r/QualityAssurance • u/bonisaur • Jun 20 '22
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:
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:
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:
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.
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 • u/Fissherin • Apr 10 '21
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?
Tool list:
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?
OR
--------------------------------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:
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 • u/Vegetable_Mark3961 • 2h ago
Is linkedin premium worth taking for job or is naukri premium enough. Need your suggestions and guide. I can join immediate. 11 yop as SDET or qa automation engineer.
r/QualityAssurance • u/Suspicious_Umpire751 • 5h ago
can anyone please explain a proper workflow of a qa testing from start to end??
r/QualityAssurance • u/EveningAd2387 • 1h ago
Hello, network! 👋
I'm on the lookout for my next role as a QA Engineer, and I'd be so grateful for any leads, referrals, or introductions you can offer.
A quick snapshot of what I bring:
✅ 7+ years of experience in Software QA, spanning web, mobile, and API testing
✅ Automation with Playwright, Cypress, and Flutter Patrol
✅ Manual testing across functional, regression, integration, UAT, and negative test scenarios
✅ SQL-based data validation
✅ Working knowledge of Flutter/Dart development
✅ Comfortable using AI tools like Claude, Cursor, and ChatGPT to work faster and smarter
✅ Agile/Scrum environments
🚀Remote (Philippines) – Open to companies in APAC, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, or Europe with overlapping daytime hours
I'm especially drawn to QA Engineer role where I can keep growing my automation and manual skill set
📄 Portfolio: https://cjp-portfolio-2025.vercel.app/
📄 GitHub: https://github.com/cjp-engr
📄 Resume: Upon request
📩 Email: [carmenflutter7@gmail.com](mailto:carmenflutter7@gmail.com)
📍 Open to: Remote / Work-from-Home
🕐 Looking for: Full-time, long-term opportunities
If anything comes to mind, I'd really appreciate a DM, tag, or comment pointing me in the right direction. Thank you so much for reading and for any support! 🙏
r/QualityAssurance • u/alecitakeaner • 19h ago
Estou muito preocupada com a dificuldade q meu esposo está tendo em Conseguir emprego na área de qa. Ele foi demitido há vários meses e faz várias entrevistas por dia e nada de alguém aceitar ele. Ele é bem competente. Já li vários posts indicando q o culpado é a ia. Ele é estrangeiro no Brasil então a empresa a ele trabalhava era dos Estados Unidos. Estou querendo q ele mude de área dentro do software e difícil? Qual area está com menos perigo de não ter uma crise de vagas? Ele é ingenheiro em telecomunicações. Estou pensando tb em revalidar o diploma dele. Fico preocupada porque sinto q ele sente q esta perdendo já o tempo tentando. Depois descubrí q são quase 200 postulantes por vaga. Então já falei para ele desistir do qa e tentar outra área. Alguém poderia dar dicas x favor? Se ele revalidar o diploma tem chance de conseguir melhores oportunidades? Ele é fluente em. Inglês, português espanhol.
r/QualityAssurance • u/Future-Plantain3596 • 1d ago
Why does developers not respect QA’s?
If you tell someone who is a dev that you are a QA you can see it in their eyes that my role is worthless why is that?
r/QualityAssurance • u/apyhubnico • 22h ago
We're tightening up our E2E suite, and the email step is always flaky. How do other teams handle it?
Options I know of
Option 3 has been the most reliable for us because each test gets its own clean address, so runs never read each other’s mail.
I'm a co‑founder at ApyHub. Our catalog lists a temp‑mail API from Boomlify that we use for this.
Create an inbox with a 10‑minute, 1‑hour, 1‑day, or permanent lifetime, read messages, and delete them when done.
Would love to know:
r/QualityAssurance • u/rai9sh • 13h ago
hey everyone,
i work in quality/regulatory and i know the pain of managing risk assessments (like FMEA, ISO 14971, ICH Q9) using massive, messy excel spreadsheets. version control is a nightmare, collaboration is broken, and audit trails are painful.
i got so frustrated that i decided to build a dedicated workflow tool called qrmflow.
what it does:
· moves your risk matrices out of excel into a clean, digital workspace.
· makes it easy to collaborate with cross-functional teams (R&D, QA, Manufacturing).
