There are many people who are not familiar with the career growth prospects that are available in software testing. People who are working in other industries who want to switch to a career in software testing and students who are completing their education who want to become software testers, are curious to know about different roles at higher levels and the career growth in software testing.

In this article, we discuss how you can grow in this field and at each step of the career ladder. We discuss the expectations at each level, the roles and responsibilities and how you need to keep updating yourself in terms of knowledge.

Software testing, is an interesting but challenging field. At one time, a career in software testing was considered as the last option to be part of the IT industry. However, automation and technological revolution has changed the scenario completely. Software testing is seen as a respectful job and people see themselves growing in the field.

Typically, career in software testing field consists of 7 major roles, based on knowledge and experience :

• Junior Software Tester / QA Engineer
• Senior Software Tester / Senior QA Engineer
• Test Architect
• QA Lead / Test Lead
• QA Manager / Test Manager
• Quality Head
• Delivery Head

Let’s discuss in detail, about each of the roles.

Junior Software Tester / QA Engineer

How to enter into software testing field?

Academics criteria :

Junior Software Tester is an entry level role. People who have no software testing experience are usually hired in this role.

Anyone can enter into software testing field (as it does not require specialization in any subject) but having bachelors degree in computer science is an advantage.

Individuals who are already working in other industries can move into software testing by undergoing training on software testing.

Some organizations may also refer to this role as Junior Quality Assurance Engineer, Junior QA Engineer or simply QA Engineer or Software Tester.

Skills required :

1. Communication
   
• Communication is the key factor to be successful in IT industry for any role.
• As a software tester, you are expected to communicate with team members, client and stakeholders of the project. For that, good communication skills are important.
• Testers are supposed to prepare different artifacts like Test plan, Test strategy, Test cases, Test data, Test results etc. and to effectively prepare them, written communication skills should be good.
• As a tester, you are expected to send daily status report about what you did, which bugs or defects you found and what is the plan of work next day. For this, understanding of point-to-point communication, what to include and what not, is very important.

2. Curiosity
• Being in software testing means asking lots of questions.
• Testers have to deal with bad or incomplete requirements. And when requirements are not enough to clarify things, testers have to ask meaningful questions.
• Testers should be curious about things like why, what, when and How. More questions yield more information and that helps testers to perform testing effectively.

3. Grasping abilities
• Testing almost always gets the least time. In less time, testers are expected to perform effective testing. Understanding the requirements in short time is therefore very important.
• To grasp the purpose of software, how it will be used, what all changes have been applied etc. is necessary.
• Sharp grasping abilities make the task easier and efficient.

4. Team work
   
• The Tester is supposed to work as a team with developers and other stakeholders.
• Right attitude with attention towards quality of product is very important to have in any tester.
• Being a Junior Tester, its expected to execute assigned work on time, report to seniors and support each other while facing deadline.

5. Basic knowledge about software testing
   
• Some definitions and terms of software testing is important to know, before entering into software testing field.
• Anyone who wants to work as a software tester should have knowledge of software testing concepts and processes given below
• Bug life cycle
• different types of testing like regression testing, integration testing, functional testing, performance testing etc, when each type of testing is being performed,
• terms like test plans, test strategies, test estimates and their importance are some basic factors

6. Basic knowledge about computer
   
• Knowledge of below mentioned basics about computer is helpful because as a tester you are going to work with it, everyday.
• Any computer operating system (Windows or Linux)
• Different Browsers (IE, FF, Safari, Opera) etc.
• Any mobile operating system (Android/iOS/Windows)

7. User’s perspective
• As a tester, you need to understand following points about end user’s perspective because it helps in defining more real-time test scenarios.
• Who is going to use the product
• What purpose the product will resolve
• How the customer might handle the product

Testing of products / applications is equally important as development of products / applications and therefore proper understanding of testing concepts is very useful for any Junior tester.

Roles and responsibilities of a Junior Tester

Reports to : Mostly, Test Lead (depends on organization structure)

Role and Responsibilities

1. Requirement Analysis

As a tester, analysis of requirements provided by customer is the main point to start with.

