How do I train to be a Quality Engineer?

Posted on July 24, 2024July 27, 2024 by Learnix Tree Center team

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How do I train to be a Quality Engineer?

A Quality Engineer is a highly sought-after profession in today's world, which can take several years to achieve. However, you can become a certified engineer much faster if you understand the basic requirements for QA engineers in the field you are interested in. Most quality control engineers are engaged in the fields of computer technology, electronic manufacturing, as well as finance and medicine.

In any case, you will need to oversee the entire product development process, predict consumer behavior, and ensure that the results meet user expectations, as well as legal, industry, and organizational requirements. Training as a quality engineer in software development includes mastering the basics of web programming, learning programming languages, and tools for software development.

According to Glassdoor data for 2023, quality engineers earn an average annual salary of $82,500. The profession is not only lucrative but also interesting and promising. You will need to master many soft and technical skills, develop data analysis abilities, and learn programming languages. In this article, we will look at specific steps to achieving this popular profession.

What Education is Needed to Become a Quality Engineer?

A large number of companies are looking for specialists with a university degree. For QA engineers, a bachelor's degree in engineering, technology, science, or another related field is often sufficient.

To become a certified quality engineer, you will need eight years of relevant experience, and internships, coursework, or part-time work are not counted. The degree qualification allows you to get an exemption depending on the level you have achieved, so in total, it does not take as long as it might seem at first glance to complete in-depth training.

The ways to receive specialized education can be as follows.

Completion of a one-year study program that allows you to acquire introductory knowledge in a particular field. This can be a diploma from an accredited institution, which will relieve you of the internship year when applying for the status of a certified quality engineer.
An associate's degree in technology or other. During a two-year program, you can learn about the quality engineer role and responsibilities and your future work environment. This can help you compensate for two years of study when applying for the Certified Quality Engineer status.
The most popular way to become a certified quality engineer is to earn a bachelor's degree from an approved university in engineering, science, or other field. This degree replaces four years of relevant experience when applying for a certified quality engineer.
Advanced Degrees: A master's or doctoral degree provides in-depth knowledge and quality engineering skills in a specific field. A master's program typically takes an additional two years of study, while a doctoral program can take four to five additional years.

Regardless of the degree you choose, always remember the importance of practical experience and valuable skills. It is excellent if you can work on projects and learn from your mistakes, communicate with experienced colleagues, and find your first clients during your studies.

How to Become a QA Engineer?

A higher education in IT will greatly simplify the search for a high-paying job for a novice QA engineer. However, you can certainly try your hand at software quality control even without a relevant degree. Especially if you have previously worked in a related field and are already familiar with a certain programming language. Even if the quality engineer work description is new to you, with a strong desire, you can pursue this promising profession from scratch. You will need to go through several stages, some of which may repeat or combine:

Self-Preparation
Attending a Programming Bootcamp
Internship or Contract Work
Professional Certification
Creating a Resume and Job Search

Self-Preparation

For general and free acquaintance with the profession, you can monitor popular job search sites, such as LinkedIn Jobs, Indeed, and Glassdoor. Analyze job postings from companies looking for a quality engineer. Choose the 10 or 15 best postings and create a list of responsibilities and skills of an ideal specialist based on them. This list will be your plan for watching educational videos on YouTube.

Subscribe to authoritative expert blogs about IT and specifically about a career in quality engineering. It is also advisable to read several books that will help you understand the main theoretical issues.

Attending a Programming Bootcamp

A bootcamp is a new training format, a course where students gain up-to-date knowledge and skills in a short period. Intensive learning of programming and quality control will allow you to start working on your first projects during your studies.

A bootcamp is an excellent alternative to traditional higher education. Before starting, you need to decide which programming language you want to learn, such as Java or Python. Usually, specialized individual programs last from three to nine months. Quality engineering courses can be shorter but no less useful.

