Now many people dream of finding a job in IT due to the relatively high salaries in this field, as well as the stable demand for such specialists in the labor market. Most often, these dreams are dashed by the need to obtain specialized education, for which there is neither time nor money. But there are several specialties that allow you to slip into IT through the “back door”, practically bypassing the stage of preliminary training and gaining experience. QA belongs precisely to such “borderline” specialties.
Who is QA and what does he do?
The work of a Quality Assurance engineer is less about checking quality (although this word is present in the name of the profession), but about monitoring the correct implementation of all stages of development and the correct operation of the final product. Sounds a bit like a tester's tasks. But he only checks the operation of the application and, based on the results (the presence of bugs and errors), accepts it or does not accept it. And the QA engineer also monitors compliance with standards when developing programs, interacts with developers, designers, and customers, preventing the very appearance of bugs and errors in the software. True, in our country the professions of testing and QA are most often perceived as a single whole.
If we break it down point by point, the responsibilities of a QA engineer include the following tasks:
detailed requirements for the program (performed jointly with the customer);
analysis and calculation of the time required to create an application or fix a bug (a task, of course, not for juniors, but as a person with an outsider’s view, QA gives the most realistic time estimates);
development of test scenarios;
the testing process itself;
entering detected defects into the tracking system
discussing fixes with all development participants;
tracking the remediation process;
re-testing problematic issues;
analysis of test results;
finalization of test scripts'
analysis of the team development process;
optimization of development processes to avoid the reappearance of detected errors (if errors arise due to inconsistency in the actions of different departments or because someone does not follow established development standards, then it is QA’s job to point out this problem area and ensure its elimination);
maintaining test documentation.
At first glance, there are a lot of responsibilities, but in practice, some of them fall under the responsibility of testers, Quality Control workers, developers, business analysts and technical writers. So in different companies, the responsibilities of a QA engineer will be slightly different: somewhere there will be more work on planning work on the program and bugs, somewhere more emphasis is placed on tests and tracking fixes, and somewhere the QA himself is involved in creating edits.
Accordingly, in each individual case the working day will look different. In general, a QA engineer starts the day by working on tests and tracking development progress using a tracking system. During the day, he communicates with the developers (clarifying the progress of development and the problems slowing it down) and the customer (clarifying the requirements for the functions currently being developed). At the end of the day, all changes are made to the test documentation.
Pros and cons of the profession
What, besides the salary, can a QA job excite? One of the most pleasant advantages is the awareness of your contribution to the creation and improvement of the product. It’s an indescribable feeling when, out of the routine of everyday life, a product is born that contains a piece of your work and ideas.
In addition, the advantage of QA is the opportunity to become closely acquainted with new technologies. If you want to switch to another IT specialty, then the QA position is the best place to get to know your future work better. QA has only one downside: boring and monotonous responsibilities for manual testing and updating test documentation. True, they bother you only at first, but with the expansion of the range of responsibilities, everything becomes more interesting and dynamic.
How to become a QA?
In fact, in order to set foot on the path of QA, you do not need knowledge of programming languages or database structure. The main thing is to have an understanding of the structure of the software development process and understand the testing process. You need to read literature (mostly foreign), practice on “cats” (practice using a PC, trying to notice all the shortcomings and bugs in applications/websites). To be more confident, you can take a couple of training courses on the Internet and/or an internship at training centers (unfortunately, this specialty is not taught in institutes). Improve your English (when selecting personnel, IT companies prefer candidates with knowledge of English).
In any case, a beginning QA is first tested on his knowledge of the software testing process: why it is needed at all, what types of testing are there, what a bug is, how to document it, and what steps need to be taken to close it. At first, your lot will be tests. And after you get comfortable with this work and learn a little better how software development is structured in your company, you will move to a higher level and receive your share of responsibility for the product being developed. The level of entry into the QA specialty is significantly lower than that of a programmer, which is why the competition for this vacancy can be very, very, VERY large. Therefore, for a successful interview, in addition to knowledge, you also need to have a certain set of personal qualities. Thus, the ability to establish communication is important for QA - he needs to interact with almost all development participants, from the customer to the tester. At the same time, he must be able to convey to the performers all the nuances that the application must comply with. Attention, patience and perseverance are no less important - they are required in the process of testing programs. Of course, successful testing requires the passion of a mushroom picker and the inquisitiveness of a child disassembling a watch or favorite toy, so that searching for errors does not turn into a depressing routine for you (if you have a couple of stories about successfully finding bugs, this can be a big plus for a recruiter). Analytical skills are also needed to identify ways to improve the development process and the application itself.
Prospects
QA work, as one of the relatively easy entry points into IT, offers quite a lot of development options. You can stay in this specialty and climb the ladder: junior QA, middle QA, senior QA, QA team lead, QA manager, head of QA department. If you are more drawn to programming, but are not ready to become a programmer, then you can switch to a QA automation engineer. Then you can try your hand at automating application verification.
If you consider QA only as a springboard for a career in another specialty, then after additional training you can retrain as a programmer, business analyst or project manager. New fields offer additional opportunities for professional growth, but the level of responsibility is completely different.
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