Curious to know the roles and responsibilities of a QA tester or a QA engineer? Want to get your dream job? We are here to help you. Let us get started!
QA testers and QA engineers are important contributors to the software development lifecycle. A newly developed software goes through many testing stages. QA testers and QA engineers conduct many functional and non-functional tests. They conduct these tests according to the test needs. Formulating efficient software is impossible without the involvement of QA testers and QA engineers.
Quality Assurance
Quality assurance is about monitoring the stages of a software development process. It is used to make sure that the company’s software is designed up to the needed standards. A quality assurance analyst ensures that the developers are meeting their deadlines. Also, if they are informing other developers if any problem arises in their code.
QA Tester
Quality assurance testers make efforts to test if the product is up to the company’s standards. They perform software audits to come up with the processes to test the quality. In the job of a quality assurance tester, everything is about quality.
Quality assurance testers notice everything. QA testers are so detail-oriented. They do not ignore any errors. Well, human errors may occur at any stage as no one is perfect.
This is a beneficial job for many industries. If you want to pursue a career with many opportunities, a QA tester is the right choice. Many gaming development and software product companies hire QA testers. When companies are launching a website, QA testers examine to look for any errors.
QA Engineer
A Quality Assurance Engineer works with the software development team. They administer the testing and quality management of the software before its final release. QA Engineers plan and conduct testing at different phases of the development cycle. This makes it easy for them to identify bugs and errors in the software.
Top Quality Assurance Skills
Having quality analyst skills will help you to integrate best practices into your performance. These are the key skills of QA testers and QA engineers but anyone within the company can use them too. Some of the best quality analyst skills include:
- Communication
- Critical Thinking
- Analytical
- Attention To Detail
- Problem-Solving
1. Communication
QA analysts need to identify the issues and communicate them to developers to resolve them. For this purpose, the presentation and documentation of these issues must be clear. Their communication skills have to be easy to understand by the team members. If they are not able to communicate the issues, no action would be possible to fix them.
QA analysts should also be able to interact with non-technical professionals in the organization. They should communicate their ideas in easy and simple words. This will help them keep their project moving forward.
2. Critical Thinking
The role of QA engineers needs critical thinking skills. They have to find bugs and other issues that are not so obvious. They need to choose between different scenarios and test cases. Also, they may need to experiment with some scenarios and test cases to find the best fit. For this purpose, they use their critical thinking skills. To identify how different test cases will occur, they need to apply different mindsets. They also have to anticipate the customer response towards the product in hand.
3. Analytical Skills
A QA engineer needs to have strong analytical skills. It is their job to test every part of the system or product. They identify the weakness that could harm the quality of a system or product. As a result, the company will get poor customer response. QA engineers should be able to identify the strengths of a product. In this way, the development team can put more effort into it.
4. Attention To Details
QA engineers need to pay more attention to the details. We know that all systems may have bugs or issues.
Companies hire QA testers to point out as many errors as possible. They must be able to detect any defect that can result in product failure. As a result, it can harm the productivity of your business.
5. Problem Solving
If you are not able to find any possible way out. Problem-solving skills help you to find suitable solutions. Using your problem-solving skills, you can meet the needed quality standards. By using logic, creativity, and critical thinking, you can face all the challenges at work.
Roles And Responsibilities Of A QA Tester
Although there are many positions for a QA analyst. They follow a basic pattern to test the performance of the software. Then they install solutions as adapted and new technology. In an organization, the QAs do the following:
- Research, plan, and assist in compliance testing for the applicable procedures and policies.
- Prepare organized and clear testing work papers. It helps to support and document work performed and conclusions obtained.
- Examine current literature to identify software malfunctions.
- Review design and functional specifications.
- Identify requirements for a test from specifications.
- Mapping all the needs of a test.
- Design plans for test coverage.
- Develop, design, and maintain functional test cases.
- Build and assess automated or manual test cases. Also to report results of tests.
- Organize test plans and case reviews with team members.
- Identify the potential quality errors in the process.
- Ensure the validated deliverables are meeting design and functional specifications. And also meeting the need.
- Isolate and copy defects.
- Verify defect fixes
- Document testing protocols
- Approve tasks managed by QA Analysts
Roles And Responsibilities Of A QA Engineer
A QA Engineer must have great technical as well as soft skills. It is because they have to work closely with other teams. They also implement specific processes for service and business automation.
Responsibilities of a QA Engineer include performing the following duties:
- Plan and prioritize testing activities.
- Discuss verification protocols with the design team by coordinating with them.
- Identify the problem areas and weaknesses in the software.
- Suggest automated test procedures.
- Track and trace the bugs in the software and investigate the causes.
- Prepare automation QA scripts.
- Analyze the need for testability and ambiguity.
- Work with global and cross-functional teams. It is to develop, alter and execute end-to-end strategies and test plans.