Internship or Contract Work

You can start looking for internship or contract work opportunities while still in school. Continue doing so while in bootcamp or engaging in self-education. Information about successful internships or contract work experience will make your resume more convincing. Moreover, a temporary contract position will help you confidently enter the job market and find colleagues and partners.

Remember that the technology field is rapidly changing, so it is important to stay abreast of trends and constantly develop your skills through quality engineering training courses. They may offer you the opportunity to tackle real-world tasks.

Professional Certification

Certification is advisable when you already have some experience. Some employers require quality engineers to have a certificate from the American Society for Quality (ASQ). Certification is valid for three years, after which it needs to be renewed. Obtaining a professional certificate opens up opportunities for higher-paying jobs.

Creating a Resume and Job Search

Before applying for suitable vacancies, you should create a quality technical resume and portfolio. The first includes a list of your experience and personal quality engineer skills, and the second contains samples of completed projects. Add a cover letter tailored to the specific company and position.

A technical resume used in fields such as information technology, engineering, and computer science lists your technical experience and skills relevant to the job.

It is advisable to prepare for a technical interview in advance. During such an interview, you will likely need to not only answer standard questions but also demonstrate everything you describe in your resume and portfolio, showcasing your skills and qualities of an engineer.

Conclusions

To become a quality engineer, you need to obtain higher education in your field, gain experience during internships or contract work, and undergo relevant certification. Many companies seek candidates with a bachelor's degree in a technical or related field. However, not all QA engineers have higher education. An alternative way to acquire the quality engineer skill set can be a programming bootcamp, allowing you to obtain a certificate within a few months.

Many believe that becoming a QA engineer is difficult due to the need to learn various coding languages and work with programming tools. However, it is not necessary to start your career knowing all the nuances of the profession. Finding a high-paying job as a QA engineer without education is not that hard if you devote a long period to self-education. An ideal career start is studying an online course where you will understand the quality engineer job requirements, familiarize yourself with the basics of the profession, and begin practicing.

How do I start QA engineering?

To start a career in QA engineering, you need to take specialized courses. It is advisable to obtain a relevant certification and gain some experience through an internship with a company.

What qualification is needed for a QA engineer?

Many companies seek QA engineers with a bachelor's degree in computer technology. You can pursue a master's or doctoral degree in this field, but it will take a significant amount of time. Sometimes, it is sufficient to obtain certification and create a quality portfolio of completed projects to work as a QA engineer.

How to become QA?

To become a QA engineer, start by familiarizing yourself with an interesting programming language and the basics of the profession. Decide on your area of focus. After that, choose your path to mastering the profession. This could be higher education or online courses, after which you will be able to undertake your first paid projects.

Learnix Tree Center team

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How Hard Is QA Testing?

Posted on July 17, 2024July 27, 2024 by Learnix Tree Center team

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How Hard Is QA Testing?

If you are considering a career in QA, you may have wondered, "How hard is QA testing?". There are many stereotypes about the profession, including the belief that only someone deeply knowledgeable in programming can become a software tester. Another popular myth is that only those with a bachelor's degree in computer science or information technology can work in QA. In reality, thanks to the availability of quality online courses, almost anyone can become a QA specialist. However, you need to be persistent, flexible, and ready to learn a lot.

Is it hard to be a QA tester largely depends on your soft skills and your willingness to develop them. If you can work in a team, have project management experience, create technical tasks well, and can clearly communicate your ideas and create reports, it will be much easier for you to enter the QA field. Technical skills can be developed while performing initial tasks.

Among the typical responsibilities of a specialist, we can highlight the following:

Developing test plans
Finding software bugs and glitches
Documenting test progress and results
Setting quality standards
Developing procedures for product testing
Performing manual testing
Analyzing product features
Reviewing user interfaces and feedback
Writing code for automated tests

An experienced QA tester should be knowledgeable in all types of testing, including usability, performance, compatibility, security testing, load testing, etc. Automation testing is not always part of a tester's tasks, as many specialists, especially beginners, work manually. QA-automation is hard compared to evaluating product quality manually, but it has a number of advantages.

