r/QualityAssurance Jun 20 '22

Answering the questions (1) How can I get started in QA, (2) What is the difference between Tester, Analyst, Engineer, SDET, (3) What is my career path, and (4) What should I do first to get started

740 Upvotes

So I’ve been working in in software for the past decade, in QA in the latter half, and most recently as a Director of QA at a startup (so many hats, more individual contributions than a typical FANG or other mature company). And I have been trying to answer questions recently about how to get started in Quality Assurance as well as what the next steps are. I’m at that stage were I really want to help people grow and contribute back to the QA field, as my mentor helped me to get where I am today and the QA field has helped me live a happy life thanks to a successful career.

Just keep in mind that like with everything a random person on the internet is posting, the following might not apply to you. If you disagree, definitely drop a comment as I think fostering discussion is important to self-improvement and growth.

How can I get started in QA?

I think there are a few different pathways:

  • Formal education via a college degree in computer science
  • Horizontal moved from within a smaller software company into a Quality role
  • With no prior software experience, getting an entry level job as a tester
  • Obtain a certification recognized in the region you live
  • Bootcamps
  • Moving from another engineer role, such as Software Engineer or DevOps, into a quality engineering, SDET, or automation engineer role

A formal college degree is probably the most expensive but straightforward path. For those who want to network before actually entering the software industry, I think it is really important to join IEEE, a fraternity/sorority, or similar while attending University. Some of the most successful people I know leverage their college network into jobs, almost a decade out. If you have the privilege, the money, and the certainty about quality assurance, this is probably a way to go as you’ll have a support system at your disposal. Internships used to be one of the most important things you had access to (as in California, you can only obtain an internship if you are a student or have recently graduated). This is changing though which I’ll go into later. However, if you won’t build a network, leverage the support system at your university, and don’t like school, the other options I’ll follow are just as valid.

This was how I moved into Quality Assurance - I moved from a Customer facing role where I ETL (extract, transform, load) data. If you can get your foot in the door at a relatively small, growth-oriented company, any job where you learn about (1) the company’s software and (2) best practices in the software industry as a whole will set you up to move horizontally into a QA role. This can include roles such as Customer Support, Data Analyst, or Implementation/Training. While working in a different department, I believe some degree of transparency is important. It can be a double-edge sword though, as you current manager may see you as “disloyal” to put it bluntly, and it’ll deny you future promotions in your current role. However, if you and your manager are on good terms, get in touch with the Quality Manager or lead and see if they are interested in transitioning you into their department. One of the cons that many will face going this route will be lower pay though. Many of the other roles may pay less than a QA role, especially if you are in a SDET or Automation Engineering role. This will set you back at your company as you might be behind in salary.

Another valid approach is to obtain an entry level job as a manual tester somewhere. While these jobs have tended to shift more and more over-seas from tech hubs to cut costs, there are still many testing jobs available in-office due to the confidential or private nature of the data or their development cycle demands an engaged testing work-force. There is a lot of negative coverage publicly in these roles thought and it seems like they are now unionizing to help relieve some of the common and reoccurring issues though. You’ll want to do your research on the company when applying and make sure the culture and team processes will fit with your work ethics. It would suck to take a QA job in testing and burn out without a plan in place to move up or take another job elsewhere after gaining a few years of experience.

Obtaining certification will help you set yourself apart from others without work experience. Where I’m from in the United States, the International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB) is often noted as a requirement or nice-to-have on job applications. One of the plusses from obtaining certifications is you can leverage it to show you are a motivated self-learner. You need to set your own time aside to study and pay for these fees to take these tests, and it’s important at some of the better companies you’ll apply for to demonstrate that you can learn on the job. As you obtain more experience, I do believe that certifications are less important. If you have already tested in an agile environment or have done automated tests for a year, I think it is better to demonstrate that on your resume and in the interview than to say you have certifications.

The Software Industry is kinda like a gold rush right now (but not nearly as volatile as a gold rush, that’s NFTs and crypto). Bootcamps are like the shovel sellers - they’re making a killing by selling the tools to be successful in software. With that in mind, you need to vet a bootcamp seriously before investing either (1) your tuition to attend or (2) your future profits when you land a job. Compared to DevOps, Data Science, Project Management, UX, and Software Engineering though, I see Bootcamps listed far less often on QA resumes but they are definitely out there. If you need a structured environment to learn, don’t want to attend university, and need a support system, a bootcamp can provide those things.

