The IT industry has been growing fast and gives many people an opportunity to take a good position in this field. Everyone interested in building an IT career can start testing software, applications, games, and other products. This is a great beginning for everyone who wants to try working in the most required and high-paid industry.
So a job in software testing is a perfect start for you. Find out more about the tasks, goals, and responsibilities of a QA engineer or a software tester. Also, it is useful to know the most popular jobs and direct ways to get hired.
Nota bene! A software tester is focused on researching the way the app works and the issues of this process. A QA engineer aims to make sure the app meets all standards and to prevent potential problems. But the job titles “software engineer”, “QA tester”, and “QA engineer” are used as synonyms sometimes to simplify the understanding of particularities of software testing jobs.
The description of a software testing job
A software engineer is a person who is responsible for using all features of IT products to find bugs. According to professional recommendations of the software development team, this is a very responsible position. The point is the QA experts let developers correct fault conditions.
Working as a QA engineer is a perfect choice for many individuals. You should give this career opportunity a try if you can recognize yourself in the following examples:
- You adore searching for defects. It’s like your mission – to find mistakes and participate in its correcting;
- You are looking for an interesting job. Every new project differs from the previous one, so a position of any QA job title could not be boring;
- You are a perfectionist. If you love to take things back to their places and keep control under everything then you will experience satisfaction from your work;
- You always pay attention to details. If every single detail matters for you then you have proper skills to use for detecting important positive or negative issues.
Now you can imagine what software testing is in general. But this is a huge area for the IT industry. It means that there are many positions in the QA department you can try. So please get familiar with software engineer titles to be able to select the most suitable position for your case.
The main responsibilities of QA engineers
Using an extended software testers job description, we can find out all responsibilities of an employee. Here are the duties you will perform:
Getting requirements
You need to start by analyzing the requirements. It helps to state your tasks and priorities with the further division of labor;
Planning working time
By having the list of tasks, you can schedule your duties in the testing cycle. It will help you to increase your team’s efficiency and productivity;
Organizing documentation
All your testing actions must be documented in the relevant papers. At this stage, it’s essential to select the way how you will describe the results;
Doing your job
Keep assuming your responsibilities according to the plan. Then fill in all the documents and finish your job.
Professional, skilled, and experienced QA engineers are very important for the IT industry. They perform essential duties that help to develop high-quality and popular software. Such an approach allows reaching high customer satisfaction and earning desired profit.
The career path of QA engineers
Now you know the software testing job description and the main responsibilities of a QA tester. There are several common jobs in this area you can take. So depending on your experience and skills, you can take the mentioned position below.
Junior software tester
The position of a junior QA engineer is the first step to entering the IT industry. As a result, this job doesn’t include any duties in management.
You will communicate with your team leader and receive details on a new project. Besides requirements, you must also keep the deadline and schedule your work to complete the job on time.
Just pay attention to the title of your position. It differs in many companies but official responsibilities are mostly the same. Frankly speaking, the job title does really matter while your work environment and atmosphere in the team are comfortable and suit your expectations.
If you want to level up your career in this field then you need to develop your skills, take courses, and do exams. Later, with the relevant certifications, you can apply for higher positions in the future.
Senior QA engineers
The higher your position the more responsibilities you will have. If you are a senior tester, you will be required to perform more complicated tasks and deliver extra results to developers. If you are not ready to increase your duties and the area of responsibility, then you should take the senior QA engineer position.
If you are a team leader you’ll also be responsible for assigning and dividing jobs among QA engineers. You have to make sure that your team is performing high-quality services and delivering testing documentation on time.
With the growth of your experience and expertise, you can claim a senior position and relevant benefits. That’s why if you expect a transfer from junior to senior specialist then keep improving your skills. Use new frameworks, technologies, approaches, and so on.
QA manager
This is a top position for software developers and software quality assurance analysts and testers. After developing relevant skills, accumulating several years of experience, and improving important personal features, you can apply for the vacancy of a QA manager.
The main particularity of a manager in software testing is taking everything under control. You must make sure that the final product totally matches the initial requirements. This is your priority goal. Talking about your responsibilities, it’s essential to mention motivating QR engineers, encouraging them to use fresh ideas and nonstandard approaches, supporting and helping them, controlling deadlines, etc.
If you want to claim a QA manager position, you need to prove you match the job requirements. Your skills, knowledge, experience, relevant certification, and other personal benefits will play into your hands. All your strong sides will be helpful for you to scale the company you are working at. You will also take advantage of the new position as well.
You can also learn more about QA managers is this post.
How to get into QA testing jobs
If you want to start your software testing career then do it. Start the preparation and keep moving towards your goals.
Entering the QA department starts with analyzing the main requirements of a candidate. This is a basic step. You must clarify for yourself so you meet the main requirements. Here are the first criteria to pay attention to:
- Academic background. Your bachelor’s degree in computer science will be a great benefit, especially if you have just graduated and don’t have proper work experience. Besides, you can level up your knowledge by taking training and courses;
- Professional skills. Every expert confirms that education is important but without having relevant expertise you are unable to take a vacancy of a tester. Among the most important skills for a QA engineer are an ability to understand and set priorities, analytical thinking, good communication to work in a team efficiently, and so on;
- Relevant experience. Being experienced is vitally important for those applicants who want to apply for a higher position in the QA department. But be sure that you can take a vacancy as a junior tester without huge past experience. This position is considered to be an entry stage for young specialists. Anyway, your job or education experience will be a great advantage in hiring;
- Personality traits. If you are a responsible, honest, stress-resistant, friendly, and hardworking person, then all these personal qualities will be a bonus. otherwise, you must have an extremely strong desire to develop these personal characteristics in the near future.
Conclusion
As you can see, the QA department in the IT industry performs important, useful, and literally essential tasks. Thanks to experienced and professional testing engineers, software developers receive an opportunity to improve their software and deliver customers IT products of top quality.
That’s why every individual interested in building a career in this area has real opportunities to try, work, grow, and take advantage of this modern profession!