Why is Automation Experience Important for QA Testers?

In the USA and many other countries, it is quite difficult to get a high-paying job in QA without automation experience. The fact is that speed and accuracy of work have become increasingly important for employers. Thanks to automated testing, it is much easier to analyze repetitive cases. This significantly saves time and allows for the timely release of software and other products.

It should be noted that for some modern programs, manual testing is not suitable at all due to the complexity of the systems that need to be checked. Automation allows bugs to be detected at early stages of development and gives companies a competitive advantage in a high-competition market. Therefore, one of the challenges for a QA tester starting their career is the need to gradually learn the specifics of tools such as Selenium WebDriver, TestNG, JUnit, etc., and become familiar with programming languages like Python, Java, etc. Familiarity with Agile is also essential. Professionals with automation skills are often more in demand.

How hard is it to be a software QA depends on the industry you choose and how you learn. It may take a year or more to learn automation testing. You can become an automation tester faster by taking specialized online courses, where you can ask mentors questions and perform practical tasks.

What is the Most Difficult Part of QA Game Testing?

Game testing has its own specifics. It involves analyzing the gameplay from different perspectives. A specialist needs to play the game, check all system errors and potential crashes, and determine performance and speed. Playing at different levels and on different devices, as well as testing different versions with different settings, is also part of a quality analyst's tasks. Whether being a QA analyst is hard depends on your understanding of the gaming industry and your passion for it. A significant challenge is the lack of resources specifically dedicated to game testing. Metrics and technologies used in this field are also not well-aligned.

Games are very complex systems, and players can do things that developers did not anticipate. Probably the most difficult challenge for QA in game testing is the need to foresee such situations and propose scenarios in advance to avoid crashes and flaws.

Key Challenges Faced by Quality Testers

Let's consider the main QА-challenges faced by specialists regardless of the specific industry.

Insufficient alignment of the quality control and testing department with the development department and other teams, and a lack of understanding from colleagues about the importance of thorough testing.
The absence of official QA courses in colleges, hence the need to self-study the basics, methodologies, approaches, types, tools, etc.
Another challenge of QА is the need for increased concentration during long manual testing, especially when the product is almost ready.
Sometimes it is difficult to formulate why a bug needs to be fixed. This requires prioritizing, considering both the client experience, the throughput of functions, support costs, etc.

With the development of artificial intelligence and the emergence of new software features, new challenges in QА testing.

Conclusions

For a tester, continuous self-education and the ability to work with automation tools are essential. The challenges faced by QА testers depend on the industry. For example, in the field of game testing, you may encounter the need to analyze all possible development scenarios and find the smallest nuances that might not appeal to players.

The most difficult and common QА tester challenges is the need to effectively communicate simultaneously with developers and managers, as well as adequately assess user requirements. The specialist must also understand security requirements and have a good understanding of every product they test.

Is being a QA tester stressful?

Stress resistance is one of the soft skills needed for a quality tester. However, with proper time management and the ability to work in a team, this profession is not entirely stressful and involves many interesting tasks, career growth, and high pay.

Is QA hard to get in?

To enter the QA field, you need to learn the types of testing, master one or more coding languages, and become proficient with the main tools used by testers today. For this, it is advisable to obtain a bachelor's degree in information technology or complete online testing courses.

Does QA testing require math?

A software tester does not need to be an expert in mathematics. The main requirement is understanding the product and the ability to use various types of testing. Knowledge of coding languages and proficiency in English are advantageous.

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Is QA still in demand?

Posted on July 14, 2024July 27, 2024 by Learnix Tree Center team

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Is QA still in demand?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for quality control and testing specialists will increase by 25% by 2032. This is higher than the average for other professions. Local demand for QA testers varies by country and city, but QA specialists can always find remote work.