The tester is supposed to understand the requirements and relevant domain of work, prepare query list and share it with Test lead.

2. Test Effort Estimation

While test planning meeting, the tester is supposed to understand the details of tasks to be performed.

Also, he/she is supposed to come up with estimated efforts required to complete the task efficiently.

3. Test cases documentation
   

Based on task defined and modules assigned, tester is expected to document test cases for the same.

Based on organization and development method, test cases or test scenarios are prepared in specific format.

4. Reporting and tracking Defect
   

Reporting bug, observed while executing testing task is important. Again, each organization uses different tools/templates to report and track defect.

Tester needs to understand how specific tool works and is supposed to report detailed defect report.

Tester is also supposed to track the reported defect and according to its criticality, needs to make sure that defect gets resolved.

5. Listing improvement areas

A junior tester is a fresh eye to the product and therefore expectation from him/her is to come up with suggestions to improve the product in terms of usability.

6. Reporting to Test Lead / QA Lead

The tester is supposed to send daily status report to test lead, describing testing activities performed and relevant status.

Daily status report is a tool for junior tester to communicate with Test lead about the work done.

Crisp and concise status report is an art, every junior tester should learn. The report, which does not explain story of 1000 words but in few words, gives the whole idea about what went right and what did not.

How to be a good tester

After joining software testing field, to grow, one has to work hard. But with hard work, there are some points to be taken care to become a good tester.  Let’s have a look at them :

1. Understand priorities : As a tester, you are given multiple tasks with pre-defined timeline. If priority of each task is understood, as a tester, you will not mess up things or will not stress out.

   Based on experience, you should be able to prioritize things like

• What should be tested first and what can be given less priority
• Which test cases to be automated and which should be executed manually
• Which bug fix should be verified on critical basis and which one can be delayed for some time.

In case of candidates who have no prior experience in software testing, the above prioritization will be done by a senior team member, to begin with.

2. Quality Vs Quantity : As a junior tester, you are inclined to report more number of bugs. But rather than quantity of bugs, you should focus on quality of bugs.

Identifying more critical bugs and reporting them with complete details is more important than identifying and reporting 100 user interface issues.

Of course, every bug is important but at the initial stage of testing, if critical bugs are identified, they cost less in terms of repair.

3. Testing ideas : As a tester, you are supposed to understand how the product will be used by end user. Based on that, generate number of ideas to test the product differently, to cover every aspect of the product.

The more testing ideas (test scenarios) you generate and implement more test coverage you will get and that means less risk of missed bug.

4. Effective bug reporting : As much as it is important to identify bug, equally important is to report the bug effectively.

All the needed information like Steps to reproduce, details of test environment, test data used, relevant screenshots and video, build version etc. helps in fixing bug faster.

Senior Software Tester / Senior QA Engineer

This role may also be called as Senior QA Engineer in some organizations. Every company has different criteria when it comes to defining a designation. Most senior positions are decided in terms of years of experience.

Senior software tester is the role that comes with

• Few years of experience (typically 4-5 years)
• Multiple achievements (multiple projects, strict timelines, identification of critical bugs)
• Constant learning (different tools, processes, methods)

Roles and responsibilities of a Senior Software Tester

Reports to : Test Lead

Role and Responsibilities

1. Participation in Test planning, designing and estimation – After gaining few years of experience, the tester is expected to participate in Test planning meeting and contribute in same.
• Test planning meeting is the meeting where high level test scenarios, challenges, risks, resources etc. are discussed and the Senior Tester can provide his inputs.
• Test designing is the process where high level test scenarios are broken into medium/minute level test cases. Which kind of test cases to write, what to focus on, what risk factors to be considered etc. are the points where Senior Tester is expected to help.
• Test estimation is a very important part of project planning. After years of experience, the Senior Tester can easily gauge how much time a particular task might take, considering all relevant factors.

2. Review of test artifacts – Junior testers document test cases and submit it for review to Senior Tester.

Based on experience, he/she is supposed to check for completeness and effectiveness.

