The Role of a QA Tester: Skills and Responsibilities

Did you know that software bugs cost the US economy an estimated $59.5 billion annually?

In today’s rapidly evolving tech industry, maintaining high software quality is crucial. This is where Quality Assurance Testers play a vital role. The position of a QA Tester is always a very critical job. Did you know a single software bug can cost a company millions? QA Testers help prevent these expensive errors by thoroughly testing software to identify and fix issues before they reach users.
Whenever software is ready for a user, it passes through different types of testing and quality phases.

Who is a QA Tester?

A QA Tester ensures that software functions correctly before it is released to users, playing a crucial role in maintaining quality standards by identifying and resolving issues. They are essential in finding and fixing problems to ensure the software meets quality expectations.

There are two types of QA Testers: Manual Testers and Automation Testers. Manual Testers examine the software manually, comparing it to the requirements to ensure everything works as expected. In contrast, Automation Testers use specialized tools and scripts to run tests automatically, saving time on repetitive tasks and increasing efficiency. Popular automation tools include Selenium, Cypress, and Playwright.

What are the responsibilities of a QA Tester?

The main responsibility of a QA Tester is to find bugs in the software. They make sure the software is easy to use, reliable, and works well in different situations. After finding a bug, QA is also responsible for tracking that bug until it is fixed by the developers. QA Testers help avoid expensive mistakes and improve the user experience.

Further responsibilities of a QA tester are:

Documentation:

QA Testers are also responsible for creating and maintaining test documentation, which is a critical part of their role. Key documents used in software testing and development include:

1. Test Plans: A test plan serves as a blueprint for the entire testing process, outlining the testing goals and the methods to achieve them. QA Tester includes details like test scope and overview, test objectives, test schedule, resources, test environments, test tools, risk analysis, roles, and responsibilities.
2. Test Cases: Test cases are detailed documents that outline the specific inputs, conditions, and expected results to check a particular function or feature. QA Tester includes details like test case ID, test case name, description, steps to reproduce, expected result, and actual result.
3. Test Scripts: Test scripts are coded instructions for automated testing, written by Automation Testers. These scripts run specific test cases repeatedly to ensure consistent results and quickly identify any new problems caused by code changes.
4. Test Reports: In test reports, QA Tester provides a comprehensive overview of the testing activities and outcomes, highlighting key metrics such as test coverage, pass/fail rates, and defect density. They are crucial for stakeholders to understand the quality of the product.

Testing:

QA Testers perform various types of testing to ensure software quality. Some of the main testing types are:

1. Functional Testing: In functional testing, QA Tester ensures that each part of the software works according to the requirements. It involves checking the user interface, APIs, databases, client/server applications, and overall functionality of the software.
2. Integration Testing: Integration testing looks to detect any issues that happen when combining different modules of the software. It ensures that the combined components work well together and helps find defects when these parts interact.
3. Smoke Testing: In this type of testing, the QA Tester checks the major and critical functionalities of the software. They ensure the basic stability of the software and determine if it is ready for further testing.
4. Sanity Testing: In this type of testing, QA Tester performs both positive and negative tests on the application. During sanity testing, QA Testers focus more on specific functionalities to ensure they work correctly.
5. Regression Testing: In this testing, QA Tester ensures that new code changes have not negatively impacted existing functionalities. It is performed mostly after every update or bug fix in the software.
6. UAT Testing: This ensures the software meets end-user requirements and is ready for deployment. This type of testing is the final check by QA Testers before handing over the software to end users.

Bug Reporting:

QA Testers play a critical role in the identification, documentation, and tracking of software bugs to ensure high-quality releases. Their responsibilities in bug reporting include:

1. Identify issues: This is the main responsibility to find any defect, error, or bugs in the software. That issue then entered the bug life cycle.
2. Create bug reports: A key responsibility in bug reporting is creating a good bug report. If the bug report isn’t reported correctly, developers won’t grasp the issue, leading to unnecessary communication and meetings between developers and testers. The essential components of a bug report, which should be included every time, are title/summary, steps to reproduce, expected behaviour, actual behaviour, environment, and screenshots/screen recordings, severity, environment.
3. Track reported bugs: Testers need to keep track of bugs as part of their responsibilities. Missing any bug can affect the whole release and software development cycle. Before each deployment, QA testers must thoroughly track all reported bugs to ensure none are missed. QA testers also need to regularly track the current status of reported bugs and their progress.

