Quality Roles

Job titles in quality roles, such as test analyst, QA engineer, and SDET, often reflect a company’s maturity in understanding and implementing quality practices. The actual responsibilities of these roles depend largely on this maturity level.

Distinguishing QA, QC, and Testing

• Testing: Checks outputs based on inputs.

• Quality Control (QC): Reactive processes monitoring product quality.

• Quality Assurance (QA): Proactive processes ensuring process and product quality.

Understanding Quality Roles and Responsibilities

Minimal Quality Awareness

• Indicators: Minimal QC, focus on features, bugs fixed as found.

• Consequences: Technical debt, buggy application, slow delivery.

No Dedicated QA Role

• Indicators: Quality processes delegated to developers.

• Consequences: Overloaded developers, mediocre product quality, slow delivery, burnout.

Initial Quality Integration

• Roles: Test Analyst, Test Engineer.

• Indicators: Quality is primarily testing, isolated from delivery.

• Consequences: Quality person as a bottleneck, slower releases, focus on maintenance.

Scaling Up Quality Efforts

• Roles: Manual testers, Automation testers, Testing Manager.

• Indicators: Separate quality team, isolated operations.

• Consequences: Management overhead, "us versus them" mentality, inconsistent quality.

Integrated Quality in Agile Teams

• Role: Agile Tester/QA Engineer.

• Indicators: Quality involved in the delivery process, provides feedback.

• Consequences: Developers rely on quality person, possible role overload, better communication.

Development and Testing Collaboration

• Role: Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET).

• Indicators: SDET introduces test strategy, shares testing responsibilities.

• Consequences: Focus on code quality may affect user experience, risk of over-automation.

Team Ownership of Quality

• Roles: QA Engineer, QA Architect, QA Lead.

• Indicators: QA guides team across technical, product, and process tasks.

• Consequences: Optimal value delivery, continuous feedback culture, documented information.

Conclusion

Understanding and implementing quality practices is a journey. Companies will have varied approaches to quality roles, and achieving a high level of quality requires integrating quality into every step of the process.