The QA engineer is one of those specialists you cannot have missing in a software development project. They are in charge of verifying the quality of the program or application that is being developed.
The role of a QA engineer is becoming more and more important in projects since it is essential to guarantee a good interface for all users who are going to use any software.
Currently a QA engineer is what a good tester represents, which means that this position in software companies has evolved in such a way that this professional must be very well informed of all areas of the project. At WillDom we believe in the importance of agile teams. We offer a self-organizing scrum team of software developers and engineers who are fundamental for your company as they will provide you with the added flexibility and scalability when needed.
It is essential that this professional can ensure that the program or application works correctly before launching it to the public or delivering it to a client. The main objective is for it to run without bugs or errors.
All software products, systems, or applications are created, developed, and executed by human beings, this means that mistakes may appear at any of the creation process stages, which may result in defects in the system.
What is QA?
The concept of Quality Assurance arises from this commitment to quality. Every software development team should have at least one person responsible for ensuring the proper functioning of the software being developed.
Their role should not be interpreted as someone who corrects what may have been overlooked by the developers, but as a facilitator for the planning and execution of tests that need to be performed in any system. When planning, the functional requirements that define the scope of the project must be gathered.
To achieve the goals set by the teams, development, and QA must go hand in hand, united on a day-to-day basis. QA is not limited to detecting bugs, but to anticipate and verify any possible peculiarity to be validated.
Even if the team is short of time, it is not advisable to reduce the testing period. It must be ensured that the project is delivered free of errors and ahead of any unwanted mistakes that may occur.
Skills that a QA engineer must have
1- Technical skills
Bug testing
Identifying what is wrong with a website is not always as easy as it seems. QA analysts don’t just tap buttons until something goes wrong. For bug tracking, there are a ton of tools that can be used.
Automated testing
The QA analyst doesn’t have to do all the heavy lifting themselves. A lot of testing is automated, but this automation has to be fine-tuned by the QA analyst.
Unit testing
Once you start testing individual pieces of code, you will need unit testing. With it, you will be able to check if the code works correctly. The tool you will use here depends mainly on the language your software is written in.
2 – Social skills
One of your main jobs as a software QA analyst, besides doing the analysis itself, will be to communicate the results to the other developers.
Give short, clear feedback
No beating around the bush, no unclear sentences. As a QA, it is their responsibility to make a good case for why something is a problem (and often suggest a solution).
Much of your communication probably won’t be face-to-face, so you will have to learn to express yourself in short concise emails while remaining professional. But most importantly, you must state directly what the problem is, as early as possible.
Criticize constructively
The job goes beyond just stating the problem. You also need to learn the art of constructive criticism.
Conversations should not be about what the interface developers did wrong or how “this guy” or “that guy” messed up. They should be aimed at identifying the problem as a group and then working on a way to solve it. So there’s no need to get nervous about the next round of feedback. Instead, keep your eye on the end goal: collaborate with everyone to create a good user experience.
In general, the process of creating any software must have proper QA testing to know in which phases of the project there may be failures.
In addition, this engineer must also become a QA analyst to be able to make the correct interpretation of the results that the project may yield.
QA engineers are highly sought after in the most demanding technology markets and are always valued much more highly than a traditional quality analyst.
Those who have a more complete vision of quality, even if their tasks were initially restricted to a specific area, will be much more valuable to any organization. This is why it is important to have one of these professionals during the creation process of any application or software
If you are interested in learning more about WillDom and our agile teams for your company, connect with us on LinkedIn or visit our website at WillDom.com.
