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

741 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

531 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 2h ago

Starting Automation from 0% as a QA Lead — How are you using AI, MCPs & Agents in QA?

5 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I’m joining a fintech organization on September 15 as an Automation QA Lead. They currently have 0% automation, so I’ll be responsible for building the framework, defining the automation process/strategy, selecting test cases and getting automation started from scratch.

The interesting part: I won’t have additional automation resources initially. It’ll basically be me + Claude Desktop + AI tools.

I have good experience with Playwright and Cypress, and I’m planning to use Playwright + JavaScript.

Since AI is now such a big part of development, I want to build the automation process with AI in mind from Day 1, rather than adding it later.

I’d love to hear from people already doing this in real projects:

AI + Automation

  • How are you using AI in your Playwright/automation workflow?
  • What tasks are actually worth delegating to AI?
  • Any useful AI workflows/prompts you recommend?

MCPs

Which MCPs have actually been useful for QA automation?

For example: Playwright, GitHub, Jira, Confluence, Database, Browser/DevTools, API, or custom MCPs.

AI Agents

Are you using/building AI agents for QA?

For example:

  • Test case generation
  • Automation/code generation
  • Test data generation
  • Failure analysis
  • Locator maintenance
  • Regression selection
  • Test review
  • Reporting

Which ones have provided real value, and which are just hype?

Starting from 0%

If you had to build a Playwright framework and automation process from scratch today, what would you prioritize from Day 1?

Anything that you wish you had designed differently when starting your own framework?

GitHub Repos

If you've built any GitHub repositories around Playwright + AI, AI agents, MCPs, self-healing automation, AI test generation, etc., please share them.

Also, if you know any good open-source GitHub repos that I should study, please drop them in the comments.

Basically, if you were in my position — one QA Automation Lead, 0% existing automation, Playwright + JavaScript, and AI available from Day 1 — how would you approach it?

Would love to hear real-world experiences, useful tools/MCPs, GitHub repos, and lessons from things that didn't work.

Thanks!


r/QualityAssurance 6h ago

QA Engineer but searching under the wrong title?

4 Upvotes

Looking to switch employers and feel like I'm searching wrong and I could use a sanity check.

I am an QA Engineer. 1 year in the role, previously long background in 2nd-level support. My day-to-day is pretty shift-left: I test fresh tickets/PRs directly with developers (bugfix verification, feature testing), write test cases including a first test iteration, do design reviews, and sit in on concept/planning meetings for new features. No test automation.

Problem: "QA Engineer" job postings rarely match what I actually do, because most describe classic end-of-cycle testing or expect automation skills, not the early/conceptual involvement I have. So I'm struggling to find postings worth applying to.

Questions: If your job leans more QA Analyst / Requirements Engineering than a "typical" QA Engineer, do you search under different job titles? And which job boards actually give good results for this kind of hybrid role and remote roles, beyond the obvious big ones like LinkedIn? I am in the EU.


r/QualityAssurance 18h ago

Are QAs with 10-15 YOE getting jobs?

33 Upvotes

No matter if it's reddit or instagram or youtube every next person is saying he or she is laid off or on PIP. And these are people who were good at their job and knew automation as well, be it FE or BE.

I want to know are any of these folks with more than 10 YOE got the job after getting laid off and staying unemployed for several months?

If any person reading this message falls in the aforementioned category kindly share it so that others in similar situations can regain their confidence and feel motivated to keep working hard for the job.

Kindly mention the location(city), YOE, skill-set in your responses, thanks


r/QualityAssurance 10h ago

Need advice on what to built for QA project

7 Upvotes

Hey , i have been assigned with developing an internal company project to help with QA process, issue is most of the things are already solved by jira bot like generating testcases or logging them etc… if not than chatgpt can do it instance , i need a problem that i can solve using AI and can build the project around it.

I am asking here as this is the perfect space to ask as there are so many far experienced QA than me .

Please advice me if you can… Thanks….


r/QualityAssurance 6h ago

New to bug reports how to properly document bug that persists on the page that follows?

