The Plights of Software Testing for Industry Newcomers: Insights from Software Quality Experts

Manifesting interest in Software Testing? Whether you’re a new graduate looking to pursue the Software Testing industry as a newcomer, or maybe someone considering a career shift, it is never a bad idea to get some insights from Software Quality experts.?

Quick imaginative run-through: If a customer interacts with your software and has a positive experience, there’s a great chance for your service to be their go-to and you might even reach other clients from recommendations. However, this also means the opposite: your products have a great chance of being regarded as a failure if the workflows are clunky and the processes are broken.?

That’s where Software Testing comes in.?

A software tester’s job is to improve the quality of software in general – it is an art of investigation and evaluation wherein you need to look at and prevent software bugs from creeping into production by using different software testing techniques. Therefore, familiarizing yourself with the recent developments, key tools, and techniques to look out for can be the difference between getting your Software Testing career and not.??

I reached out to Software Quality leaders across the world with years of experience to share key insights on the recent developments in Software Quality, recommended tools for newcomers, ideal career paths, and even insider tips and best practices to focus on!?

Read more to check out what these Quality experts are saying:?

Janet Gregory, Director at DragonFire Inc.?

What are the recent developments in the QA and Testing profession that excites you??

Testers are working closer with programmers and the business folks to give feedback quicker. More and more individuals are speaking at other conferences besides testing conferences. There are so many varieties of testing that people can chose to become very good at - such as security or accessibility.?

What are the top 3 QA software testing/tools you'd recommend newcomers focus on??

I do not every recommend "tools" that I think you mean. I believe that we should not only depend on 'tools for automating', although they are useful. I think that testers should rely on thinking tools that help them ask questions- tools that help model testing scenarios such as context diagrams, state diagrams, even flow diagrams.?

What is an ideal career path to follow if one decides to pursue a career in QA??

There is not ideal path. PERIOD. Everyone has different interests. For example, some folks really like data so data intelligence would be a great career. Others like the idea of security and preventing exploiting vulnerabilities. Others like test automation - in many different languages. Others like dealing with people and accessibility appeals to them. Getting involved in observability and site reliability. So many choices. What is best for you??

Any career tips and best practices that you can share to the newcomers??

Think about what you enjoy. Learn everything you can about it. Connect with the community and reach out for mentors, and peers that can help you.?

Lisa Crispin, Test consultant & trainer at Agile Testing Fellowship, Inc.?

What are the recent developments in the QA and Testing profession that excites you??

Testers acting more in a consulting role, helping others on delivery team gain testing skills. Testers being more involved on the right side of the software development loop, learning from production.??

What are the top 3 QA software testing/tools you'd recommend newcomers focus on??

Asking good questions, getting and giving quick feedback, collaborating.?

What is an ideal career path to follow if one decides to pursue a career in QA??

Each person should find the one that works for them.??

Any career tips and best practices that you can share to the newcomers??

I prefer to say "leading practices". You and your team can experiment and find the ones that work best in your context.?

Simon Prior, Head of Quality Assurance at easyJet?

What are the recent developments in the QA and Testing profession that excites you??

The realization that Automation isn't always the answer is a great progression over the last year, I'm really pleased to see exploratory testing and the importance of Human Investigative testing growing. I'm also pleased to see the aspect of Test/Quality Coaching becoming a thing too and helping improve the way we do testing.?

What are the top 3 QA software testing/tools you'd recommend newcomers focus on??

It really depends on the context and the system working on, but understanding APIs through Postman would be useful. Look at some tools such as Lighthouse or Axe for Accessibility and then maybe learn a programming language like Python that enables you to write the tools you may need.?

What is an ideal career path to follow if one decides to pursue a career in QA??

Don't see QA as a steppingstone, there are career options out there for Testers, that don't have to involve automation too. Moving towards a Quality Coaching role sounds a really exciting prospect?

Any career tips and best practices that you can share to the newcomers??

Reach out to the wider Testing Community and find a mentor who can help you get the skills and learnings you need to be successful.?

Rye Dela Vega, Technical Manager at Willis Towers Watson?

What are the recent developments in the QA and Testing profession that excites you??

The current state of product competition suggests software quality is now the currency of the industry. As continued progress is being made towards bringing products off desktop market and users are clamoring for them to be more accessible, mobile versions are becoming the standard platform.??

This is exciting for me as the challenge to migrate or make existing automated tests compatible to mobile platforms are becoming a must. This means that new strategies must be developed in order to make existing and new tests forward and backward compatible. The rise of modern testing tools supporting mobile automation testing (iOS and Android) requires testing to be more sustainable and platform agnostic.??

Key interests here are the strategies needed for the automation framework to support multiple platforms, finding a tool to support the cause and the learning curve needed to adapt to new programming language. All these considered plus the agility of the team to be able to keep up with the competition to deliver in shorter successions.?

What are the top 3 QA software testing/tools you'd recommend newcomers focus on??

Browserstack app automate. This tool, similar to how automated tests run on desktop browser provides a way for these auto tests to execute on the installed mobile app.?