- Observe, sort, and track execution for the test cases based on priority and severity.
- Design automated tests to improve the repeatability and reliability of software tests.
- Use best communication skills and presentation skills to manage and report errors. Also to help resolution sessions with global and cross-functional teams.
- Willingness and interest to rotate areas of quality assurance responsibilities.
- Never stop learning new technology.
How You Can Become A QA Tester Or A QA Engineer
Are you clear enough? Would you like to start your career as a QA tester or QA engineer? Then here are some steps you must follow to become successful in this field.
- Look for a computer science program
- Complete your degree
- Gain relevant experience
- Get quality assurance analyst certifications
1. Look For A Computer Science Program
While moving towards secondary education, you need to select an appropriate computer science program. This means seeking an education that can lead you to a graduation degree in computer sciences.
2. Complete Your Degree
If you want a degree in computer sciences, you need to excel in many courses including:
- Programming languages
- Operating system software
- Statistics and math
- Logical design principles
- Computer science theory
- Architecture
- Fundamentals of network technology
- Physics
- Information management
- Files and databases
- Data management
Courses in mathematics like calculus, statistics, and algorithms may play an important role in a computer science degree. Computer science programs may encourage you to take an internship. It helps you to learn and gain practical experience related to different jobs you can get.
3. Gain Relevant Experience
Internships are a great way to gain experience before entering the field. Work with your advisor or campus advisory offices to find relevant opportunities. Reach professional organizations to know if they can help you to find a suitable opportunity.
After completion of your degree, you can apply for QA jobs by looking at job boards or using online resources. Make sure your resume is up-to-date and carefully look for any application instructions to stand out.
4. Get Quality Assurance Certifications
Are you planning to specialize in quality assurance? Then you may need to get enrolled in a certification. This will help you to increase your knowledge and skills. Certifications increase the likelihood of getting good jobs. There are many certifications related to QA. You can take help from job or industry requirements when dividing to pursue a certification.
Where To Find The Best Quality Assurance Training Courses
Here we have compiled a list of 5 quality assurance training courses. We recommend these programs for the best QA training for beginners. Wolf Careers Inc. has designed these courses for beginners who want to learn quality assurance. These training certifications will help you to get your dream job in a reputable organization.
- Automation QA Training
- Manual QA Training
- QA Software Testing Training
1. Automation QA Training
This automation QA training course for beginners helps you to advance your career. You can then apply for jobs as an automation QA engineer. This automation QA training program is designed to provide knowledge of software QA testing technologies like:
- Selenium web driver,
- Selenium Grid,
- AutoIT,
- Appium,
- Maven,
- TestNG, and
- Docker.
These technologies help you to build a strong framework for testing.
This automation QA training course offers an extensive curriculum. Wolf Careers Inc. uses a unique blended approach to learning. In this way, we make you ready for your career as an automation QA engineer.
2. Manual QA Training
This course is designed for manual QA training. Through this course, Wolf Careers Inc. has made it easy to learn the concepts of manual QA testing. Basic manual QA testing concepts include:
- Test estimations
- Test plans
- Test cases
- Test techniques
- Test execution
- Testing types
- Test management
- Test summary report
- Bug report
We will explain all the concepts in detail so that you can understand them. The training course also includes templates for a test case, test plan, and bug report. You can use these templates for practicing to gain real-time experience.
3. Software Testing Training
This software testing training course is designed by professionals. This course will introduce you to basic software testing concepts. You will then learn about advanced topics like:
- Software configuration management
- Creating a test plan
- Test estimations
- Introduction and familiarity with automation testing
- QTP, QC, and other tools
This course helps you to understand the software testing life-cycle. We will introduce you to different levels of testing. It will also include manual and automation testing using tools like Maven and Selenium.
4. Quality Analyst Training
The quality analyst training course helps to understand the basics of manual and automation QA testing. It makes you familiar with tools like:
- QC
- QTP
- UFT
- Selenium
- LoadRunner
The quality analyst training program is designed for beginners. This program helps you to become a well-trained and skilled IT professional. After obtaining this certificate, you can work on manual and automation testing tools.
5. ETL Testing Training
This ETL testing training course helps you to understand business intelligence data warehousing. You will learn about the concepts of:
- ETL testing
- QA lifecycle
- RDBMS
Throughout this training, you will gain an in-depth understanding of data warehouse workflow. You will also gain an insight into the comparison between data warehouse testing and database testing.
ETL testing training helps you to understand different ETL testing scenarios. These may include:
- Negative scenarios
- Constraint testing
- Dependency testing
- Source of target testing
- Perform data checks using SQL
- Business rules testing
You can enroll in any of the above QA training programs to get exposed to an incredible experience. Complete your studies with our custom-designed QA training courses. With us, you can start your career as a QA tester or QA engineer and get your dream job. Wolf Careers Inc. also offers many other courses that we recommend. Start learning today!