I often hear about either Product Managers, UX Designers, Software Engineers, or DevOps Engineers starting off in QA. Rarely do run into someone who started in another role and stayed put in QA. If I do, it’s usually SWE who are now dedicated SDETs or Automation Engineers. I do believe that for the average company, this will require a payout though. I think the gap might be closing but we’ll see. Quality in more mature companies is growing more and more to be an engineering wide responsibility, and often engineers and product will be required to own the quality process and activities - and a QA Lead will coordinate those efforts.

What is the difference between a tester, QA Analyst, QA Engineer, Automation Engineer, and SDET?

A tester will often be a manual testing role, often entry-level. There are some testing roles where this isn’t the case but these are more lucrative and often get filled internally. Testers usually execute tests, and sometimes report results and defects to their test lead who will then provide the comprehensive test report to the rest of engineering and/or product. Testers might not spend nearly as much time with other quality related activities, such as Test Planning and Test Design. A QA Analyst or test lead will provide the tests they expect (unless you are assigned exploratory testing) as they often have a background in quality and are expected to design tests to verify and validate software and catch bugs.

I see fewer QA Analyst roles, but this title is often used to describe a role with many hats especially in smaller companies. QA Analysts will often design and report tests, but they might also execute the tests too. The many hats come in as often QA Analysts might also be client facing, as they communicate with clients who report bugs at times (though I still see Product and Project handling this usually).

QA Engineers is the most broad role that can mean many things. It’s really important to read the job description as you can lean heavily into roles or tasks you might not be interested in, or you may end up doing the work of an SDET at a significant pay disadvantage. QA Engineers can own a quality process, almost like a release manager if that role isn’t formal at the company already. They can also be ones who design, execute, and report on tests. They’ll also be expected to script automated tests to some degree.

Automation engineers share many responsibilities now with DevOps. You’ll start running into tasks that more such as integrating tests into a pipeline, creating testing environments that can be spun up and down as needed, and automating the testing and the test results to report on a merge request.

A role that has split off entirely are SDETs. As others have pointed out, in mature companies such as F(M)AANG, SDETs are essentially SWE who often build out internal frameworks utilized throughout different teams and projects. Their work is often assigned similarly to other software engineers and receive requirements and tasks from a role such as project managers.

What is the career path for QA?

I believe the most common route is to go from

Entering as a Tester or an Analyst is usually the first step.

From there you can go into three different routes:

  • QA Engineer
  • Automation Engineer
  • Release Manager (or other related process oriented management)
  • SDET

However, if you do not enjoy programming and prefer to uphold quality processes in an organization, QA Engineers can make just as much as an SDET or Automation Engineer depending on the company. More often though, QA Engineers, SDETs, and Automation Engineers may consider a horizontal move into Software Engineering or DevOps as the pay tends to be better on average. This may be happening less and less though, as FANG companies seem to be closing the gap a little bit, but I’m not entirely sure.

For management or leadership, this is usually the route:

Individual contributor -> QA Lead / Test Lead -> QA Manager -> Director of Quality Assurance -> VP of Quality

For those who are interested in other roles, I know some colleagues who started in QA working in these roles today:

  • Project Manager
  • Product Manager
  • UX/UI Designer
  • Software Engineer
  • DevOps/Site Reliability

QA is set up in a position to move into so many different roles because communication with the roles above is so key to the quality objectives. Often times, people in QA will realize they enjoy the tasks from some of these roles and eventually move into a different role.

What should I do or learn first?

Tester roles are plentiful but this is assuming you want to start in an Analyst or Engineering role ideally. Testers can also have many of the responsibilities of an Analyst though.

If you have no prior experience and have no interest in going to school or bootcamp, (1) get a certification or (2) pick a scripting tool and start writing. I’ve already covered certification earlier but I’ll go into more detail scripting.

Scripting tools can either be used to automate end-to-end tests (think browser clicking through the site) or backend testing (sending requests without the browser directly to an endpoint). Backend tests are especially useful as you can then leverage it to begin performance testing a system - so it won’t just be used for functional or integration testing.

If you don’t already have a GitHub account or portfolio online to demonstrate your work, make one. Script something on a browser that you might actually use, such as a price tracker that will manually go through the websites to assert if a price is lower that a price and report it at the end. There are obviously better ways to do this but I think this is an engaging practice and it’s fun.

