A Day in the Life of a QA Tester
QA testing has become an indispensable part of the software development and plays a key role in defining the success of the end product no matter what industry. Each day in the life of a QA Tester is different and being a QA means you never stop learning. Whenever you’re testing you have to act in different user roles and test using different browsers and devices.
In this blog, we’ve tried to capture some of the challenges QA Testers face on a daily basis and find out what a regular working day of a QA looks like.
We’ve talked with our colleague, Tamara Dražić, ISTQB Certified Tester.
What’s it like to be a QA Tester?
Tamara: It is a very dynamic role in the team. You need to always be available for your colleagues in the team, especially for your colleague developers, because some parts of the Application that we are testing, are more familiar to us as QA/Testers. The reason for that is: we are testing the application like a real/end-user and we can assume what the real user would do and how he would use that part of the application, that our developer is working on or fixing. Also, you need to be able to predict things, so you can act in a preventive way. To prevent the bugs to even happen.
What daily tasks do you have and what are they about?
Tamara: The first task (and this is a priority), is to check if the build and the deploy of the application went well, without any issues or errors. Sometimes we run our builds and deployment by ourselves, depending on the situation of the builds.
The second important task is reading emails. Yes, reading a lot of emails, bug reports, documentation, etc. From those emails and bug reports, we can see what is a priority for us to test. Every task that is assigned to us needs to be done according to their severity/priority.
Also, our meetings are on a regular daily basis, and small discussions about issues and bug reports are part of our daily routine as well.
What software testing tools do you use?
Tamara: For project management tools in our team, we are using Jira. For the Automation Testing, we are using a Test Complete/QA Complete, to keep our test cases and test plans in one place, so they can be easily reachable to our Automation Testers.
What are the problems QA testers face on a daily basis?
Tamara: Sometimes it’s a lack of time. You can spend all day testing just one part of the application, and in that part, you find lots of bugs and get stuck in there. Then it can feel like you have the wrong perception of time like you’re trapped in some kind of limbo.
On the other hand, in some situations, it can be a problem how to explain to your colleague developer why you think a real user is going to behave in some way that is different from what he has imagined.
What makes a good QA engineer in your opinion?
Tamara: Everybody would say that you need to have an eye for details, and I am good with this, but in my opinion, first of all, you need to have lots of patience and the ability to put yourself in the shoes of whatever user role you need to be. The soon you can be somebody else, some end-user for the specific application, you will be very successful in finding bugs and preventing them.
Also, you need to be creative and preventive. How to prevent a bug is a really big part of the QA role and a huge responsibility. The ability to find different ways and processes to use for bug prevention is a must for this role.
We’ve seen that when it comes to QA testing, a lot of skills are required to achieve the daily tasks. As a QA tester, no day is the same and you’ll face new challenges every day. However, because of that it is a very interesting and exciting role. Being an important part of developing various software products is very rewarding itself, as a QA you can really make an impact on how the end product would be at the end. Tamara, thank you for sharing with us your experience and insights.
To see what type of QA services we provide take a look at Codolis QA Services.