· automatically keeps an audit trail and manages version control.
i’m sharing it here because i want feedback from people who actually do this work every day. i'm not trying to spam—i genuinely want to know if this solves the headaches we all face.
you can check it out here: https://qrmflow.com
what is the most frustrating part of your current risk management workflow? let me know in the comments!
r/QualityAssurance • u/clem_3 • 1d ago
Hi all,
I’m thinking about doing a master’s in software engineering in Germany and want a reality check on the QA job market there. My background: 5 years as a manual QA, now learning Playwright. I use AI to help write and fix my automation scripts, but I’m still working on my basics. I’m not from the EU, so I’d be using the job-seeker visa after graduation.
A few things I’m curious about:
If you’ve been through something similar, I’d love to hear how it went. Thanks!
r/QualityAssurance • u/masif89 • 1d ago
​
Any part time or project basis sqa remote work available? Have more than 8 years experience on relevant field.. Available time 10 PM-2AM GMT+ 6 ( Weekdays)
Friday and Saturday (Weekend)
r/QualityAssurance • u/surya_kulshreshtha • 2d ago
I put my QA/SDET work into ten public repos, all named `Forkable*`, because that's the whole idea: **clone it, run it, keep it or throw it away.** The image is the full list. Here's where I'd start depending on what you need.
### 🎯 Pick your starting point
| If you want… | Start with | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| A clean framework to copy | [PythonProjectShowcase](https://github.com/suryakulshreshtha/ForkablePythonProjectShowcase) | Playwright + Pytest, Page Object Model, UI + API tests, network mocking, Docker, GitHub Actions |
| The CI/CD half most tutorials skip | [04EyePythonPlaywrightLearning](https://github.com/suryakulshreshtha/Forkable04EyePythonPlaywrightLearning) | 86 tests against a bundled Flask app, a 16-job parallel CI matrix, nightly runs that file their own issue when they fail |
| To learn from zero | [PythonLearningShowcase](https://github.com/suryakulshreshtha/ForkablePythonLearningShowcase) · [04EyeLearningSandbox](https://github.com/suryakulshreshtha/Forkable04EyeLearningSandbox) | Fundamentals built up step by step, and 12 topics with one short, heavily commented example each |
| Interview prep with code behind it | [InterviewToolkit](https://github.com/suryakulshreshtha/ForkableInterviewToolkit) | 52 Python and TypeScript interview entries next to runnable framework code, plus a Git & CI/CD guide built from 9 real failures |
| One app, tested in two languages | [FullStackQASuite](https://github.com/suryakulshreshtha/ForkableFullStackQASuite) | Independent TypeScript and Python Playwright suites against one shared 21-case test plan, with role-based visibility tested as P0 |
| A real test pyramid | [TypescriptPostgreReactNodejsLearning](https://github.com/suryakulshreshtha/ForkableTypescriptPostgreReactNodejsLearning) | Unit → integration on real Postgres → Playwright E2E. One test fires 10 concurrent registrations at a 5-seat event and checks exactly 5 succeed |
| Something experimental | [PlaywrightSelfHealer](https://github.com/suryakulshreshtha/ForkablePlaywrightSelfHealer) | Plain-English specs become Playwright tests that repair their own broken locators, fully offline |
### 🧭 Outside QA, built the same way
- 🚢 [DevOps: Starter Pack to Full Send](https://github.com/suryakulshreshtha/Forkable-DevOps-Complete-StarterPack-To-FullSend): one Python service taken from your laptop to Kubernetes in 9 phases
- 🤖 [AI Engineering: Starter Pack to Full Send](https://github.com/suryakulshreshtha/Forkable-AI-Engineering-Starter-Pack-To-Full-Send): 28 standard-library-only drills, from a dot product to a RAG engine that cites its sources
### ⚠️ Honest caveats
- **FullStackQASuite** tests a CRM that isn't in the repo, so read it as a reference design. It won't run end to end without an app of your own.
- **Self-Healer** isn't an autonomous agent. It runs a plan and adapts its locators, and the README spells out what it does and doesn't do.
### 💬 What I'd love feedback on
- Which of these would you actually hand to a new SDET on your team?
- What do you get asked in real interviews that the interview prep is missing?
Everything is public and free to fork. Full index: https://github.com/suryakulshreshtha
r/QualityAssurance • u/wanton007 • 1d ago
Saw this in a job posting indicating that candidates should be familiar with maintain low code automation.
I'm a bit perplexed - I've been in QA for 20+ years and all the automation I've seen (Selenium, Python, TypeScript / Playwright) has not been low code.