3. Test automation – The Senior Tester is expected to be good at one test automation tool.

He/She is expected to:

• identify test cases to be automated.
• Automate them
• Provide results on timely basis
• Train junior team members for the same

4. Collaboration with development team – With experience, the Senior Tester is expected to know communication tactics, to deal with Development team.
• From reproducing the reported issue to emphasizing on fix for critical bugs to understand how the bug had been fixed and to know the change requests and their impacts, the tester has to work closely with developers.
• As a Senior Tester, one is supposed to be able to work with development team comfortably, in any situation and under huge pressure.

5. Reporting and tracking defects – With experience, what remains constant for a tester is to identify defects in software, report them and track them till they are satisfactorily fixed.
6. Training need identification – The Senior tester knows the weaknesses of Junior testers in team. He knows what is stopping testers in performing their task efficiently. He identifies training needs for the team and conveys it to Test Lead.

The training need can be anything like,

• Communication training
• Process training
• Effective reporting training
• Tools training

How to utilize experience as Senior Software Tester

1. Encouraging test automation
• After gaining some experience in field, the main target for every tester is to learn required automation tool and implement it.
• As an experienced tester, you know that executing each test case manually is not a good idea and not advisable too.
• Automating regression test cases saves time for testers to execute functional test cases and do thorough exploratory testing.
• As a senior tester, you are expected to come up with suggestions about which tools can be used to make the process smooth and effective.
• The senior tester is supposed to help/start implementing automation and should train/mentor junior team members for the same.

2. Identifying loopholes in processes being followed
• Industry experience enables a tester to understand different processes and their effectiveness.
• As a senior team member, you are expected to share your experience while following different processes and data about which process is not effective and why.
• Also, as a senior, you are supposed to come up with a solution about the loopholes/problems you are seeing in current processes.
• Transparent discussion about process improvement, with Leads and management is expected from senior testers.

3. Mentoring and Training junior team members
   
• You gained experience because someone helped you to grow during initial phase of career. As a senior now, it’s your responsibility to train junior team members.
• The senior tester works as a communication bridge between junior team members and lead.
• The senior tester is expected to train junior team members efficiently so that best output can be generated.

4. Data analysis skills
   
• The senior tester is expected to analyze the test results and should be able to provide insight about product quality in different terms like performance, functional, user’s perspective etc.
• For non-reproducible bugs, senior tester should be able to help to junior testers as well as developers, by analyzing test environment, test data, sequence of steps taken and timing etc.
• For automation, the senior tester should be able to analyze the results which the automation script execution has generated.

5. Flexible to support
• As a senior team member, you know the criticality of bugs and how soon they should be resolved. In this context, you are supposed to be available to help with reproducing the bug and to verify the bug fixes.
• Due to tight timelines for testing, if the task is not completed, the senior member should be flexible enough to stretch out and complete the task.

6. Self organized with no monitoring required
   
• As a junior, you worked under constant monitoring and learned how things work. Now, as a senior tester, you know what is the priority of particular task and relevant timeline and how you should approach.
• The senior team member is aware of processes being followed and therefore he aligns his working style to match with the processes.
• Understanding the importance of timely reporting comes with experience. As a senior tester, you are skilled about how to report, what to include in report, whom to report etc.

Test Architect

Test Architect is the senior position who looks after solutions for problems faced while testing. The role seeks deep technical knowledge and up-to-date knowledge about latest tools and technologies.  This role does not asks for people/team management skills.

Test Architect is not a common role. It is only found in organizations that focus heavily on the use of automation and technology in testing.

Test Architects must generally fulfill the following criteria

• Significant years of experience (minimum of 8 years)
• Must be a technical specialist

Skills required

1. Experience in creating test automation framework, using latest and relevant tools.
2. Sound knowledge of different technologies and approach to automation.
3. Deep understanding about which test cases should be selected for automation.
4. Strong technical leadership abilities

Roles and responsibilities of a Test Architect

Reports to : Test Manager / Quality head

Role and Responsibilities

1. Helps in defining automation approach for testing.
2. Supports test manager in fulfilling strategic goals by providing technical support and help in terms automation.
3. Identifies effective technologies and tools aligned with what being already in use.
4. Helps and designs test automation framework based on past experience and demand of current project.
5. Works in identifying best suitable test cases for automation.
6. Helps in creating Test environment and test data.
7. Co-ordinates for testing via automation.
8. Monitors, enhances, improves automation activities as per demand of project.
9. Collaborates with team in mentoring and training team members for automation.