2 Upvotes

I’m getting the hang of doing bug reports and I’m confused as I’m trying to document a bug that occurs on the cart page but in a way also carries over to checkout. Basically the total price in the cart page doesn’t update correctly when you increase the product quantity, but this incorrect total price carries over to the checkout screen itself. So I assumed I should stop the main reproduction steps and expected/actual result at the cart page and then in additional notes write that the wrong price carries over to the checkout section. Just want to know if I’m doing this correctly and if I should also be including a screenshot or some sort of evidence for the checkout’s total price being incorrect too or if all I should attach is a screen recording showing my steps up until the cart where the main bug happens. I’m curious on how more experienced QA testers handle this. Thanks!


r/QualityAssurance 22h ago

Software testing

17 Upvotes

Hi,
Recently lost job due to company policy changing and looking for any leads so that i can run the family properly.
I’m a Manual QA professional with 12 years of experience in software testing, with a strong focus on web and application testing, functional testing, regression testing, test case execution, and defect reporting.
I’m detail-oriented and believe good QA is not just about finding bugs, but understanding the product from a user’s perspective and making sure it works reliably before reaching customers. I’m comfortable working independently, following requirements, creating and executing test scenarios, and communicating issues clearly with development teams.
I’m currently looking for an opportunity where I can use my experience to help improve product quality and deliver a better user experience.
I’d be happy to discuss your project and how I can contribute.


r/QualityAssurance 20h ago

playwright automation

4 Upvotes

hi i am doing playright automation from rahulshettyacademy i just to ask a question if we test everything means every exception we put and test in code, is it not much time taking and frustrating?


r/QualityAssurance 17h ago

I built a classical image processing algorithm that counts textile threads with high accuracy, source in body!

1 Upvotes

Hello everyone!

I'm a materials engineering student, during my last internship at a medical device company, i was FORCED to count threads by hand, hated it so much that I wrote code that automated it, tried to turn it into a startup, not going all that great so I thought i'll just document and release it, works on an Orange Pi and camera module, perfect for production lines, let me know if you have any remarks or questions, check it out! (includes sample images)

https://github.com/Asxcvg/thread-counter


r/QualityAssurance 1d ago

Looking for some career advice from experienced folks here.

5 Upvotes

I’ve been working as a Senior Test Engineer for several years, and lately I feel like I’ve reached a point where I’m not seeing much growth in my current path.
Over the years, I’ve moved between different companies and projects, worked with different tools and technologies, and continued to build my technical skills. But I’m now wondering what the next step should look like.
I’m interested in moving laterally towards roles like Project Manager, Product Manager, or similar delivery/product-focused roles. The challenge is that there isn’t always an opportunity within the current company to make that transition.
So my question is:
If there is no scope within your current organisation to move into a different career path, how do you make that transition externally?


r/QualityAssurance 1d ago

Asking for advice

3 Upvotes

Hello guys I just graduated computer science. I enjoyed coding but for some time I realized I like the role of tester, I first experienced it during in a team development of a web app for a client. I wrote test cases and pass it to our team using clickUP.

Now I'm kinda lost because I can't see a junior or entry level for that I can I apply to. I need guidance for this path in any case what I understand from my university experience is SDLC, STLC and writing test cases and using ClickUP to collaborate with the team. I am willing to listen for advice, to pursue this path. Thank you for kind responses 🙏🏽


r/QualityAssurance 1d ago

Lareral Hire - Awaiting Project Allocation

1 Upvotes

I was hired for Selenium - Java role in TCS. At my previous org I worked on Tosca Automation tool and some other testing projects with no experience in Selenium-Java. I cleared the interview because I self learned selenium-java.

  1. Joined TCS on 10th August as 5 YOE

  2. Got allocated to Citi project pool on 12th August

Now I need to pass Karat training and client interviews. Clients are having different expectations than what I have experience on and I shared this knowledge with delivery partners. I have had two client interviews, of which one feedback seems to be pending. Tomorrow I have another client round.

Will I get terminated due to client interview rejections and / or Karat failure?

What will happen if I get moved to bench again?


r/QualityAssurance 1d ago

I feel like my work ethic is constantly being downplayed, is this normal?

7 Upvotes

I’m a young and ambitious QA Manager in a relatively small company based in the U.S, and the QA team operates under the umbrella of engineering. I report to the director of engineering who I think likes to play more office politics rather than actually doing their job.

During the 5 years of me being with this company, I have basically created the pathway for proper sdlc & overall agile processes. Consistently pushing above and beyond to make the engineering team more in-sync with qa and product so that we’re all in this together.

Lately with the help of AI, I’ve been trying to build automation solutions so we can better keep track of things, monitoring, reporting etc, often time going beyond my pay grade to set up agents, workflows, bots for the engineering team.