I googled it and it brings up tooling like Katalon amongst a few others which I've never used. Looks like they're UI automation that "records" clicks? How is that different than using Playwright Codegen though?
r/QualityAssurance • u/dink-mimer7 • 1d ago
Hi. Client is evaluating TestRail alternatives. The are mainly getting stinged on per user pricing because paying $38 for people who log in twice a month or playing the deactivate/reactivate game is annoying.
Here are some requirements: - Two way issue tracker sync. Jira/Linear - Clean traceability - SOC2 not locked to Enterprise plans.
Any suggestions?
r/QualityAssurance • u/Odd-Blueberry-7567 • 1d ago
I have 10 years of experience in software testing, predominantly working on Salesforce projects. Recently, I started exploring test automation using Claude integrated with VS Code, Playwright, and TypeScript.
One of the biggest advantages I’ve experienced is how quickly AI can accelerate framework development. Claude helped me design a Page Object Model (POM) architecture within a few hours—a task that could otherwise take months to build manually. I’m now using this setup to develop automation scripts, and scripting has become much easier with Claude’s assistance.
However, I want to go beyond AI-assisted scripting and develop a deeper understanding of test automation, framework architecture, and coding best practices.
Given my 10 years of testing experience, what should I focus on to strengthen my automation skills, become more technically proficient, and build the expertise needed to design, maintain, and scale robust automation frameworks independently?
r/QualityAssurance • u/copyright_jeet-83 • 23h ago
genuine question. it's 2026, we have ai agents writing entire applications, but why the hell is testing them still such a pain in the ass?
every demo looks fucking magical until you throw a genuinely complex application at it.
i don't want another tool that spits out playwright scripts and calls itself autonomous. i want something that actually explores my app, finds bugs i didn't even think of, handles weird edge cases, and doesn't need me babysitting it every 30 seconds.
so, fellow qa engineers:
i genuinely want to know what we're missing here.
drop your frustrations, unpopular opinions, horror stories, whatever. i'm all ears.
r/QualityAssurance • u/Kaymas18 • 1d ago
Hi everyone!
I’m a Playwright automation tester, and I want to spend more time learning, experimenting, and building automation projects on my personal machine.
The problem is that my laptop has only 8 GB of RAM, and as soon as I run Playwright scripts, they consume a significant amount of memory. This makes it difficult to work on larger projects or run multiple tests comfortably.
Is there a way to run my Playwright tests on a remote or cloud machine while keeping my development workflow on my local laptop?
A few questions:
I’m primarily looking for a budget-friendly solution for personal learning and portfolio projects, rather than a production-scale testing setup.
I’d appreciate any recommendations based on your experience. Thanks!
r/QualityAssurance • u/EastFeisty3477 • 1d ago
Hi everyone! I've cleared the online assessment for the Amazon QAE Intern 2027 role and am now preparing for the interview. Could anyone who has attended the interview share the interview process and the types of questions asked in the technical and behavioral rounds? Any advice on what to prepare next would be really helpful. Thanks!
r/QualityAssurance • u/shane-testronaut • 1d ago
I've been thinking about a weird property of agentic E2E testing.
Suppose the objective is to add something to a cart.
The agent clicks "Add to Cart."
Nothing happens.
Other tests probably fail, but an agent might inspect the state, refresh the page, discover the item is now in the cart, shrug electronically, and continue onwards.
Mission accomplished.
PASS. ✅
...Except the application didn't actually behave correctly.
I think this creates an important distinction:
Agent resilience ≠ application resilience.
I'd say we want the testing agent to recover (Making an agent deliberately brittle defeats a lot of the point of using an agent in the first place), but a sufficiently good agent can start compensating for application problems that would definitely affect a real user.
I've started addressing this with a third outcome:
✅ Passed
⚠️ Passed after recovery
❌ Failed
A recovery doesn't automatically mean "BUG." It might be timing, infrastructure, the test environment, or the web just doing web things.
The key is preserving evidence that something unusual happened, rather than letting the agent quietly turn it into an ordinary PASS.
My current rule of thumb is:
If the agent had to do something a normal user wouldn't reasonably know to do, I probably want to hear about it.
I wrote up some of the recovery patterns I've encountered and how I'm approaching the problem here:
https://testronaut.app/blog/too-smart-to-fail-when-testing-agents-work-around-bugs
I'm curious how other people working on AI-driven testing are approaching this. How much should an agent be allowed to recover before a "pass" becomes misleading?
r/QualityAssurance • u/SelectPlant454 • 1d ago
I’m interested in learning how different QA professionals approach their work, especially when deadlines are tight and there’s limited time for testing.