QA Lead / Test Lead

Every company has different criteria about designation definition but by default some positions come with team management abilities. Test lead is one of those position. Test Lead is the role that comes with

• Significant years of experience (typically 5-7 years)
• Team management capabilities

Skills required

1. Negotiation : Test lead is the communication bridge between management and individual team members. Conveying right things at right time, convincing team members about tasks and relevant efforts estimation, communicating with project manager about timelines etc needs negotiation skills.

   Also, to resolve inter personal problems in team and to convince team members to put in extra efforts, negotiation skills are mandatory.

2. Collaboration : As a test lead, one has to deal with cross-functional teams on daily basis. Collaboration skills are important to
• Understand specific business scenarios included by business analysis team.
• Realize the technical limitations
• Understand why specific defects had been rejected or deferred
• Know how particular defect was fixed and its impacts

3. Technical abilities : The test lead needs to be technically well versed so that no one can trick him/her when it comes to estimation or bug fixing or execution of testing tasks. Also, technically strong test lead can guide test team members for automation as well as in finding root cause of defect.
4. Communication and reporting : As a test lead, you are supposed to show clear picture about overall progress of the product, quality of the same and performance of test team. And to do the same effectively, strong communication and reporting skills are required. Along with it, skill to disagree for invalid matters is equally important.
5. Leadership : As a test lead, you are supposed to set an example. The lead
• should be ready to jump into execution, whenever required,
• should be available to help to any team member
• should be able to stand-by the team for valid issues
• should be able to deliver best quality
• should be able to help the team in managing the commitments fulfilling.

Roles and responsibilities of a Test Lead

Reports to : Test Manager / Project Manager

Role and Responsibilities

1. Defining Test strategy and test metrics :
• Understands the requirements and defines test artifacts required for the project.
• Defines test strategy based on requirements, resources, information and timeline.
• Works with the team to estimate testing tasks, scope of each task and relevant details.
• Decides on matrices which should be maintained so that testing progress can be effectively tracked.
• Helps team members by scheduling tasks and guiding them about how to efficiently test.

2. Managing Test Team :
• Build a team of variety of skilled people, who can make a productive team, overall.
• Assigns tasks to team members and makes sure that task pipeline for each team member is full enough.
• Motivates team to apply right attitude and focus on quality.
• Identifies training needs for team members and conveys it to management.
• Maintains good relationship with cross functional teams as testing team has to work with all the other teams.
• Resolves disputes between team members.

3. Being point of contact :
• Communicates with client about changes in requirement and overall quality concerns.
• Single point of contact for development team, to communicate relevant queries/concerns.
• Conveys message from management to the team about process improvement, performance improvement, expectations to meet etc.

4. Review and feedback :
• Reviews test artifacts prepared by testing team and approves them.
• Reviews defects logged by testing team and provide relevant feedback, if any.
• Identifies weak/strong point of team members and accordingly suggests improvement areas.
• Reviews automation framework prepared by senior testers and provides feedback to make it effective.

How to lead team effectively

As a Test Lead, you are supposed to work with a team and need to get tasks done. To build an effective team is very important for any Test Lead and here are some of the common points to keep in mind while trying to build a team :

1. Identify items that affects team’s efficiency : Observe team members and understand how much of their time is spent on different activities like preparing test environment, generating test data, executing test cases, analyzing test results, status reporting etc.

   Based on the data available, identify areas where time spent can be reduced by introducing automation or by getting external help. Team should spend time on productive tasks and its Test Lead’s responsibility to make sure the same.

2. Shape the team in a positive way : Build and maintain positive environment within the team. Arranging weekly/monthly knowledge sharing sessions helps team to be on same page and explore new ideas and technologies.

