I work for a fairly large company, but we don’t use TDD or any testing tools. We have a QA department, but they don’t use any testing tools, either.
Before getting this job, I had about 6 interviews at other companies. If I remember correctly, only two of them asked about my experience with testing tools and TDD.
I’m aware of all the technologies out there, including the ones available automatically in modern frameworks like Angular. I’m also aware of TDD and understand the concept, but I’ve never used it.
TDD seems like a good idea, but kind of a waste of time. But I’m at a place I don’t plan on sticking around for more than a year. However, I want to keep up with modern technologies so that when I start the job search again I’m more marketable.
I’m wondering if investing time in learning TDD and other testing frameworks would be valuable. Thanks for your feedback and comments!
On the front end, generally TDD isn’t a thing, you write the unit tests after writing the code. This is because a unit test doesn’t fully describe frontend code and the desired result. You’re not just producing html output, you need to see how it looks/behaves in the browser.
Unit testing, eg jest and testing library are important. They enable you to merge code without worrying about whether you’ve impacted functionality inadvertently on large projects.
There are companies that don’t enforce testing, generally agencies producing many projects. It’s a shortcut to not test, but it means the software will be less robust and more prone to bugs.
TDD is just one option on how to organize your testing. It’s not important to adhere to TDD. It is important to write tests. Figure out how you like to test your software and do it consistently, whether it’s textbook TDD or not.