fulfilling desires, especially Jason's interest in robotics39:28 - Jason's story of failure - severe consequences for dishonesty50:14 - Jason's book recommendation51:32 - Jason's top 3 tips for delivering more value

Resources: Tapster Robotics Tapster on Twitter Jason's (Inactive) Blog Selenium Appium What your most frequently used emoji say about you - BBC Kevin Kelly on Amazon ThoughtWorks Gmail History Tilting at windmills Don Quixote - Miguel De Cervantes Jurassic Park: A Novel - Michael Crichton Short Circuit (1986 film) (the Johnny 5 reference) Armatron U.S. Air Force ROTC

Jason's book recommendation: The Odyssey - Homer, new translation by Emily Wilson

Jason's top 3 tips for delivering more value: Look for ways to step up when other people take a step back Strive to always have at least one year of savings in your bank account Be on the lookout for your own implicit biases