At Mobile.dev, we love hearing stories from teams putting Maestro to work in the real world - and Randy Sie and his team at Eneco have a story that’s representative of what many companies are going through.
We sat down with Randy to hear how he drove that transformation—starting from scratch, evaluating the right tools, and rolling out a successful automation strategy that even got buy-in from the CEO.
Watch the full conversation here:
📍 Starting from Zero: No Automation, Just Manual Testing
When Randy first joined Eneco, the QA process was entirely manual—across both the mobile app and the web portal. His first task was coordinating a major migration project for the app during a time of heightened demand due to the energy crisis.
Once that was completed, he transitioned to a QA engineering role and began laying the foundation for automation. He started with the web portal, then turned to tackling the mobile app. This is when the team began exploring mobile automation tools.
🔍 The Search for the Right Tool: Appium, Tosca… and Maestro
Randy’s team ran several proof-of-concepts (PoCs), comparing tools like Appium (with Selenium and Java), Tosca, and Maestro. The criteria were clear:
- Speed and reliability
- Low learning curve
- Open source preference
- Easy integration with their stack (Bitrise, Azure, etc.)
Maestro stood out for several reasons:
…at that time I was the only automation engineer within Eneco for the online department. So for me it was also really important to have a short learning curve so that the functional testers will also pick it up really fast
Compared to Appium and Tosca, Maestro offered simplicity, speed, and a smoother onboarding experience. Randy also noted fewer issues with flakiness—something that plagues many teams using traditional frameworks.
🚀 Gaining Buy-In: A Live Demo That Won Over the Whole Company
Once Randy got a small Maestro test suite running, he showcased it to the QA engineers across four teams. Within two days, they had written their own flows. Encouraged by this momentum, Randy organized a company-wide demo, including the CEO.
So as you can imagine, everything was manual. So every time we do a release, it’s like, 16 hours of work for regression. I did the calculation and we already did like 120 flows or something like that before the presentation. And I just showed them the numbers. Like, look at this. Because it was like, in one hour it’s done!
This presentation became a turning point. Leadership saw the time savings immediately, and support for Maestro became widespread.
🧱 Scaling It Out: Shared Repos, Pipelines, and Nightly Builds
With buy-in secured, Randy focused on scaling the project:
- Shared Azure Repo: All teams had their own folders and configs within a shared repository.
- Automated Pipelines: Tests were integrated into Bitrise and Azure pipelines, triggering on every release and nightly build.
- Tag-Based Test Execution: PRs were filtered by tags, which determined which Maestro flows to run.
Results were immediate and impressive. Previously, a full regression test took over 16 hours across four teams. With Maestro, that dropped to under an hour.
🔁 Continuous Improvement: Shifting Left & Smarter Architecture
Eneco now runs tests on nightly builds, catching issues early in development. But even as things run smoothly, Randy is still refining.
One lesson learned? The shared “common layer”—a centralized structure for shared logic—sometimes leads to unnecessary test runs when it’s touched. With pipeline runtime limits in Azure and cost considerations in Bitrise, they’re exploring ways to decentralize this layer to make tests more efficient.
And a lot of times with a page object model, you touch the common layer so then it spins up the whole thing. So maybe we have to split up this common layer and create common layers within the different teams.
💡 Advice for Teams Starting Out
We asked Randy what advice he’d give to teams just starting with Maestro or mobile automation in general. Here’s what he shared:
- Start small, scale intentionally: Begin with a handful of test flows, show value quickly, then grow.
- Make your structure future-proof: Set up your repo, config, and team processes to scale smoothly.
- Keep things accessible: A low learning curve means everyone on the team can contribute.
- Prioritize speed and reliability: These two factors will make or break buy-in from your stakeholders.
✅ Final Thoughts
It’s really nice to implement within your company because - it’s just smooth sailing to be honest
Randy and the team at Eneco show what’s possible when you pair the right tooling with a strong vision for quality. By choosing Maestro, they were able to go from 100% manual testing to a fully integrated mobile test automation strategy—one that’s fast, reliable, and scalable across teams.
If you’re evaluating mobile testing frameworks and want to reduce manual testing overhead, improve release confidence, and empower your QA team to move faster, Randy’s story is proof: it’s absolutely possible—and Maestro can help you get there.
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