What are quality assurance engineers?

The quality assurance engineer’s role is to test and manage software quality before releasing it to the users. The QA engineer’s focus is to improve the software development process and counter any defects in the production phase.
The engineer predicts the user’s behavior and formulates a case test for the software to ensure the application works properly and meets the developer’s standards.
The QA engineers liaise between the managers, the customers, and the team of programmers developing the software.

Roles of a Quality Assurance Engineer

The QA engineer performs a wide range of tasks daily or weekly, depending on the demands of the project. Generally, a QA engineer has four categories of roles: test analyst, test executor, test designer, and test manager.

1. Test Analyst
   The role involves static testing for the requirements and checking if they are complete and consistent.
2. Test Designer
   Here the QA engineer formulates a series of tests centered on the requirements. They then plan the configurations necessary for testing.
3. Test Executor
   In this role, the engineer will perform the pre-planned tests then describe and record the errors. They will formulate steps for either fixing or reproducing them.
4. Test Manager
   As a test manager, the QA engineer is responsible for planning and monitoring all testing-related aspects of the project, such as observing deadlines, adhering to a schedule, assigning tasks to every team member, managing the requirements of the tests, and collaborating with all stakeholders.

What Does the Typical Day of the QA Engineer Look Like?

The daily tasks of a QA engineer include:

• Depending on the stage of the project, the QA engineer will write test cases, run the tests, and record the errors
• Review the bug tracking system to check the fixed errors
• Planning meetups with the stakeholders and developers
• Understanding the requirements and clarifying with the customers
• Setting up continuous integration
• Writing the test documentation

The Basic Skills of a Quality Assurance Engineer

• The QA engineer must understand software testing on a deep level, including the concepts and the processes involved in testing. This understanding includes the entire bug life cycle, the various testing methods, classes, types, and testing techniques.
• Critical analytical and thinking skills are the aptitudes needed to analyze and understand the bug reports and initiate the required tests. QA engineers must understand the information to include on regular status reports and prioritize and estimate task execution.
• Programming skills. The QA engineers must understand various programming languages used in developing software. Common coding languages are:
  • Python
  • Java
  • Java Script
  • C#
  • Go
  • PHP
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • SQL
  • R
  • C
  • Ruby
  • Unix scripting

Conclusion

There is so much that the quality assurance engineer is involved in developing software. Generally, the role of the QA specialists is to prevent the defects by identifying and eliminating them in every phase of the development. They also do testing by checking for bugs on the finished product and fixing them before releasing it to the customer.