What is a QA tester? Required skills and career path of QA tester

Phuong Trang

12/6/2024 2:50 PM

In the Testing industry, QA testers are people who ensure product quality. So what is the main job of a QA tester? What is the roadmap to help a fresher become a good QA tester? Let's learn all about the QA tester profession in the article below of EDUTO.

What are the main tasks of a QA tester?

QA stands for Quality Assurance. Therefore, QA Tester is the person responsible for testing and evaluation to ensure product quality. Many people misunderstand that QA testers will only participate in the final stages of the product making process. However, QA testers actually work throughout a testing project they are in charge of. 

The reason is because the QA tester's responsibilities will range from project analysis, process planning, monitoring the entire project and continuously adjusting the process depending on reality. Specifically, the job of a QA tester will include the following items:

  • Analyze project requirements 
  • Propose and provide a development process for the product in accordance with project requirements
  • Implement a set of guidance documents and product quality assurance forms for the product development team
  • Create test plans, design test cases, write test scripts for the project
  • Execute according to the established test plan and test cases
  • Collect information and send quality reports to PM (Product manager)
  • Check whether the team's departments are following the QA process as set out
  • Control the process and work progress of the product development team 
  • During the quality control process, adjust and change processes to suit emerging problems
What are the main tasks of a QA tester?

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What are the required skills of a QA tester?

What skills are needed to become a good QA tester? Below are some skill groups that product quality managers need to cultivate at work:

Professional skills of a QA tester

  • Deep understanding of the system architecture of the product (software)
  • Understand clearly about CMMI, ISO... certifications in software to build standard processes for the team
  • Continuously improve knowledge in the field of the product you are working on. For example, finance, education, health,...)

Additional skills

  • Ability to organize, think logically and systematically
  • Good analytical and data-based skills
  • Communication skills within the team and other teams

What is the career path of a QA tester?

First of all, a QA tester will start his career as a tester. It can be Manual tester or Automation tester. Once you have accumulated a lot of knowledge, from a Junior tester you will become a Senior tester in the team. After that, what the next step for a QA tester is will depend on your orientation. Can be Test Lead/ QA Lead or QA Manager. When you reach Test Manager, you will move into a more management field. 

However, you don't necessarily need to switch to management if you still wish to stick with the technical side. You can choose to become an Automation testing expert or an engineer specializing in areas such as Performance or Security. To become technical experts, in addition to experience as a QA tester, you need to cultivate more knowledge in each field you want to pursue.

It can be said that in the field of software development, QA testers are an indispensable part. This is also a position with an unlimited future, depending on personal development orientation. To start a career as a QA Tester, young people should start accumulating professional knowledge, find out what the necessary skills of a QA tester are and hone them. 

What is the career path of a QA tester?

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Distinguish between QA, QC and Tester in the programming industry

In QA programming, QC and Tester will have different positions. Each field will have a specific task and function. First, we will help you learn about testers and compare them with QA and QC in more detail.

Testing

Every product and application, even though it meets all the initially set criteria, still has flaws. Tester is the person who tests the quality and gives the most accurate comments about that product and application. They will closely follow the working processes and product requirements. Based on those features, conduct quality testing and appraisal. A peculiarity that sounds paradoxical but is what testers need to do is to test as many bugs as possible. This will help achieve the final result as expected.

Testers and QCs generally have many similarities but there are still differences. QC only checks whether the product meets the requirements or not. For Testers, they must conduct detailed research about each aspect and corner of the product. They have to try going in other directions to find out where their product is wrong. In the simplest terms, Testing is an activity within QC. This is a team testing at 2 different levels.

Distinguish between QA, QC and Tester in the programming industry

Distinguish between QA, QC and Tester

QA, QC and Tester have related work processes in the same project. In the programming industry, one of the above three departments cannot be missing. When running a project, it will start with QA and QC. In parallel with each completed stage, there will be testers to check for errors and find bugs in the applications being coded.

QA: Quality Assurance

Carry out extensive tasks to ensure implementation processes and procedures. Issues related to product overview. Focus on the implementation process. Provide requirements for QC to work. Prepare contingency plans and respond to difficulties and obstacles in the production process.

QC: Quality Control

Ensure software and application development from QA. Implement on time and according to the process set out during the project development process. Focus on testing applications and software. Fix any problems that occur in the application production process, app... Ensure all quality and requirements given by QA.

Tester: Testing

Focus on real-world testing. Check and find errors, report to QC.

The working process of a professional programming company will include 3 main departments: QA, QC and Tester. Any product from the programming industry goes through these departments before releasing the product. 

Hopefully what EDUTO shares about QA? What is QC? Distinguishing between QA, QC and Tester has provided the information you need to know. In the programming industry, there are still many other terms to learn. You want to learn more about programming terms, programming languages... Please follow other articles about our programmers in other articles.

Phuong Trang

12/6/2024 2:50 PM