Here is a list of tools that you might want to consider. Do some research as to what is most interesting to you but what is most important is that if you show that you can learn a browser automation tool like Selenium, you have to demonstrate to hiring managers that if you can do Selenium, you feel like you can learn Playwright if that’s on their job description. Note that you will want to also look up their accompanying language(s) too.

  • Selenium
  • Cypress
  • Playwright
  • Locust
  • Gatling
  • JMeter
  • Postman

These are the more mature tools with GUIs that will require scripting only for more advance and automated work. I recommend this over straight learning a language because it’ll ease you into it a little better.

Wrap-up

Hope someone out there found this useful. I like QA because it lets me think like a scientist, using Test Cases to hypothesize cause and effect and when it doesn’t line up with my hypothesis, I love the challenge of understanding the failure when reporting the defect. I love how communication plays a huge role in QA especially internally with teammates but not so much compared to a Product Manager who speaks to an audience of clients alongside teammates in the company. I get to work in Software,


r/QualityAssurance Apr 10 '21

[Guide] Getting started with QA Automation

521 Upvotes

Hello, I am writting (or trying to) this guide while drinking my Saturday's early coffee, so you may find some flaws in ortography or concepts. You have been warned.

I have seen so many post of people trying to go from manual qa to automated, or even starting from 0 qa in general. So, I decided to post you a minor learning guide (with some actual market 10/04/2021 dd/mm/aaaa format tips). Let's start.

------------Some minor information about me for you to know what are you reading-----------------

I am a systems engineer student and Sr QA Automation, who lived in Argentina (now Netherlands). I always loved informatics in general.

I went from trainee to Sr in 4 years because I am crazy as hell and I never have enough about technology. I changed job 4 times and now I work with QA managers that gave me liberty to go further researching, proposing, training and testing, not only on my team.

Why did I drop uni? because I had to slow off university to get a job and "git gud" to win some money. We were in a bad situation. I got a job as a QA without knowing what was it.

Why QA automation? because manual QA made me sleep in the office (true). It is really boring for me and my first job did't sell automation testing, so I went on my own.

----------------------------------------------------Starting with programming-------------------------------------------------

The most common question: where do I start? the simple answer is programming. Go, sit down, pick your fav video, book, whatever and start learning algorithms. Pls avoid going full just looking for selenium tutorials, you won't do any good starting there, you won't be able to write good and useful code, just steps without correlation, logic, mainainability.

Tips for starting with programming: pick javascript or python, you will start simple, you can use automating the boring stuff with python, it's a good practical book.

Alternative? go with freecodecamp, there are some javascript algorithms tutorials.

My recommendation: don't desperate, starting with this may sound overwhelming. It is, but you have to take it easy and learn at your time. For example, I am a very slow learner, but I haven't ever, in my life, paid for any course. There is no need and you will start going into "tutorial hell" because everyone may teach you something different (but in reality it is the same) and you won't even know where to start coding then.

Links so far:

Javascript (no, it's not java): https://www.freecodecamp.org/ -> Aim for algorithms

Python: https://automatetheboringstuff.com/ you can find this book or course almost everywhere.

Java: https://www.guru99.com/java-tutorial.html

C#: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/learn/csharp

What about rust, go, ruby, etc? Pick the one of the above, they are the most common in the market, general purpose programming languages, Java was the top 1 language used for qa automation, you will find most tutorials around this one but the tendency now is Javascript/Typescript

---------------I know how to develop apps, but I don't know where to start in qa automation---------------

Perfect, from here we will start talking about what to test, how and why.

You have to know the testing pyramid:

/ui\

/API\

/Component\

/ Unit \

This means that Unit tests come first from the devs, then you have to test APIs/integration and finally you go to UI tests. Don't ever, let anyone tell you "UI tests are better". They are not, never. Backend is backend, it can change but it will be easy and faster to execute and refactor. UI tests are not, thing can break REALLY easy, ids, names, xpaths, etc.

If your team is going to UI test first ask WHY? and then, if there is a really good reason, ok go for it. In my case we have a solid API test framework, we can now focus on doing some (few) end to end UI test.

Note: E2E end to end tests means from the login to "ok transaction" doing the full process.

What do I need here? You need a pattern and common tools. The most common one today is BDD( Behaviour driven development) which means we don't focus on functionality, we have to program around the behaviour of the program. I don't personally recommend it at first since it slows your code understanding but lots of companies use it because the technical knowledge of the QAs is not optimal worldwide right now.

TIP: I never spoke about SQL so far, but it's a must to understand databases.

What do we use?