Collaboration:

An important responsibility of a QA Tester is to collaborate closely with developers, product managers, and other team members. Effective collaboration ensures that everyone is aligned on project goals and requirements, facilitating a shared understanding of objectives and expectations. By working together, teams can identify and resolve issues early in the development process, catching and addressing problems before they escalate. Proactive risk mitigation is another benefit, as potential challenges can be anticipated and solutions found in advance.

This collaborative approach helps deliver high-quality software that meets customer expectations, enhancing both product quality and customer satisfaction. It also supports agile and adaptive development practices, helps in continuous improvement and ensures timely delivery of value to stakeholders. Overall, effective collaboration promotes a culture of teamwork, transparency, and accountability, driving the success of software development projects.

What skills does a QA Tester have?

A QA Tester should be technically skilled, analytically sharp, effective in communication, knowledgeable about the domain, adaptable, and well-organized. By having these skills, a QA Tester will create value in the project and ensure software quality.

Technical Skills:

1. Programming Languages: Knowledge of programming languages such as Python, Javascript, and typescript is essential, especially for automated testing.
2. Testing Tools: Familiarity with tools like Selenium and Cypress (for web applications), Apium (for mobile applications), JIRA (for bug tracking), and LoadRunner, JMeter, k6, and Locust (for performance testing).
3. Automation: Understanding automated testing frameworks and the ability to write and execute automated tests. Knowledge of CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) pipelines is also beneficial.
4. Devtools: Testers should be proficient in using developer tools, including the inspect tool. They should understand how to interpret API responses, identify network errors, and recognize errors displayed in the console. Additionally, they should be familiar with other functionalities of the inspection tool

Analytical and Problem Solving Skills:

1. Attention to Detail: Ability to detect the smallest defects and inconsistencies in the software.
2. Critical Thinking: Analyzing requirements and identifying potential areas of risk or defects.
3. Problem-Solving: Efficiently diagnosing and resolving issues with effective solutions.

Domain Knowledge:

1. Basic Understanding: A QA Tester must have extensive knowledge of the software. Most QA Testers possess maximum domain knowledge because they deal with edge-case scenarios that are not documented in the requirements.
2. Business Processes: Understanding the business processes and workflows the software supports to create better testing scenarios.
3. Competitor Analysis: Being aware of industry trends and competitor products to find ways to improve and innovate in testing.
4. Customer Needs and Expectations: Having a deep understanding of what the target audience wants to ensure the software meets or exceeds their expectations.

Organizational and Time Management Skills:

1. Attention to Detail: Being precise is important in testing. QA Testers have to carefully follow test instructions, pay close attention to even small differences, and make sure to write down everything they find accurately.
2. Communication Skills: Clear and concise communication is crucial for explaining bugs and their impact to developers and stakeholders. Good written communication is needed for creating comprehensive documentation and bug reports.
3. Problem-Solving: QA Testers must be good at fixing problems, thinking creatively to find solutions, and making testing better to avoid future issues.
4. Detailed Planning: Making thorough test plans and schedules to organize testing efficiently.
5. Setting Clear Goals: Creating clear, reachable goals for testing tasks and projects to stay focused and on track.
6. Regular Progress Reviews: Checking progress against the test plan regularly and adjusting priorities and schedules as necessary.
7. Handling Stress: Managing stress and staying productive when facing tight deadlines and high-pressure situations.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the role of a QA Tester is indispensable in the software development lifecycle. QA Testers ensure that software products are reliable, user-friendly, and free of defects before they reach end-users. Their responsibilities, which range from conducting various testing types to meticulous bug reporting and maintaining thorough documentation, are crucial for delivering high-quality software. Additionally, QA Testers need a diverse skill set, including technical proficiency, strong analytical and problem-solving abilities, effective communication, and keen attention to detail. By collaborating closely with developers and other stakeholders, QA Testers help create seamless, efficient, and successful software releases. Their work not only mitigates risks and prevents costly errors but also enhances user satisfaction and trust in the product.

Reference:
National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2002). The Economic Impacts of Inadequate Infrastructure for Software Testing. NIST Planning Report 02–3. https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/director/planning/report02-3.pdf (Page 22–23)