I've summarized the text about the author's journey into automation engineering. The author started as a software tester in finance and banking, where they used HP WinRunner for test automation. They then transitioned to using Selenium, a framework for testing web applications, which gave them a broad knowledge of functionality and technical testing experience. Later, they used Apache JMeter for performance and load testing, and Appium for mobile app testing. Finally, they discovered Postman, an API development environment that helped them with understanding and testing APIs from clients. The author's journey highlights the challenges and strategies for software engineers to learn test automation and emphasizes the importance of continuous testing in agile development.