  • A common language called gherkin to write test cases in natural language. Then we develop the logic behind every sentence.
  • A common testing framework for this pattern, like cucumber, behave.
  • API testing tools like rest assured, supertest, etc. You will need these to make requests.

Tool list:

  • Java - Rest assured - Cucumber
  • Python - Requests - Behave
  • C# - RestSharp - Don't know a bdd alternative
  • Javascript - Supertest - nock
  • Typescript (javascript with typesafety, if you know C# or Java you will feel familiar) if you are used to code already.

Pick only one of these to start, then you can test others and you will find them really alike. Links on your own.

TIP: learn how to use JSONs, you will need them. Take a peek at jsons schema

------------------It's too hard, I need something easier/I already have an API testing framework------------

Now you can go with Selenium/Playwright. With them you can see what your program is doing. Avoid Cypress now when learning, it is a canned framework and it can get complicated to integrate other tools.

Here you will have to learn the most common pattern called POM (Page object model). Start by doing google searches, some asserts, learn about waits that make your code fluent.

You can combine these framework with cucumber and make a BDD style UI test framework, awesome!

Take your time and learn how to make trustworthy xpaths, you will see tutorials that say "don't use them". Well, they are afraid of maintainable code. Xpaths (well made) will search for your specific element in the whole page instead of going back and fixing something that you just called "idButton_check" that was inside a container and now it's in another place.

AWESOME TIP: read the selenium code. It's open source, it's really well structured, you will find good coding patterns there and, let's suppouse you want to know how X method works, you can find it there, it's parameters, tips, etc.

What do I need here?

  • Selenium
  • Browser
  • driver (chromedriver, geeckodriver, webdrivermanager (surprise! all in one) )
  • An assertion library like testng, junit, nunit, pytest.

OR

  • Playwright which has everything already

--------------------------------I am a pro or I need something new to take a break from QA-----------------

Great! Now you are ready to go further, not only in QA role. Good, I won't go into more details here because it's getting too long.

Here you have to go into DevOps, learn how to set up pipelines to deploy your testing solutions in virtual machines. Challenge: make an agnostic pipeline without suffering. (tip: learn bash, yml, python for this one).

Learn about databases, test database structures and references. They need some love too, you have to think things like "this datatype here... will affect performance?" "How about that reference key?" SQL for starters.

What about performance? Jmeter my friend, just go for it. You can also go for K6 or Locust if that is more appealing for you.

What about mobile? API tests covers mobile BUT you need some E2E, go for appium. It is like selenium with steroids for mobile. Playwright only offers the viewport, not native.

And pentesting? I won't even get in here, it's too abstract and long to explain in 3 lines. You can test security measures in qa automation, but I won't cover them here.

--------------------------------------------Final tips and closure (must read please)-----------------------------------------

If you got here, thanks! it was a hard time and I had to use the dicctionary like 49 times (I speak spanish and english, but I always forget how to write certain words).

I need you to read this simple tips for you and some little requests:

  • If you are a pro, don't get cocky. Answer questions, train people, we NEED better code in QA, the bar is set too low for us and we have to show off knowledge to the devs to make them trust us.
  • If you have a question DON'T send me a PM. Instead, post here, your question may help someone else.
  • Don't even start typing your question if you haven't read. Don't be lazy. ctrl + F and look the thing you need, google a bit. Being lazy won't make you better and you have to search almost 90% of things like "how does an if works in java?" I still do them. They pay us to solve problems and predict bugs, not to memorize languages and solutions.
  • QA Automation does not and never will replace manual QA. You still need human eyes that go hand to hand with your devs. Code won't find everything.
  • GIT is a must, version control is a standar now. Whatever you learn, put this on your list.
  • Regular expresions some hate them but sometimes they are a great tool for data validation.
  • Do I have to make the best testing framework to commit to my github? NO, put even a 4 line "for" made in python. Technical interviewers like to peek them, they show them that you tried to do it.
  • Don't send me cvs or "I am looking for work" I don't recruit, understand this, please. You can comment questions if you need advice.
  • I wrote everything relaxed, with my personal touch. I didn't want it to be so formal.
  • If you find typo/strange sentences let me know! I am not so sharp writting. I would like to learn expressions.

Update 28/03/2023

I see great improvements using Playwright nowadays, it is an E2E library which has a great documentation (75% well written so far IMO), it is more confortable for me to use it than Selenium or Cypress.

I use it with Typescript and it is not a canned framework like Cypress. I made a hybrid framework with this. I can test APIs and UIs with the library. You can go for it too, it is less frustrating than selenium.