Many beginners start their careers as software quality testers. From a junior QA tester, you can grow to a manual testing specialist, and eventually take on the role of a QA engineer, QA analyst, or testing manager. The field evolves with technological progress since quality control is a key component of the software development life cycle. The demand for QA testers is growing, and the average annual salary in the USA is about $64,400.

Quality control is an integral part of the quality assurance process. While QA aims to ensure that the product meets the organizations, industry, and general quality standards throughout the development process, QC is charged with identifying and correcting errors in the delivered solution.

QC experts anticipate and reduce errors whenever possible. QA specialists ensure that the finished product is bug-free and ready to go to market in a perfect condition.

If you don't know how to forecаst demand in QA testing and are concerned that artificial intelligence may displace professionals in this field, think about the particularities of manual testing. No software can substitute for a human when it comes to the need for high-level manual testing.

How Has the Growth of AI Influenced the QA Labor Market?

Software quality assurance and testing largely depends on the dynamic development of artificial intelligence. Companies have begun to actively use machine learning to accelerate software quality control and increase the productivity of various control processes. The need for QA and QC has not decreased, but increased as software becomes more complex and competition in the industry increases.

AI-based test automation has become popular and has a number of advantages:

AI algorithms can detect patterns in test data and generate test scenarios.
Automation tools can self-heal and adapt to changes in the testing program.
It is now possible to analyze historical test data, predicting where and what defects may occur.
AI can generate test scenarios based on previous user behavior, thus taking into account the most relevant and critical test scenarios.
Machine learning allows you to automatically update test scenarios, thereby reducing maintenance costs.

Therefore, the need for QA, QC and the introduction of AI-related technologies into the workflows of software, mobile application, website, etc. developers is growing. The lack of human control over all processes can be costly for a company. AI relies solely on clean and complete data. Only then can AI testing be reliable and accurate.

It is difficult to overestimate the value of QA manual testing specialists.Unlike automated testing, manual testing is performed by specialists. They create test scenarios and detailed instructions to check various product functions. A specialist can examine the functionality and interface of software, websites, online services, or applications from the user's point of view using different devices, browsers, and operating systems.

A manual QA tester not only identifies errors but also helps developers fix them and communicates with other team members. They can work with code and simultaneously test the product outside the software, like a regular consumer. Only a knowledgeable person can do this, so the demand for such specialists will not disappear, regardless of AI advancements.

Why Will Companies Always Need QA Specialists?

The value proposition of a QA specialist determines their demand in the job market. Most developers will pay attention to your vacancy if you can offer testing of different types using modern tools and guarantee that the perfect product will hit the market faster with your control.

If you are unsure what you need for QA, QC and software testing besides understanding the basics of the profession and coding languages to control quality and software, thoroughly familiarize yourself with Agile and DevOps methodologies. Their integration into software development has increased the demand for QA specialists. However, the requirements for specialists are constantly increasing. While automation handles repetitive tests, specialists must focus on complex testing scenarios and quality control.

The demand for QA, importance of this direction are especially significant in IT, finance, and healthcare industries. For companies, it is crucial that their products are safe, convenient, and accessible to customers.

Conclusions

There are many types of QA testing used at different stages of development. Some of them do not require knowledge of programming languages. More important is a deep understanding of the internal structure and architecture of the software, knowledge of the product, and the business processes of the developing company.

Despite the importance of QA with automated processes, many tasks require human interaction. Here, the experience of a manual tester or quality assurance specialist who thoroughly knows the developer's business and target audience comes first.

Is there a future for QA?

According to forecasts, the demand for specialists in the QA field will increase by 25% by 2032. This rate is higher than the average for most other professions.

Will QA become outdated?

Companies need QA because a large number of increasingly complex programs are entering the market, and profits from sales directly depend on the quality of the product. Therefore, quality assurance cannot become obsolete, especially when it comes to manual testing, which can only be performed by a human, not artificial intelligence.

Is there a demand for quality assurance?

There is a demand for quality assurance, and it is constantly growing. Today, all major companies use the services of quality assurance specialists to release error-free products to the market.

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Month: July 2024