Quality Assurance engineers play an essential role in the overall development of software. Quality assurance is a crucial step in software development, given the rise of cybersecurity threats and increasing demand for more efficient software.
It is easy to understand why organizations hire QA engineers to test a product beforehand. Quality assurance engineers are responsible for designing test cases that evaluate the performance and security of the software built. It is part of their job to match the requirements of the software with the final product and detect any minute or significant errors that can compromise the integrity of the final product.
As you are here, it is safe to assume that you have just started your career as a QA engineer. We are sure you already have the crucial skills, and here we focus more on QA engineer tips that will make you a better tester.
Start with understanding different software development life cycles
You must have heard of the software life cycle as a beginner QA engineer. It refers to all the phases a software product goes through its development, i.e., planning, defining, designing, development, testing, deployment, and maintenance. As a QA engineer, your role will be necessary during the testing and maintenance.
However, you must be aware of all the phases, as your quality assurance inputs can help improve the entire process, not just the testing phase.
Software Development Life Cycle is a concept that explains the underlying infrastructure of a product. QA engineers aware of SDLC concepts are better at understanding the design of a software.
Apart from SDLC, QA engineers must also understand the testing life cycle used for designing test processes and bug life cycle, which specifies the process a tester should take when they find a bug. For a QA engineer, it is essential to know all three life cycles.
It is essential to know the types of bugs
As a beginner QA engineer, you will find it hard to identify bugs, which can be frustrating sometimes. However, decades of hard work of other QA engineers have helped professionals record specific types of parts you need to know so you can report and resolve them better. It will be vital for your career to understand the bugs.
Any aspect of software development – functionality, design, responsiveness, performance, syntax, and many more – can result in bugs that you will have to troubleshoot. The more you learn about the bugs, the easier it will get to do your job. In software engineering, bugs are commonly classified into three categories:
- Software defects by nature
- Software defects by severity
- Software defects by priority
You can learn more about these defects here.
Learn to bug report comprehensively
Read this tip carefully, as it will serve you well throughout your software testing career.
Finding bugs is one thing; reporting them is an entirely distinct domain. To report bugs effectively, you will not only need technical skills but communication skills as well. QA engineers report the bug to the programmer to fix the issue. If the tester is not saying the bug correctly, the programmer will most likely reject the bug stating it as irreproducible.
Creating bug reports is not just a matter of semantics but requires comprehensive communication skills. You must be as thorough and detailed as possible in the reports to leave little or no scope for guesswork for the developers. Apart from the title and descriptions, you must include a video or image that clearly shows the issue. Here is a guide to learning how to create better bug reports.
Learn basics of UI elements
As you read through this QA engineer tip, you will realize that as a test, you will be put in front of the software to test its interface for bugs and errors. In modern-day software development, UI testing is an inevitable phase. Your job will become much easier as a QA engineer if you have a basic grasp of UI elements and frontend concepts.
It would help to familiarize yourself with frontend technologies like HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap. Also, learn about designing concepts such as typography, color wheel, and navigation. These concepts will help you test software in-depth on the backend and frontend.
Conclusion
The top 4 QA engineer tips are to produce efficient and impactful software testing results. Quality Assurance is an organized work requiring testers to have a precise understanding of the software development life cycle and adequate information about bugs. We hope these tips will help beginner QA engineers to deliver the best testing results.
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