I've worked on adding Google Pay / Apple Pay to the mobile app of a large European ecommerce company, and that's more of less how we went about it.
Start with the sandbox / test environments, once you get reasonable responses end to end, release the thing behind a feature flag. Backend moves slowly, so you add stuff to the mobile app that really belongs to the backend, but f it, because it's the only way you meet the deadline, you will convince someone on the backend later (aka never) that it's backend responsibility. Ask (pressure) the developers into buying some cheap stuff from your shop with their own credit cards, because the company is a behemoth and approving real credit cards for testing would just take ages and you want to release yesterday. It annoys you, but you realize that 5x5 euros is worth getting this done rather than start fighting a losing battle against company processes. Cancelation is possible, but it will take a couple of days. If there's any issue, you debug it across a bunch of teams and/or companies. Things start to work most of the time, time to release the stuff to x percent of your users. Check analytics and error logs frequently. Some production users got their payments through, increase rollout percentage. You discover more and more undocumented error codes, you improve the error messages to the users so that they don't retry 10 times with a card without sufficient funds. After a couple weeks, things start to stabilize, you move on to a new feature...
The test environments were so complicated and had so many caveats that whenever I had to do something, I had to re-read the docs and our notes to know all the "traps" we already discovered. For the people who didn't work on this payment feature from start to finish, testing in the officially recommended test channels were hopeless.
If the employee can get it refunded with an expense report, like any other work expense then in my experience (in California), it’s not illegal. I’ve made plenty of work expenditures with my personal CC that I get reimbursed from the company with an expense report. But *pressuring* employees to do it is plain wrong (and may be illegal).
Coming back here, not sure if anyone still reads this thread a day later...
I am not sure about the legality of it here in Germany, but I'm not really sure I could even prove it.
Pressuring us into buying these items are hard to prove, nobody said we need to do anything. You want to be someone who makes sure the feature can launch on time and works correctly, or you want to complain (rightfully) that using your own cards should not be necessary for testing a feature?
It was, though, implied 1. we need to make sure the product works and shipped on time, 2. you can't do it without using your own cards.
I know people on the team who simply didn't test, but as it was a feature I was mainly responsible for and genuinely interested in, I wanted the launch to be successful.
We also eventually got the money back (most of the money? didn't check them all).
In the end, it was in total about 25 euros, and that's not a sum that I would sue my employer over, especially as I was "happy enough" at the company.
>Here in the state of California, labor laws define that an employer cannot require a team member to take on expenses that are an integral part of the job.
Two comments. (From a non-CA legal jurisdiction context.)
You can always ask (but not pressure or require). Make sure you make it clear there's no downside to them refusing.
Another option I've used is to hand cash to co workers and ask them to spend it on their credit card for testing. I've rarely had anyone refuse that. (A few very junior staff members who were maybe right on the credit limit on their cards I suspect.)
California is an example, but I’m unclear about other states. Honestly, I’m unclear across the board because there are a lot of employee made purchases that are conditions of employment (phone, computer), and it could be argued that this purchase is a similar necessity especially if it’ll be refunded.
Any job that asks you to buy your own equipment, especially a computer, is a scam (unless you are a freelancer, in which case you should already have equipment)
Start with the sandbox / test environments, once you get reasonable responses end to end, release the thing behind a feature flag. Backend moves slowly, so you add stuff to the mobile app that really belongs to the backend, but f it, because it's the only way you meet the deadline, you will convince someone on the backend later (aka never) that it's backend responsibility. Ask (pressure) the developers into buying some cheap stuff from your shop with their own credit cards, because the company is a behemoth and approving real credit cards for testing would just take ages and you want to release yesterday. It annoys you, but you realize that 5x5 euros is worth getting this done rather than start fighting a losing battle against company processes. Cancelation is possible, but it will take a couple of days. If there's any issue, you debug it across a bunch of teams and/or companies. Things start to work most of the time, time to release the stuff to x percent of your users. Check analytics and error logs frequently. Some production users got their payments through, increase rollout percentage. You discover more and more undocumented error codes, you improve the error messages to the users so that they don't retry 10 times with a card without sufficient funds. After a couple weeks, things start to stabilize, you move on to a new feature...
The test environments were so complicated and had so many caveats that whenever I had to do something, I had to re-read the docs and our notes to know all the "traps" we already discovered. For the people who didn't work on this payment feature from start to finish, testing in the officially recommended test channels were hopeless.