QA & Testing Jobs

Salt’s specialisms in QA & Testing

• Automation
• Manual
• Mobile
• TDD

Demand Vs Offer

The development of multiple web and mobile applications has not only provided advantages (e.g. the usage of applications on the go) to consumers, but has also increased the demand for QA and Testing specialists. Fortunately, 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 job 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 he or she always need to ask themselves: “What can I infer from the project requirements?” Prioritisation is the second most important skill because test cases have to be regularly categorised in various priority buckets. Multitasking is another important quality of a test engineer as they are usually not only confronted with one issue but with several ones from different projects.

CV Requirements

A test engineer’s CV should assure hiring managers that the applicant has robust coding skills and is an expert in troubleshooting. The latter is extremely important because test engineers are expected on a daily basis to find the root cause to a problem, so that the problem cannot only be solved for one particular scenario but for all situations which follow a certain pattern. 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, their interviews consisted of a coding part and a couple of theoretical questions. Examples of the theoretical questions are listed below:
1) What is the main difference between validation and verification?
2) What is a frequent issue with software automation?
3) What is the main difference between release and build?
4) Could you please explain data-driven testing?
5) Which tests would you conduct for web based applications?

Educational Requirements

To become a QA and Testing engineer you'll need a bachelor’s degree in engineering, which is related to the field in which you would like to work. If you would like to work, for example, as a mobile testing engineer then you have to do a degree in mobile engineering. Some employers might also expect a master’s degree in the field that you would like to specialise in.

Looking for QA & Testing jobs? Check out our current opportunities on our job page.