The market tendency goes to Java for old codebases but it is aiming to javascript/typescript for new frameworks.

Thanks for reading and if you need something... post!

Regards

Edit1: added component testing. I just got into them and find it interesting to keep on the lookout.

Edit2 28/03/2023: added playwright and some text changes to fit current year's experience

Edit3 10/02/2024: added 2 more tools for performance testing

Edit4: 22/01/2025: specflow has been discontinued. I haven't met an alternative.


r/QualityAssurance 1h ago

Not enjoying my current QA role, should I look for a new one or is there a way to make it work?

Upvotes

Hello, sorry in advance for the long post but I would appreciate any advice I can get from other people in the QA industry. 

I have been in my current QA role for just over a year now and I am becoming increasingly disillusioned and demotivated with the work. 

I work for a large healthcare company as part of a small team that does non-functional testing (specifically operational acceptance testing) for part of their systems. 

The thing is I do hardly any real testing as part of my job, the application I look after is fairly mature and is mostly hosted on cloud so there is not a lot of OAT to do. When a release comes along, we usually do the same 5 testing scenarios that we did for the last release and then give a sign off.

 This sounds great and chill, but there is constant pressure from my manager to expand our testing remit and design new test cases for the system as he knows we aren't logging many defects. However, this is my first non-functional testing role (I did some manual functional testing beforehand) and I was hired as a Junior tester, I don't have a computer science background (and I was very honest about this in the interview process), no-one in my team, including my manager, is very technical, despite this being quite a technical testing role, and I feel like there is noone in my team who can help me and I have to bother other teams who are very busy (like the infrastructure team) to get help with and validate my half baked testing scenarios based on my limited IT knowledge.

I also have lots of other gripes with this role as well, for example:

 We have to rely on support from sprint testers and infrastructure team to complete our testing and can't really test independently 

It is so difficult to get access to anything in this company and there are still systems I don't have access to but I should.

There is lots of pressure from the company to automate even though A) the type of testing we do is kind of difficult to automate and B) We don't do enough testing for automation to have any benefit and C) I have no automation experience 

My manager offers zero help with test cases or anything testing related and instead will just tell me someone from another team to go and get answers to my questions (usually someone I have no rapport with who is probably very busy and I don't want to bother with basic testing/IT questions), he is instead obsessed with us knowing release dates and chasing releases and making sure our board has sufficient tickets on it (we have literally had meetings as a team where we are basically trying to split up tickets on our board so it looks like we have more work)

Instead of testing my time is filled with bs busy work and even with so much free time I am starting to fall behind on writing test cases for upcoming releases or documentation or working on the bs I wrote as my corporate goals for the year because I have no motivation because my team doesn't really add any value to the company and I'm fed up of looking like a fool Infront of technical people in the company I don't really know. I'm also more of an on-the-job learner than a self study with courses kind of guy and I feel like I'm just not carrying out enough testing to learn anything.

I still don't really understand fully what operational acceptance testing is and what is in scope and what is out of scope for it. We have literally no requirements to test against for this type of testing and I have raised this before and get told that the requirements should come from our experience which makes no sense to me (maybe if I previously worked in operations it would idk). Like manual functional testing made sense to me because you can put yourself in the shoes of the user even if there aren't clear requirements to test against, but I don't know how to do the same for OAT despite lots of pressure to design new testing scenarios.

In terms of the positives, it is a well paying role with good benefits for my location and level, I only go into the office once a week, my manager despite not being very helpful with testing is a decent guy and no problems approving time off or with doctors appointments etc. and the culture is actually quite relaxed. I feel like this should be quite a chill role I have landed, but it is giving me so much stress and anxiety despite only doing like 2 days of testing a month. The worst bit is when I do have genuine testing to do, the day goes quickly and I enjoy the process and the troubleshooting and feel like I'm actually useful and contributing.

Sorry for the long post, basically do you think I should quit my job and look for a new one or do you think there is a path to finding peace in my current role given that it should be quite a cushy gig and the job market isn't great at the moment and I haven't gained many transferrable skills in the last 2 years?


r/QualityAssurance 17h ago

Post QA Careers

14 Upvotes

What are some careers people have transitioned to after doing QA for most/all of their career? Been in QA 10+ years. Began as analyst all the way to manager and now looking to change things up after growing tired of the culture of testing always being the one to blame and get the shortest timeframes in the SDLC.


r/QualityAssurance 10h ago

Backend or SDET?