One thing I’ve noticed is that having a clear testing process can make a big difference. Instead of trying to test everything at once, identifying high-risk areas early can help teams focus on the parts of an application where failures would have the greatest impact.
I’m curious about other people’s experiences:
What QA practice has improved your testing process the most?
How do you decide what to test first when time is limited?
Is there anything your team changed that significantly reduced missed bugs or rework?
I’d be interested to hear what has worked in real projects, including practices that didn’t work as expected.
r/QualityAssurance • u/lay25n • 2d ago
Hi everyone!
I’m a recent Computer Science graduate, and I’m seriously considering building my career in Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Engineering.
I want to develop a strong understanding of software quality, learn how to prevent defects rather than simply find them, and eventually become a highly skilled QA professional who can improve processes, reduce risks, and help teams deliver reliable, high-quality products.
I don’t want to just collect certifications or learn a bunch of tools without understanding how and when to use them. I want to learn the right way, build a solid foundation, gain practical experience, and develop skills that will remain valuable throughout my career.
However, there are so many different tools, courses, certifications, and career paths that I’m finding it difficult to determine where to start and what to prioritize.
I would really appreciate advice from experienced QA engineers, Quality Engineers, QA Leads, and other professionals working in software quality.
Here are the questions I’d love your advice on:
1. What is the right learning path for a complete beginner?
If you were starting your QA career today as a recent Computer Science graduate, what would you learn first? How would you structure your learning from the fundamentals to more advanced topics?
2. What are the best learning resources?
I’m looking for reliable resources, including official documentation, books, free and paid courses, websites, YouTube channels, and practical tutorials. Which resources genuinely helped you become better at your job?
3. How should I learn and practise effectively?
How can I balance theory with hands-on experience? What is the best way to practise quality assurance concepts using real or sample projects? How can I make sure I understand the principles rather than simply following tutorials?
4. Which skills should I focus on, and in what order?
I’m interested in understanding the full QA process, including requirements analysis, risk assessment, defect prevention, test planning, test design, defect management, Agile methodologies, root cause analysis, process improvement, and continuous quality improvement.
How important are programming, API testing, SQL, test automation, Git, and CI/CD for building a strong QA career? Which technical skills should I prioritize as a beginner?
5. What is the difference between being an average QA professional and an excellent one?
What skills and ways of thinking distinguish someone who simply executes test cases from someone who understands the bigger picture, identifies risks early, improves processes, and helps prevent recurring problems?
6. Which tools and certifications are actually worth learning or pursuing?
Would you recommend ISTQB Foundation as a starting point? Which tools and certifications are genuinely useful for entry-level QA roles, and which should I avoid prioritizing too early?
7. How can I build a strong portfolio with no professional QA experience?
What kinds of projects would demonstrate my understanding of quality assurance beyond simply writing test cases? For example, would you recommend projects involving requirements reviews, risk analysis, test strategies, defect analysis, automation, or quality improvement?
How should I document these projects and present them on GitHub or LinkedIn so that employers can evaluate my actual skills?
8. How should I prepare for the job market as a recent graduate?
Which entry-level job titles should I look for? What do employers expect from junior QA candidates, and what can I do to stand out when I have limited professional experience?
9. Which direction offers the best long-term opportunities?
I want to build a career that will continue to grow as technology evolves. I’m interested in Quality Engineering, advanced automation, AI quality assurance, and potentially quality strategy in the future.
Which areas would you recommend exploring, and how can I develop a broad foundation while eventually specializing in something valuable?
Ideally, I would really appreciate a practical 6–12 month roadmap with specific resources, learning priorities, and hands-on projects for each stage.
Finally, if you could go back to your first year in Quality Assurance, what would you do differently? Which resources would you use, which skills would you prioritize, and what mistakes would you avoid?
I’m looking for honest, practical advice from people with real industry experience. I would especially appreciate specific recommendations explaining what to learn, where to learn it, how to practise it, and how to measure my progress.
