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If you've been wondering: “What does a Quality Control Engineer do?” this article is going to interest you. We'll give you key points to learn more about this exciting specialty that is essential today in software projects.

A QA Engineer oversees each phase of the software development process, in addition to checking and ensuring the quality of the product to be delivered to the customer. In other words, a QA Engineer is a facilitator for the testing that the software demands.

A QA Engineer is essential to certify what is produced and ensure the quality that the customer expects. It has been determined that a software team should have one QA Engineer for every two or three programmers.

Software companies today are looking for two types of QA profiles. The first is the traditional one that has many functional skills, and is characterized by running tests manually to check every last detail. The second is the Automation Engineer who has the ability to be both a QA and an Automated test Developers, combined in the continuous integration process. This requires 50 percent programming and 50 percent QA work. 

The specialties will depend on the needs of the project, with the ideal being to have a QA Engineer that does manual testing and also automated test maintenance.

SKILLS OF A QA ENGINEER

Among the characteristics that the QA Engineers must have, the following stand out:

  • Very Detail-oriented: Paying attention to details is extremely important.  The QA Engineers must be attentive and have to be able to find what is not visible to everyone, for example: inconsistent data, erroneous validations, and cosmetic details, among others.
  • Methodical: To be methodical is to be agile in software development. This ability allows the most possible scenarios to be covered in a short time. Moreover, being methodical leads to an adequate control of the product to be delivered.
  • Good at communicating: The QA must have oral and written communication skills to interact with others in different areas of the project. It is also essential to communicate the state and severity of a project’s defects, as well as arguing persuasively for changes that contribute to quality.
  • Curious: They must test the product in every possible way, carefully detecting all weak points to improve and respond to customer requirements.
  • Creative: They must be able to create scenarios and situations that will not be taken into account, but could trigger possible errors in the future, either by performance or errors of the end user.

THE THRILL OF BEING QA ENGINEER

Being a QA Engineer is exciting because it allows you to see all aspects of the project, not just focus on the technical part. The QA must communicate with the Manager, Product Owner, Software Architect, Developers, clients and others, this allows the work to be more dynamic.

Also, the QA must verify that everything is in harmony, from functional requirements to technical implementation. In addition, this area allows working on any functional activity such as: medicine, advertising applications, trade, and air transport, among others.

Being a QA Engineer allows you to participate actively in projects. If you are curious and like things that have precision and perfection, you will love this career. In addition, this specialty is very broad, with many opportunities for the future. However, it is essential to have a good level of English ability since most customers of software companies in Latin America are in the United States.

If you are interested in this career, the best thing for you is to graduate from the university as a System Analyst, so you will be able to work in manual QA or Automation. This double capacity will open even more doors, as it is the new trend in this fast-growing field. In AssureSoft, we have an excellent QA team, many of them certified in: International Software Testing and Qualification Board "ISTQB" and recognized worldwide.

If you have any comments, recommendations or want to know more about our open positions, please email us at blog@assuresoft.com.