   Appreciate in public and criticize in private is still one of the best rule to follow for any leader.

3. Share the knowledge and experience : As a test lead, you are carrying numbers of years of experience. Share your learning from positive and negative past experiences. Different customers from different corners of world have different expectations.

   Guide the team on how to deal with it. Teach the team that quality is the most important aspect any customer looks for and how to achieve high quality standards.

4. Maintain transparency : As a lead, it’s important to not allow any office politics to be part of the team. Maintaining transparency with all the team members, at all levels, helps in maintaining productive environment.

   Task allocation and reasons behind allocating particular task to particular person should be clear to every team member so that no conspiracy occurs.

5. Help team to grow : As a test lead, after working for years, it is clear that a team should be mixture of all skills. Every team member has strength and weakness. Identifying strength of each team member and helping them to grow in specific direction helps in overall growth of the team.

   Identify training needs, understand training requirements rose from team members and convey to management about the same is a part of test lead’s responsibility.

6. Provide equal opportunities : Do not play ill with any team member. Provide equal opportunity to every team member and give a chance to everyone to prove themselves.

   Task allocation and performance feedback should not be on the basis of personal relationship maintained.

7. Support team to provide best output : Appreciate for right things done and increase morale of the team.

   Arrange team building activities on regular basis and make the team understand importance of team work.

   Don’t burn out senior team members by assigning every complex tasks but take risk and give opportunity to junior team members.

QA Manager / Test Manager

QA Manager is the managerial position, which looks after most of the management aspects compared to technical.

The role brings proven record of successful management of team and projects.

Skills required

1. Team management skills, including tactics to communicate with all team members, carrying different attitude and skills.
2. Detailed understanding about project lifecycle and each phase of it.
3. Understanding and proven track record of experience working on different aspects of testing like Requirement analysis, Test efforts and relevant estimation, Test reports etc.
4. Preferred to have domain knowledge and understanding of application under test.
5. Ability to plan and manage testing life cycle independently.

Roles and responsibilities

1. Looks after QA processes implementation and execution in organization.
2. Interviews, identifies and trains relevant skilled people to be part of QA team.
3. Defines risks involved in specific projects and helps in migrating risks by QA activities.
4. Reviews and ensures all the deliverables, including documentations are complete and concise before delivering it to customer.
5. Manages multiple projects simultaneously and works with Test leads to make sure every project is running smoothly.
6. Helps is setting up environment by adding necessary tools and processes to control quality of the project.
7. Evaluates performance of QA team members on timely basis and guide them to grow.
8. Reports stakeholders on regular interval about the progress of project and decisions made/modified.

How to become a successful QA Manager?

1. People management :
• Being a manager, people management is the primary task.
• This involves Hiring right people, handing people with attitude, getting work done by the team, making team members accountable and last but not the least is, maintaining positive team environment and constantly encouraging team members to upgrade themselves.
• Open-minded, supportive and accessible are the quality, any team looks for in their QA manager.
• Right attitude and positivity along with team management skills help QA manager to be successful.

2. Delegation :
• Keeping critical tasks for oneself and assigning less critical tasks to team members displays lack of trust for team members.
• The QA manager should understand strength and weaknesses of team members and should plan tasks accordingly.
• Sometimes, as a manager, you should take risks by assigning critical tasks to team members. By encouraging and guiding them in right direction, they might surprise you by exceeding your expectations.

3. Multitasking :
• As a manager you are supposed to handle multiple projects simultaneously, in addition to handling team.
• Also, as a point of contact for stakeholders, you are always on your toes to provide progress reports, quality insights, customer interactions etc.
• Learning multitasking and mastering it, is the only way to juggle between all the tasks.
• Keeping to-do lists, preparing, organizing and understanding priority helps in handling multi tasks smoothly.