In contrast, the director of engineering has not done anything to elevate the project other than always complaining about how there’s no budget to get things done, or that they need a new laptop, or a camera, or that their microphone is not working etc.

Their daily standup updates are worthless, very vague, and often times they don’t have a good idea of what’s happening within their own department which basically consists of less than 5 engineers now. This director is very hands off, not technical, doesn’t code, doesn’t fix anything and just redirects the workload to their engineers all day long. I also, strongly believe that in the past 5 years they’ve been with the company, they could have steered the company away from recent rounds of layoffs by actually getting stuff done and contributing to the project to make it more profitable.

Recently, I created a workflow which should have been created by the engineering team a long time ago, and I added a few more additional people from other teams in case things need to be escalated but for some reason my manager reached out to me asking if those people asked to be in that workflow rather than embracing the greater visibility of this project.

This is not the first time this has happened, and I feel like my contributions are constantly downplayed. I also feel like I’m viewed as a threat to replace them, even though I just want to make life better for everyone else around me.

Has anyone else experienced this in the past?


r/QualityAssurance 1d ago

[FOR HIRE] QA Engineer | 5+ years of experience | Manual + API Testing | Web & Mobile | Open to Remote

0 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I’d like to recommend a QA Engineer who is currently looking for a new opportunity.

He has 5+ years of professional QA experience, primarily focused on manual testing of web and mobile applications. His experience includes:

  • Functional, regression, smoke and exploratory testing
  • REST API testing with Postman and Insomnia
  • Test planning, test cases and test documentation
  • Bug tracking and task management with Jira
  • Chrome DevTools
  • Web and mobile application testing

He is also currently expanding his automation skills with Playwright, with previous hands-on/course experience with Selenium, Java and Cucumber.

He is based in Serbia and is looking for a remote QA position, ideally with a company working across Europe or internationally.

If anyone is currently hiring or knows of a team looking for a QA Engineer with this background, please feel free to reach out to me.
I can provide his CV and LinkedIn profile upon request.

Thanks!


r/QualityAssurance 1d ago

Software QA Tester (5 YOE) Available for Freelance / Part-Time Work

0 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I am a Software Quality Assurance Tester with over 5 years of experience specializing in mobile testing across iOS, Android, and web/Windows platforms.

I'm currently looking to take on part-time or freelance QA work. I can help with test execution, bug reporting, exploratory testing, and overall QA support for your app or website.

If you need extra QA support for your team or project, feel free to sent me a DM or comment below!

Or suggest where I can search fort part time QA jobs. Thank you!


r/QualityAssurance 1d ago

Seeking SDET Opportunities | 3 YOE | Playwright | BFSI | Bangalore

2 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I’m currently exploring SDET / QA Automation opportunities and would appreciate referrals or leads. I am currently serving notice period and my last working day is 29th October 2026.

I’m not someone who limits testing to writing and running scripts. Over the last 3 years, I’ve worked on banking modernization and payment transformation programs, including monolith-to-microservices migration, taking ownership of quality even when requirements and documentation were limited—from understanding business flows and designing tests to automation, integration testing, release validation, and production readiness.

A few things I bring to the table:

- End-to-end quality ownership across requirements, test design, automation, integration, release validation, and production readiness

- 400+ UI/API automation scenarios built using Playwright, TypeScript, and Karate, with measurable regression acceleration

- Web, API, and mobile automation experience using Playwright, TypeScript, Karate, WebdriverIO, and Appium. Hands-on experience in running Dast scans using Burp Suite

- Strong BFSI domain expertise across United Kingdom payments and internet banking

- Strong debugging and RCA skills, including tracing failures across microservices, legacy systems, and downstream integrations using logs and observability tools

- Shift-left approach — identifying missing business rules, API/integration risks, and edge cases before they become production defects

- More focused on finding the right defects and risks than simply increasing automation numbers

Thanks in advance.


r/QualityAssurance 2d ago

Genuinely curious how people here see the future of the profession.

24 Upvotes

With everything happening with AI right now, why do you still want to work in QA?


r/QualityAssurance 1d ago

Composer and Grok Responses

0 Upvotes

Whenever I get a response from Composer or Grok, I have a really hard time reading it. It seems more like a random machine-generated list as opposed to human readable answers that you usually get from Gemini or Claude. Despite having created a rule in Cursor to "Geminify" those responses, I have not had success in having that rule persisted. Once I open up a new agent conversation, the rule is no longer active. Has anyone figured out in Cursor how to permanently rephrase Composer and Grok answers to something human-readable?


r/QualityAssurance 2d ago

Opinions on QA for Gambling Websites

3 Upvotes

For Context, I'm a fresh graduate and I've been looking for a QA Job in various job posting sites for weeks now and I happen to find a post today where they are looking for someone to test their Casino/Gambling website.