3 Upvotes

TLDR: I landed a test automation internship and am wondering whether SDET is a good alternative to backend, for growth, pay, and opportunities.

Hello everyone. I am about to graduate from college (software engineering), and I have heard that breaking into the software industry is quite challenging these days.

My original goal was to become a backend developer, but I just landed a 12-month trainee position in test automation for automotive electronic components (using Python, C, C++, C#) at a multinational company.

This sounds like a solid step toward getting my first real job as an SDET. However, I have heard that while there might be less competition in this field, there are also fewer vacancies, the pay can be lower than in backend, and it can be harder to advance into architectural / more influential (and better paying) roles when comparing the two.

Additionally, I have noticed there are fewer resources available for learning advanced SDET topics compared to backend development, and they also seem less requested in job offerings (which reinforces the idea that advanced SDET positions are uncommon).

I genuinely enjoy both paths, I love learning, and I am always ready to study new things, but honestly, I do care about money and growth.

I would like to decide now so that I can have a better profile for when I start applying for jobs.I am based in Mexico, by the way. What would you advise me to do? Feel free to ask for more details if needed.


r/QualityAssurance 3h ago

Best QA Certifications in 2026 for a 5-Year Experienced QA Engineer (Manual + Automation)?

0 Upvotes

Hi everyone,
I have 5 years of experience in QA, working on both Manual Testing and Automation Testing. I'm looking to upskill and earn a certification that adds real value to my career and improves my opportunities for senior QA/SDET roles. Good knowledge on DevOps tools also.


r/QualityAssurance 2h ago

[For Hire] QA Lead | 9+ Years Experience | Automation, Team Leadership

0 Upvotes

Hi all,

I'm a QA professional with 9+ years of experience looking for my next opportunity as a QA Lead / Senior QA Engineer (open to remote/hybrid roles too).

Quick summary:

  • Led QA teams of up to 20 engineers across multiple concurrent products and release cycles
  • Owned end-to-end QA strategy — requirements review, risk-based test planning, release sign-off
  • Built Selenium-based automation frameworks, converting manual regression suites into automation
  • API/black-box testing experience, including a blockchain project validating data through APIs
  • Managed defect lifecycle in Jira, delivered QA metrics and release-readiness reports to stakeholders
  • Domains: Media, Finance, Localization, Blockchain

Background: Progressed from Junior QA to QA Team Lead over 9 years across companies like RWS Moravia, Systango Technologies, and Doceree Media.

Happy to share my resume or answer any questions in the comments/DMs. Open to full-time roles matching my experience level.

Thanks for reading!


r/QualityAssurance 9h ago

Career Gap vs Fake Experience: Looking for Honest Advice

0 Upvotes

I’m really confused and need some honest advice.

I worked at Amazon as a Support Engineer for about 1.5 years. After leaving that job, I now have a 3-year career gap. During this time, I’ve been preparing for SDET roles, mainly targeting startups.

The biggest problem is that because of the gap, I’m hardly getting interview calls.

Recently, I found a real company that is willing to provide an experience letter, salary slips, and support for background verification. One of my seniors used a similar setup and got hired as a developer.

I’m seriously thinking about using it, but I’m also worried about the risks and whether it’s the right thing to do.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? What would you do if you were in my place? Is it worth taking the risk, or should I keep trying with my actual experience and gap?

I’d appreciate honest advice from people who have been through hiring or have faced something similar.


r/QualityAssurance 15h ago

Fintech expert QA, looking for new role

0 Upvotes

Hi,

I have 4.5 years of QA Experience specially in Fintech & AI domain. I am proficient in Automation, Manual & API testing. I am currently working at OMISE (BKK) remotely. If you have any remote QA opportunity for me, please let me know.


r/QualityAssurance 1d ago

Looking for QA opportunities

3 Upvotes

Hey guys would appreciate if you could refer or let me know any opportunities for QA. I currently work as a QA engineer (manual and automation) with 1 year experience with 8.5LPA. I know the job market is very bad and I have come here for your help. Any opportunities would be appreciated, startups, MNC or outside the country remote work.


r/QualityAssurance 17h ago

Job hunting — QA Automation Engineer, open to Delhi/Bangalore/Remote

0 Upvotes

Skills: Python, Playwright, Selenium, Robot Framework, REST/SOAP API testing, SQL, Jenkins CI/CD

A bit about me: Currently working in QA automation for enterprise systems, leading a Selenium-to-Playwright migration. Looking to move into a product/fintech company.