4. Team building and team work :
• Building a team with right mixture of attitude and skills is very important for QA manager.
• Training and mentoring of new team members should be planned and monitored in an effective way.
• As a QA manager, you are supposed to screen and select candidates for the team. Checking for curiosity along with knowledge is the right approach to select right candidate as all other things can be taught.
• Sit, discuss, evaluate and guide senior team members on timely basis. This helps in creating a bond with team members and knowing their interests and strengths.

5. Defining risks involved in specific projects and migrating risks by QA activities :
• As a QA manager, you are able to understand the risks involved in specific project, while following specific processes.
• Mostly, due to tight timelines and resources unavailability, QA managers have to take a risk on test coverage part. Evaluating the risk with relevant stakeholders and trying best to mitigate the risk taken is the effective way out.

Quality Head

Quality Head is the highest position in the Quality department. This role is a combination of technical and managerial skills. This position is a result of years of experience along with proven track record of handling multiple teams and projects / programs successfully.

Skills required

1. Around 15+ years of industry experience and proven track record of successful management of quality aspect of multiple products.
2. Expertise in implementing industry best practices for quality assurance.
3. Experience in delivering multiple projects, by managing time and resources successfully.
4. Experience in working with different stakeholders in hierarchy, from a developer to business partner and customer.
5. Excellent hands on experience in manual and automation testing.
6. Solid communication skills
7. Experience in working into challenging environment and have displayed result-oriented attitude.
8. Known to the best applicable techniques for testing and quality improvement.
9. Experience in establishing quality as a culture in organization.
10. Knowledge of best supportive tools to make testing more effective.
11. Experience in implementing best policies/processes to maintain quality standards of the products / services / organization.
12. Attitude inclined to defining, working and improving processes.

Roles and responsibilities of a Quality Head

1. Manages multiple QA projects simultaneously with detailed level of involvement.
2. Works with QA managers and QA lead to keep the team morale high by resolving high level problems.
3. Heads the QA practices successfully by implementing highest level of planning and co-ordination.
4. Establishes and accomplishes quality standards by understanding products and expectations of stakeholders.
5. Imposes relevant policies and procedures to maintain quality standards, organization wide.
6. Works with senior management to understand expectations from QA department is most important for Quality head.. Based on expectations, strategizes QA processes and delivery plan and implements the same successfully.
7. Shows effective leadership in addition to planning and management abilities to achieve defined goals.
8. Suggests changes in project/product, with relevant data, to stakeholders.
9. Measures and shares progress of project via different metrics and processes implemented.
10. Looks after every associated factors of project like cost, time, resources, risks associated etc is Also proposes risk mitigation plan.
11. Carries expertise and experience in working with different software development models.
12. Highly skilled and be able to guide team in following areas of testing, if needed : test design, test execution, defect management, data analysis and reporting.
13. Possesses excellent level of communication skills, which can help in gaining acceptance from all levels of team.
14. Establishes and maintains professional relationship with stakeholders, customers and partners.
15. Plays a major role in achieving and maintaining CMMi certification for organization, by maintaining quality standards.
    

Delivery Head

Delivery Head is the position that covers all aspects of software development life cycle. Delivery Head should have experience in

1. Handling a large department / business unit
2. Management of multiple portfolios, programs and projects
3. Using project, program and portfolio management tools
4. Software development and delivery management

Roles and Responsibilities of Delivery Head

1. Building and maintaining a large business unit or department of technically sound people
2. Identifying future leaders from the team and mentor them
3. Bringing strong technological leadership and raising quality standards
4. Planning for best utilization of resources available
5. Ensuring timely and flawless delivery
6. Working on scope and cost of delivery aspect of project
7. Balancing expectations of customer and team
8. Encouraging QA team members to work as gate keepers for the quality of the product to be delivered.
9. Maintaining good relationship with existing and potential new customers.
10. Keeping himself/herself updated with latest technologies and tools and deciding on how to adopt the change.

As you can see, software testing offers excellent career growth opportunities. While each role comes with its own set of challenges, it is very similar to other careers paths, your responsibility increases as your experience increases. One needs to upgrade their knowledge and skillset as they move higher up the ladder.

Are you working in software testing? Is your organization structure / roles and responsibility different? Please share your views in the comments below.

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