Opportunities to further your career within the QA & Testing industry
The development of multiple web and mobile applications has not only provided advantages to consumers (e.g. the usage of applications on the go), but it has also increased the demand for QA and Testing specialists in companies. Fortunately for employers, there is no skill shortage within this sector and specialists for QA and Testing jobs can be found quickly.
Popular Industries
Most positions in QA and Testing are offered by technical industries including engineering, IT, telecommunications, construction, and manufacturing. The roles are likely to be full-time and on a contract basis. Those few positions which are on a permanent basis, usually offer lower salaries.
Recent Changes
One of the biggest changes in the QA and Testing sector is the shift from manual to automated testing. Due to this change, professionals in the field are expected to master various automation tools. Since every single tool has a particular purpose, engineers need to acquire a lot of knowledge about them, such as the ability to write scripts.
Future Prospects
The career progression for QA and Testing engineers can be very rapid. The best way to get to the top is to gain as much work experience as possible, keep yourself up-to-date about the latest testing methods and systems, and try to get some industry specific qualifications. The salaries within this sector can be really high. The only disadvantage is that the time before project deadline can be really stressful and you might be required to work overtime.
Employers’ Requirements
Employers want three core skills from professionals in this field: prioritisation, inference and multitasking. Inference is the most important competency of a QA and Testing specialist, as testers regularly need to ask themselves: “What can I infer from the project requirements?” Multitasking is another important quality for test engineers as they are usually not only confronted with one issue, but with several issues from different projects.
CV Requirements
QA and Testing CVs should assure hiring managers that the applicant has robust coding skills and is an expert in troubleshooting. The latter is extremely important because applicants are expected on a daily basis to find the root cause to a problem. Furthermore, you should make clear on your CV that you have the bigger picture in mind as developers often focus so much on the development process that they might overlook the bigger picture.
Interview Preparation
According to the majority of QA and Testing professionals, interviews normally consist of a coding aspect and a couple of theoretical questions. Examples of the theoretical questions are listed below:
• What is the main difference between validation and verification?
• What is a frequent issue with software automation?
• What is the main difference between release and build?
• Could you please explain data-driven testing?
• Which test would you conduct for web-based applications?
Educational Requirements
No specific qualifications are required for QA and Testing roles, but coding skills and technical skills are essential. And though it isn’t strictly necessary, taking a degree in the subject relevant to the field in which you want to test can be very helpful. If you would like to work, for example, as a mobile testing engineer, you could do a degree in mobile engineering.
Looking for QA & Testing jobs? Check out our current opportunities on our job page.
