Nowadays a lot of people believe that QA (tester, test engineer) – the lightest engineering position in the IT sector. A few years ago on this post really was quite easy to get. It was enough to know English at a level below the average, to understand the PC at the level of average user .. well, actually that’s all. Of course, there were projects where the requirements were much higher, depending on the project. Over the years, the IT market is overflowed by “engineers” who can communicate in English at the secondary level and know how to go to “regedit”. And now to become on the position QA / QC – need to know much more and need to expand their horizon of knowledge.

         So, what you need to know / be able to become a test engineer at the present time. 

  • Foreign languages. Often test engineers need to serve as project manager. As you know, outsourcing it’s mainly foreign customers, who will be very happy if somebody from the teams which will serve their request, be able to communicate in their own language. Of course, English is №1 list of required languages, as it is the language of all meetings, discussions, etc.
  • Knowledge of basic (but preferably all) concepts ISTQB. Candidate for the position of QA Engineer obliged to understand such concepts as Test Design, Test Case Design Technique, Test Plan, Test Case, Test Coverage, QA, QC, Quality, Bug and all artifacts that relate Test Case or Bug. The candidate should also understand why knowledge of these concepts are important to the project. After QA – this is the man on the project, who decides whether application is ready to go to the end user or not.
  • It is necessary knowledge and skills то use systems such as Test Tracking System, Bug Tracking System (this is not a specific application names. Examples of these programs can be Jira, TestLink, Bugzilla, HP Quality center, etc.)
  • Not do without the knowledge management operating systems. And not only the family of Windows, but * NIX systems too. Test engineer will need to customize his own test environment not only once. As a rule, none of the team does not want to do it, so expect a big help is not necessary. Better to be able to adjust everything.
  • Recently on QA engineers also “voluntarily requested” basic knowledge in automation testing as simple cover car test application, rather than hire 100500 testers. And this, of course, need to have a basic concept in OOP and additional platforms that will be used for testing. Described in more detail in another article here.
  • Also test engineer is required to be able to analyze problem areas found in the application and in the software development process.
  • And most importantly – a desire to be a test engineer not because of good salary but because the work is really like. Because if testers do not like his work, then do not look for high quality software.

So, here described such a requirement for genuine Software Test Engineer, whose companies wish to employ and do not want to let go. To acquire such knowledge – takes about 3-4 months very hard work on yourself.
Thanks to all who read this article. Stay tuned, write comments or private mails, I will try to answer all.