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QA Engineer

Projected Time

  • Lesson: 20 min
  • Guided Practice: 10 min
  • Independent Practice: 12 min
  • Check for Understanding: 15 min

Prerequisites

Motivation

  • When your customers think of your brand, certain images, feelings, and expectations come into their minds. A good QA system is a necessary component of your business success, especially nowadays, when unhappy customers are just a click away from multiple social media outlets.
  • QA engineers, also known as quality assurance engineers, play an important role in the manufacturing process. They are responsible for making sure all manufactured products meet company and industry quality standards.
  • That’s why the best teams have QAs working together with others; they can combine their skills in the pursuit of quality products.

Objectives

Participants will be able to:

  • Understand the role of a quality assurance engineer in a company
  • Decide whether they are suitable for a future as a quality assurance engineer and if so the steps to be taken in-order to become one.

Specific Things to Learn

  • Who is a quality assurance engineer
  • Duties of a quality assurance engineer
  • Traits of a quality assurance engineer
  • Steps to take for a career as a quality assurance engineer

Materials

Lesson

  • Go through these slides to get a genereal idea about a QA engineer and her job description. Follow with the lesson below.

Who is a quality assurance engineer

  • Quality Assurance engineers aim to help create quality products. The main function of a QA engineer is to prevent defects, and therefore ensure the quality of the development process and its results.
  • Quality assurance engineer responsibilities are somewhere in-between of product manager's and developer's.
  • QAs put software to test while developers are busy writing more code. Their goal is to make every step of development trouble-free.

Duties of a quality assurance engineer

  • Establish and Maintain Quality Management Systems
    • QA engineers create the quality management policies and procedures that are followed by all employees who are a part of the production process.
  • Develop and Monitor Performance Metrics for All Stages of the Production Process
    • QA engineers are responsible for figuring out how to quantify quality in all steps of the production process. This requires a deep understanding of their concerned domain.
  • Determine Root Cause of Faulty Products
    • Deficient products aren’t just discarded and forgotten about. It is the responsibility of the QA engineer to figure out if there is a larger issue behind a dip in quality.
  • Run Various Tests on Finished Products
    • QA engineers create and run the various tests necessary to prove the product performs as intended and meets the necessary standards.

What makes a good quality assurance engineer

  • Communicaton skills
    • They need to effectively communicate with development team and not bully them with a deadline.
    • They also have to communicate with the customer to understand the concept of application.
  • Judgment skills are needed to assess high-risk areas of an application on which to focus testing efforts when time is limited.
  • A ‘test to break’ attitude, a strong desire for quality, and an attention to detail.

How to become a QA engineer

  • Get all the skills
  • Get experience
    • You need experience to get a job. The way out of the impasse is to work a series of internships while in school.
    • It is also important to remain up-to-date in the current trends and latest advancements in the field. The state of the art in computer programming can change rapidly.
  • For self learners
    • It is possible to learn testing on your own, by taking a QA course, or by learning how to test right in the working process.
    • Learning theory is good, but practicing acquired knowledge is better. You no longer have to possess a diploma or a specific certificate to start a career as a software tester. Thanks to free educational programs for tech enthusiasts without experience and education, there is a possibility to start a career from a QA Trainee position.
  • Getting Lucrative Salaries
    • As far as salary or wages of the quality assurance engineers is concerned, they vary depending on skills, requirement, and various other factors like:
      • Your experience levels
      • Education and Certification
      • Your working industry
      • Responsibility level expected by your employer
      • Your working region
  • Job prospects
    • Companies are keen to put their software applications out into the market as soon as possible, and for this reason, testers and quality professionals with skill and experience are in demand.
    • Moreover, testers and QA engineers are often found to be more aware of general business principles than developers, and many companies greatly value this knowledge. At least some of these organisations ensure that talented Quality engineers rise to senior or business leadership positions.
  • Go through this article for further information on how to become a QA engineer.

Common Mistakes / Misconceptions

  • QAs are not technical
    • QAs have a great understanding the product they are building, have an in-depth knowledge of the problem they are trying to breach, all whilst keeping the user at the center of their thoughts.
  • QAs find bugs which slow developers down
    • This is just a crazy notion to think this! Problems in software do not just go away — it’s not like if no one finds them, they don’t exist! QA being involved early in a project actually helps improve the product by pointing out issues early and getting the team to think about the product from a user’s point of view.
  • QA takes place once development is complete
    • Having early access to designs enables the QA to point out any usability issues that may not have been picked up by designers. Therefore testing is continuous throughout the lifecycle of the project.

Guided Practice

  • A major duty of a QA engineer is testing. Go through this video on automation testing and when finished discuss the latest tools in testing.

Independent Practice

  • Clear on who a QA engineer is? Are you up for a career in quality assurance? Watch this video and get a better picture.

Check for Understanding

Write down how compatible you think you are for a future as a QA engineer? Do you think you have the sales and technical talents needed for the job? What are the Top 5 things you want to remember regarding a sales engineer from this lesson?

Supplemental Materials