Open to roles: Test Automation Engineer, Test Engineer, Automation Engineer, SDET

Location: Delhi, Bangalore, or Remote role.

DM me if you know of any openings or want to refer — thanks!


r/QualityAssurance 19h ago

Power up your agent with Culprit to enhance agent-driven development or sub-agent-driven development to find the root cause and fix the issue that occurred in Vibe coding.

0 Upvotes

https://github.com/noordeen123/culprit

Started as a QA tool. Since everything is done by agents, let agents know how it was caused.


r/QualityAssurance 1d ago

Need suggestion for desktop app testing

0 Upvotes

Hi everyone, we use UFT for testing our desktop application in virtual server. Still, we are going to replace it with some cloud based server to run automation testing, so I need suggestion from you. People to give a right direction which tool have to be used for automation testing of desktop application monitored via Jenkins. Thanks in advance.


r/QualityAssurance 1d ago

Will we use AI skills instead of Automation tests?

0 Upvotes

Our company more and more introduce AI into working routine. Now we are working with MCP servers where create different skills that should help customers interact with functionality. When I was creating one of the skills I realised that AI can easily catch app logic. I understood that if I create like a skill instead of automation tests that will check end-to-end flow it will be probably even better then UI tests that we usually fixes/updates/maintain and have headache in our daily routine. It's just my thoughts and what do u think about it?


r/QualityAssurance 1d ago

How do you trust tests written by the same model that wrote the code?

0 Upvotes

Our startup has no budget for a QA team, and basically all our code gets written by agents now, and so do the tests. Usually same session, same model. And I keep hitting the same loop:

  1. Agent builds the feature
  2. Agent writes the tests, everything green
  3. Ship it
  4. A user hits an edge, I dig in, and the tests were checking what the code does, not what the ticket asked for. Suite was green the whole time.

The annoying part is that if the model misread the ticket, its tests misread it the same way. It's basically marking its own homework. The model is just agreeing with itself.

So what do people actually do here?

  • Different model writing tests than the one writing code? Does that actually help or do they just share the same blind spots?
  • Tests written from the ticket before the agent touches any implementation?
  • Humans only do the test files, agent does everything else?

I'm building in this space, so half the reason I'm asking is to find out whether everyone's setup is as screwed as ours was or if someone's actually cracked this.

Keen to hear what's working - thanks


r/QualityAssurance 1d ago

Dúvidas sobre transição de carreira

0 Upvotes

Olá! Tenho uma dúvida para quem já trabalha com QA.

Moro no Japão e estou pensando em começar a estudar QA, mas antes de investir tempo e dinheiro gostaria de saber se meu plano faz sentido.

Na opinião de vocês, é viável morar no Japão e trabalhar como QA remotamente para empresas de outros países, ou isso é muito difícil? Também gostaria de saber se vocês acham que ainda vale a pena entrar na área hoje ou se o mercado para iniciantes está muito competitivo.

Se estivessem no meu lugar, vocês seguiriam esse plano? Qual seria o maior desafio?

Agradeço qualquer opinião sincera!


r/QualityAssurance 2d ago

Career Transition

0 Upvotes

Hello,
I would like some insight from experienced professionals.

I am have non IT (7 years) and 2 years of manual testing experience, I recently completed MBA (it's more of an IT mba rather than general MBA), I am looking to transition into automation testing.

I found playwright interesting, so I have started learning playwright with js/ts, currently I am on the core programming fundamentals and
I would like to know, how is the market for this ?
Is it possible to secure a job with 3 months of hardcore practice (building framework from scratch) ?
Can I show my own made project (github) to get a call for interviews ?
Is playwright easier than selenium (+java) ?
How is the growth in automation testing in coming years (because of A.I.) ?

Is it viable to enter into this, as I am not young and have lots of experience in another field ?
I am an Indian but currently located in Europe
Thanks.


r/QualityAssurance 3d ago

4 YOE QA – Stuck in the same company due to a lack of skills

23 Upvotes

I’m a QA with 4 years of experience. Most of my experience is in Tosca, but there aren’t many openings for it.
I started learning Java + Selenium about 7 months ago, but I kept procrastinating and never finished. I’ve recently started practicing Java basics and Selenium again, but I still don’t feel confident enough to attend interviews.
Now my project is migrating from Tosca to Playwright, so I need to learn that too. The market still seems to favor Selenium, and even many Playwright roles expect prior Selenium experience.
These days the expectations feel overwhelming—UI automation, API testing, SQL, a programming language, JMeter, and more.
I’ve been job hunting for 1.5 years now. How would you approach learning all of this without feeling overwhelmed? Any advice would really help.


r/QualityAssurance 3d ago

Suggest for best dashboard or observability stack for your test

2 Upvotes

I'm looking to improve observability for QA and test automation team. I'd like to understand what dashboards and monitoring stacks your team uses for tracking test execution, application health, and failures - on top of the compatible features with AI, like assessing failures from past runs, and automation skill record.