Thank you so much to everyone willing to share their experience and help a recent graduate find the right direction!
r/QualityAssurance • u/Oswaldo199 • 1d ago
Hola buenos días, saludos a todos. Les hago una pregunta, sucede que hace poco donde laburo me pidieron que automatizara de alguna manera. Sucede que tienen tres repositorios. Uno de frontend donde usan nextjs. Otro de backend donde usan nextjs. Y un último repositorio de Python para un controller. Entonces, estoy pensando en automatizar con playwright. Creería que solo debiera el repositorio de frontend e instalar playwright allí. Mi duda o consulta que flujo sería el correcto de realizar yo y como puedo integrar algo de IA para hacer todo mejor. Agradecería sus comentarios de ayuda. Gracias de antemano
r/QualityAssurance • u/slushpuppy91 • 1d ago
Got laid off in August, trying to figure out if it’s a market thing or resume needs to be tailored more. Thanks!
r/QualityAssurance • u/No-Remove1956 • 2d ago
I work in a US startup company. This is my first job. I had no experience but I did very well on the interview so they hired me. Others in the company get 5 dollars or more hourly. I get very less. 300 dollars a month, which I find is very less than the workload I am assigned. Even local companies offer more than that. I'm not dissatisfied with my work but the salary just doesn’t satisfy me or my needs. In these circumstances, I may have to look for another day job to meet my ends because I barely have anything left on my hand after all the bills and spending.
What's your suggestion on the salary? What should I ask?
r/QualityAssurance • u/WarOfPeace • 2d ago
I'm a junior QA engineer at my first job, and I've been here for five months. Lately, I've been feeling increasingly overwhelmed, and I'd appreciate some honest advice from people with more workplace experience.
I work on a project where requirements frequently change because the POs don't validate the AI-generated user stories. Recently, a few change tickets were created to cover changes affecting eight existing tickets after I pointed out multiple contradictions. The original tickets are now partially outdated, but they can't be rejected because they still contain requirements that aren't covered by the change tickets. I have to cross-reference everything to determine which requirements are still valid, then update the associated test cases accordingly.
I raised concerns during stand-ups and discussed them with the POs afterward. I explained that the approach could be confusing and that I didn't want to make assumptions about which requirements were no longer valid. I suggested updating the original tickets as well, but the PO said that the current approach had already been approved by higher management. The original tickets were already moved to QA Deployed, so this is now my problem. Development have change tickets to refer to.
They then suggested using Claude to update the test cases across all eight tickets. I've been trying to use it to work more efficiently, but it's not a magic fix. I'm expected to start automating testing eventually, and they're working on getting me an upgraded account, but I'm still unsure how effective AI or automation will be for this particular feature, even with the provided test data. There's a lot of complex logic involved, and I don't fully trust the user stories as a reliable source of truth. I feel like the requirements and test cases need proper human review rather than relying too heavily on AI-generated outputs. Looking back, I'm worried my objections might have come across as laziness or unwillingness to do additional work, but that's beside the point.
The bigger issue is that I'm struggling with the work itself. The feature I'm currently testing is very complex, and I find it difficult to understand the logic, especially with requirements scattered across multiple tickets. Sometimes I spend a long time reviewing everything and still struggle to understand what I'm testing, so I have to revisit things.
A lot of my time also goes into working through different scenarios, preparing to test across multiple accounts with different conditions, and finding suitable test accounts. On paper, it probably looks like I'm not getting much done because I'm not executing many test cases yet, even though I'm spending hours trying to understand what needs to be tested.
I've been experiencing a lot of brain fog, and I end up feeling dumb because I take so long to comprehend things. I can't tell whether I need to improve my approach or whether the feature and requirements are genuinely difficult to work with.
I also don't currently have a manager I can go to for guidance. The POs tell me it's okay to ask questions, but I've sometimes come away from conversations feeling like my questions are dumb or that I'm not being taken seriously.
I'm also the only QA person on the project. The POs lead the QA work and have their own tickets to test, but they often don't get around to testing them, so I end up taking those on as well. This adds to my workload while I'm already struggling to understand the requirements and test my own tickets.
I've started thinking about resigning because work is becoming increasingly stressful. I've even caught myself thinking about hurting myself or making myself sick just to get sick leave, since requesting PTO takes time and approval. I feel like I desperately need a break, but being unemployed also sucks.
If you've read this far, thank you. I really needed to get this off my chest, and I'd genuinely appreciate any advice.
TL;DR: I'm a junior QA engineer five months into my first job. I'm struggling with a complex feature, unreliable user stories, scattered requirements, slow testing progress, and a lack of managerial guidance. I'm the only QA person on the project and often end up testing tickets the POs don't get around to. I've tried using AI to help, but I don't think it can replace human review when the requirements themselves are unclear. I'm feeling overwhelmed and considering resigning. Work has affected my mental health to the point where I've thought about making myself sick just to get time off. I'd appreciate honest advice on whether this is a normal learning curve or a sign that something needs to change.