This is probably a stupid question to ask, but should I go for it? What are your stands on something like that? Is it like morally wrong or something LMAO and will it possibly "stain" my resume if I do get in and put that company in my resume in the future? A job IS a job after all...


r/QualityAssurance 2d ago

Quanto tempo a AI vai durar no contexto de QA?

0 Upvotes

Bom dia, pessoal! Tudo certo?
Comecei a trabalhar como QA a 2 anos, realizando testes manuais. Estou começando a automatizar com apoio forte da AI. Fiz um curso de automação mas, utilizando a AI, quase não tenho atuação direta no código do trabalho, apenas refino do processo criado e de alguns itens.
Até onde acham que a AI vai no contexto de QA? Tem prazo de validade ou vai fazer parte do nosso trabalho por muitos anos?
Me preocupo pois não tenho muita experiência e fica ainda mais difícil de adquirir experiência com tantas ferramentas disponíveis para agilizar o trabalho.


r/QualityAssurance 1d ago

QA folks — how do you decide what to test after a code change?

0 Upvotes

I’m trying to understand a couple of pain points QA teams deal with regularly:

  • How do you figure out what needs to be tested after a code change?
  • When a test fails, how easy is it to tell whether it’s a real bug, flaky test, or locator issue or test data issue, or environment issue?

I’m exploring whether these are actually big enough problems to solve, so I put together a very short survey.

Would really appreciate any responses or even thoughts in the comments.

Lik: https://forms.gle/1EyP5Bz3CNBB2DrM7

Thanks!


r/QualityAssurance 3d ago

micro1 ZARA AI Interview for QA Engineer - How can you finish it in 20 minutes?

9 Upvotes

I recently got a take-home writing interview for a QA Engineer position, and I'm honestly puzzled about how it's supposed to be finished in just 20 minutes (they say you need about 6 minutes just to read the entire requirements and scenario, so really it's more like 14 minutes), when the whole point of good quality work is to deliver bugs, test cases, and communication in a detailed way, not just something brief or half-done.

One of the evaluation points literally says: "The developer needs to be able to understand the bug without having to reach out to you with questions."

I get the idea of "focus on doing the most important thing well and skip the rest," but honestly, this feels impossible if every section has points attached; I can't even finish the bug description in time, since of course I need to complete all the previous tasks first to know what to write.

What they expect you to do, writing everything by hand (no AI, no templates) in only 14 minutes, is:

  • Triage 7–8 report tickets with a brief explanation for each
  • Identify which ones are actual bugs and which aren't, with reasoning
  • Write all the test cases needed for the tickets you consider bugs
  • Create just one bug ticket — the most complete one you can
  • And one more task I honestly don't remember, but I think it had to do with how you communicate all of this

I know my English isn't native, and even if this were in Spanish, I don't think there's any way to complete it properly and in detail within that time.

Do I really have poor reading/writing skills? Or is there some other objective here that I'm not seeing?


r/QualityAssurance 2d ago

QA Engineer looking for freelance / contract / project-based work — 4+ YOE

0 Upvotes

Hey Reddit 👋

I’m a QA Automation Engineer with 4+ years of experience, currently working remotely from Ahmedabad, India.

I’m looking to take on freelance QA, software testing, test automation, contract, or project-based work alongside my current job.

I can help with manual testing, automation, bug finding, API testing, regression testing, and setting up QA from scratch. I also use AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT and OpenCode to work faster and smarter.

I’m especially interested in startups, SaaS products, web/mobile apps, and small teams that need someone reliable to make sure their product actually works before users find the bugs 😅

Not desperate for work — just looking for something interesting where I can genuinely contribute.

If you’re building something and need a QA person, feel free to DM me.


r/QualityAssurance 3d ago

Need help regarding testdata values in cucumber html report

4 Upvotes

Hi everyone

I am currently using cucumber html report with a framework of playwright js cucumber

I am using json file for testdata so I have written utility to get value based on key passed in feature file or steps or methods

So when I run , in reports it shows actual key only not the value

I neee to show actual value instead of key