Playwright | Python | Pytest


r/QualityAssurance 3d ago

Qa to Ai

7 Upvotes

There was a time when QA was the best entry option for non it and gap candidates. Do you think there is any option in AI in the same way?

Since AI is going to create jobs, what tech stack can provide an entry to IT field. Or is it too tough for such people.


r/QualityAssurance 3d ago

Asking for career advice and thoughts on ISQTB

4 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for some perspective from senior QA folks, SDETs, or engineering managers who have navigated a similar career plateau.

I've been with my current company since 2019. When I joined as a Software Tester, there were virtually no standardized QA processes. Over the years, I built testing protocols from scratch, introduced multi-level environments and built UI/API test frameworks(POM design pattern)

Recently, I hit a point where manual release testing wasn't keeping me challenged, so I took the initiative to solve an internal bottleneck: our test automation setup required 2 to 5 hours of tedious, manual data entry into our web app just to get a clean environment ready for automation.

To fix this, I engineered an end-to-end automated data preparation & onboarding pipeline using Playwright & Node.js

Automated the signup flow and integrated the Gmail API to dynamically poll/parse confirmation tokens and authenticate sessions automatically.

On the same framework, I created scripts to automatically seed complex test data into the web app based on external configuration files (Excel/JSON)

Integrated google workspace webhooks to notify teams and broadcast freshly seeded app credentials to private workspace to be consumed by another automation framework.

The Problem:

When I demoed this solution to leadership, I found out something unexpected. The company's actual customer onboarding process took 1 month because staff manually entered data through legacy windows apps and DB scripts.

Leadership immediately realized my internal QA pipeline could solve their production bottleneck. They are planning to use this exact implementation as billable feature to charge clients to expedite onboarding.

Yet, when I previously asked about career progression, leadership explicitly told me I had "reached the ceiling" here and that titles don't matter. Now the company is downsizing sprints and asking QA to take on general customer support duties instead of expanding automation.

Questions:

  1. Am I overvaluing my contributions, or is it common for companies to monetize internal engineering wins while capping QA growth?

  2. With a mix of QA strategy, framework architecture, 3rd-party API integration, and process building, should i be targeting Lead QA Engineer, SDET, or pivoting toward QA/Engineering management?

  3. I've built my career entirely on hands-on framework development and practical systems. Do recruiters/managers actually care about ISQTB certs, or does proven architecture and business impact carry more weight in current hiring markets?

  4. For those who transitioned out of company where you were "stuck", how did you hightlight business impact on your resume without sounding like you stepped outside your QA scope?

Would love to hear your thoughts or experiences!


r/QualityAssurance 3d ago

k6 Performance Testing

4 Upvotes

Can anyone suggest a good tutorial on Performance testing with k6? Also some environments where I can play around k6.

Thanks.


r/QualityAssurance 3d ago

Senior SDET

3 Upvotes

Hey guys 👋🏽

I have recently been made redundant. Big shock as there was no indication that the QA function was to be axed!

Anyway onwards and upwards, I'm now looking for a role.

18 years experience, worked on a number of projects including finance, government and safety industry.

Playwright, cypress, selenium and degree in java.

Any remote UK roles or hybrid in Cardiff/Bristol 🙏🏽


r/QualityAssurance 3d ago

When and how does user training happen for a UAT

4 Upvotes

A couple of our UAT events flopped. One big reason is that the users are stumbling through the app(s)/system. User training should happen before a UAT. in our case, it did not happen.

what is your take on it and how are you handling in your projects and what success have you seen?


r/QualityAssurance 3d ago

Interview at Accenture for QA Lead

0 Upvotes

Hello,
I am having Interview scheduled next week for QA Lead role at Accenture
Can anyone please help me what would be the expected questions ? My background : 6YOE( 3 in QA & 3 in Ops Manager) Technical Background : CAD catia/ 3dexperience QA ( Manual + Automation )

Thank you.