Where Quality Assurance Engineers Work
In short, software quality assurance is often performed by an outside company hired by the developer since having a dedicated quality assurance software department may not be feasible for many companies. Nevertheless, game developers, business application developers, operating system developers at Microsoft and even Apple all use the quality assurance industry to determine whether new software and products meet their own standards. However, many QA testers work for these third-party agencies and are often placed on assignments or jobs for different clients and organizations.
Types of Quality Assurance Services
There are several different roles that you could fulfill while working in the software quality assurance testing services industry. Each one is designed to provide a different service to customers, but they are all typically vital to the job which the QA industry provides. Testing, inspection, certification, and technical assistance are all sub-fields of software quality assurance services.
Software Testing
Perhaps the first responsibility of those in the software quality assurance testing industry is to software testing. While some of the testing functions overlap with the quality control department, quality assurance software engineers are designed to use both in-development and newly-developed software in a controlled test environment. For example, quality assurance testers with software answer the question involved with given a different set of circumstances, will the software or application hold up? In other words, a product specifically for a Mac operating system will be tested using a Windows environment and vice versa.
In addition, the job of the software quality assurance technicians is to throw 'bugs' or 'wrenches' into the mix, in a controlled way, to determine whether the program or software can overcome the hurdle. Since software developers cannot possibly anticipate all the problems, errors, and faults that may occur along the way, this job is left up to the software quality assurance agency which is providing this service to the company.
Software Inspection
Another aspect of software quality assurance involves software inspection. The function of this job responsibility is "prevention" and several people are usually involved with inspecting software. Though like a software walkthrough with developers, an inspection occurs during a formal sit-down meeting with quality assurance agents. The main function of the meeting, and preparation before the meeting, is to determine whether a requirements specification document or another paper such as the test plan misses the mark in any areas.
In short, this part of software quality assurance is all about bug and glitch "prevention" since the point is not to fix but simply to find anything that's missing. Preparation for these inspection meetings involve reading papers, which is often a long process in itself since these are mainly technical documents.
Getting a Software Quality Assurance Job
When it comes to qualifying for a job at either a large software development company or an independent agency which provides this service, the most important thing to consider is the amount of education you'll need. The first step is obtaining your bachelor degree, however, as the majority of jobs require a full four-year education in a field such as computer engineering, mathematics, or computer science.
Obtaining a certification in a computer programming code is also helpful to prospective employers. In addition, Six Sigma classes and certifications help you learn statistical and data analysis procedures necessary for the testing jobs you'll need during your quality assurance software career.
Overall, software quality assurance testing engineers will probably experience generally increasing opportunities in the near future considering the number of computer applications and programs that will continue to be made. By advancing your education and deciding which field of software quality assurance you fit best, you'll be able to work as an employee for either an internal quality department or outside quality assurance agency.
