What you need to know about pursuing a career in Quality Assurance

Do you have any knowledge of quality assurance? If you do, that is great and if you do not, this post will provide a good understanding of what it is.

Quality assurance is the degree of excellence of a good or service. For every industry, there is a minimum standard acceptable and this is what informs quality assurance.

Quality assurance is applicable in all fields of human endeavor; education, sports,manufacturing, engineering, construction, etc. Roads constructed are not accepted until a test is conducted to ascertain the quality of materials used in the process. Quality assurance ensures longevity, durability, security, and profitability of the goods, services, or products.

Products can either be tangible or intangible. Tangible products are goods that can be seen, smelt, and touched. For instance, a car, television, computer, mobile phone, etc, are all examples of tangible products. Therefore to avoid loss, which sometimes may amount to millions of dollars, the quality of these products must be assured.

Digital products can be classified as intangible. Software applications are digital products. 

Difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control

Are you surprised? Well, you should be. So many like you do not know that there is a distinctive difference between Quality assurance and Quality Control and more often than not, confuse both to be the same. Most times, you will hear people describe an issue that has to do with quality control but attribute to quality assurance. Now, the difference lies in their focus. To put this as simply as possible, Quality Assurance has to do with the process of managing quality itself while Quality Control has to do with the outcome or result. If that is not clear enough, let’s use the example of a smartphone. Before a smartphone is released into the market, there are standards the factory producing it have to have in place before they can receive ISO certificate for quality. These checks and standards are set by the ISO to ensure that the smartphones have minimal impact on safety, health, environment, etc. Quality Control on the other hand ensures that the smartphone delivers the desired result.

Why should your business be concerned about Quality Assurance?

• Increases customer satisfaction. If driving revenue is at the core of your business goals, then you really should have processes in place that deliver top-notch services or products to your customers, this, in turn, ensures they’ll always come back for more business. 
• It helps foster a motivated team. Having a quality assurance document in place ensures that members of the team are on the same page and understand the level of competence required to deliver amazing results.
• Reduces wastage. Quality assurance cuts down the amount of time used in addressing bugs or issues that can be avoided. Thereby saving time and wastage while channeling resources to other productive or performance efforts.
• Quality assurance enables better planning and confidence in executing projects.

Quality Assurance in Software Development

There are steps and methods involved in software development. Also, there is a team involved in developing a conceived product, among which is the Quality Assurance(QA) analyst. Software quality assurance involves the process of ascertaining that a solution meets the requirements.

Software requirements are developed by the Product Manager. The QA reviews the requirement document to discover the gaps in the document and recommend areas of improvement. So quality is assured from the start of product development. At the end of the requirement phase, a test plan is developed to guide testers on what to do, when, and how to do it.

Next is that the QA tests the UX design. The goal of this is to ensure that the user experience is top-notch and free of complexity. After this, depending on the method of development adopted by the team, the QA begins to test the functionality of the application daily or at the end of the development phase. Errors discovered while testing is reported as bugs. Bugs are retested and closed when there is a confirmation that they have been fixed. Quality assurance is a key part of the software development process. It ensures that an application is not buggy, assures the user of a quality product, reduces development time and financial loss when errors are discovered early. There are various tools used by the QA for test management. They include JIRA, Trello, Asana, Postman, Browsers, Katalon, etc. 

Soft Skills every Quality Assurance Personnel should possess in Software Engineering.

To become successful as a quality assurance personnel you should be able to;

• Think analytically
• Have an eye for details
• Possess problem-solving skills
• Think Outside the box
• Adaptable and willing to try out new things
• Give practical and doable milestones
• Constantly seek areas of improvement
• Be able to translate challenges into business goals
• Ability to Code Automated Tests using one or more automation tools including UFT/QTP, Katalone, Microsoft Coded UI, Ruby, Cucumber, Watir, Selenium, etc.
• Knowledge of various types of software applications (i.e. Packaged Software, Web Applications, Windows-based applications, Web Services, Mobile applications, etc…)
• Ability to work with various QA/Testing tools and technologies – i.e. Azure DevOps or TFS, SOAP UI, HP ALM, JIRA, etc.
• Create Test Plans
• Understanding of SQL Scripts and ability to write SQL to work with various Databases.
• Develop Standards and Procedures to Determine Product Quality and Release Readiness
• Discover Bugs Within Software
• Drive Innovation and Streamline Overall Testing Process
• Experience with Agile Development Process
• Experience with Web-Based Testing Applications
• Identify, Isolate, and Track Bugs Throughout Testing
• Identify Potential Problems Users May Encounter
• Perform Manual and Automated Testing
• Research and Analyze Product Features Being Tested
• Research New Tools, Technologies, and Testing Processes
• Review User Interfaces For Consistency and Functionality
• Solid Understanding of QA Testing Environments
• Thorough understanding of Software Development Life Cycles

Career Paths that you can pursue in Software Development as a Quality Assurance Personnel

So you are thinking you have something here and want to know how it can become a career for you? It will interest you to know that there are quite some fulfilling career paths you can pursue as a quality assurance personnel within the tech space.

1. Product management. As a product manager, you are responsible for directing every stage of a product’s life cycle. You give direction and purpose to a product and this makes quality assurance a prime focus of your job description and makes it a great fit for you.
2. DevOps Role. DevOps primarily oversee technical processes in software development. As the name implies, Development and Operations, the role employs continuous integration, continuous deployment, task automation, etc. With each step in the process, the need to ensure quality assurance remains a constant requirement.
3. Customer Experience Leader. This role drives the internal and external interaction that customers have whenever they come in contact with a tech brand or any other brand for that matter. Being able to improve how customers perceive the brand lies on you as a Customer Experience (CX) leader and as such requires a high level of improvement and performance at every customer touch point.
4. Enterprise Architect. This job role is responsible for ensuring optimal performance of an IT network’s services and performance. The role is operations-based and requires complex thinking delivering solutions.

The need for quality assurance in any organization can not be overemphasized as so much rest on it.