Applitools eyes main focus is to spot UI issues that may have been missed by QA testers or do tests not currently covered by either API or UI tests.?

Jira Xray beams allows seamless test status update between story tickets and Jira test tickets allowing faster feedback for team and stakeholders via Jira or confluence dashboards.?

What is an ideal career path to follow if one decides to pursue a career in QA??

A QA's natural progression are in the fields of SDET, LPT, DevOps or becoming a QA manager, passing on his or her expertise to the team through coaching and strategic thinking in the context of software quality.?

The critical part to determine however, is the technical strength or inclination of the QA-people management, technical or whatnot.?

Any career tips and best practices that you can share to the newcomers??

Even though we've seen progress in the tools (testing tools, repositories, etc.) and software development environment by which we write our tests, my one piece of advise for aspiring QAs is to still learn the basics and learn the concepts to heart.??

The foundational software testing techniques and processes will largely help in their critical thinking as they can interpolate between the traditional and modern ways in order to plan and execute testing to ensuring software quality.?

Russell Craxford, Head of Quality Management at Infostretch?

What are the recent developments in the QA and Testing profession that excites you??

Continuous testing, ai, cypress.?

What are the top 3 QA software testing/tools you'd recommend newcomers focus on??

Git, docker, postman.?

What is an ideal career path to follow if one decides to pursue a career in QA??

It will vary for everyone, depends on what you like. It’s a great foundation to go into many tech roles.?

Any career tips and best practices that you can share to the newcomers??

Accept your limitation on knowledge but when you find the boundaries, go and learn how to grow beyond them. The learning never stops but learn what you enjoy once you learnt the basics.?

Zoren Gallogo, Head of Software QA at PayMongo

What are the recent developments in the QA and Testing profession that excites you??

What excites me recently is that, to this year, there are less test case documents created than before due to the automation involved in the testing phase. Most of TCM tools can now be integrated to the Defect Management Tool, or even it already have an existing one. More mobile automation tools are coming (although we do not have one yet in our company).?

What are the top 3 QA software testing/tools you'd recommend newcomers focus on??

1. Frontend - compatibility testing tools (anything actually)?

2. API/backend - for newcomers, postman or any related API tools that is user friendly is enough?

3. Automation - depends on the newcomers coding exp - there are a lot of free open-source tools that a newcomers could explore: selenium, katalon, cucumber?

What is an ideal career path to follow if one decides to pursue a career in QA??

You have 3 paths to choose from if one decides to pursue a career in QA. One is the obvious: QA manager, living as QA, knowing its pros and cons would definitely help you on your career path as QA manager. Second, the individual contributor, if you’re the type of QA that does not want to be involved in too much management tasks. Having strategic and analytic mind really helps the team, this path usually are the SME of the team, mostly responsible for manual and automation workload, and some testing strategies. Lastly, Product Manager, this doesn’t really involve QA path itself but I think an experienced QA would really make a good Product Manager.?

Any career tips and best practices that you can share to the newcomers??

Focus on expanding your test scenario knowledge, learn as much as possible. Test case writing is still helpful. Negative testing is a must. Remember to consider regression testing every tests. Exploratory testing is still fun. Developers are not our enemy; be best friends with them.?

Chris Armstrong, Product Quality Strategy Manager at Provar?

What are the recent developments in the QA and Testing profession that excites you??

I am very much excited to see that there is a movement towards quality being owned by entire teams, not being gatekept by only testing professionals. While this could be perceived to be the end of testing/QA as a profession, I actually regard this as an opportunity for us to dig deeper and to be challenged about articulating how good testing, good quality processes, decision making, analytics, coaching, communication and collaboration can be a team sport, and we as testing professionals can drive this narrative. Testers don't only write and execute tests, after all!?

What are the top 3 QA software testing/tools you'd recommend newcomers focus on??

A lot of this depends hugely on the context where you want to be working.?

I worked in embedded software, and so web automation tooling was useless to me. For HW/FW/SW, I worked with LabVIEW.?

Find a scripting language that you are comfortable with, Python is open source and ever-developing and widely used.?

Find an IDE that you are comfortable with, that can work with multiple languages, has various plug-ins that enable you to work with less friction. I suggest VSCode.?

What is an ideal career path to follow if one decides to pursue a career in QA??

Interestingly, many testing professionals will say that they 'fell' into their initial roles, or it was just by chance. If you can be intentional, then that is great and there are placed that offer Jr. and Graduate QA places. One of the key attributes of a tester is to find issues and communicate them, so it may even be that you identify these things even if you aren't explicitly in a testing role. I've seen people move in also from call centers, development, admin and more. Often, a good employer will see your passion and encourage you to lean into it, passionate testers are a wonderful thing that all companies need.?

Any career tips and best practices that you can share to the newcomers??

No-one knows all the answers, even those of us who have been in the industry for two decades, are still learning. There is no 'one-size-fits-all' model or approach to solve problems in multiple contexts, the key to learn different patterns, heuristics and to apply solutions as best you can based on your context. Learn not only how to communicate well (including active listening), but also learn your corporate culture, industry, purpose & values. Giving and receiving feedback is essential, always ask for it and give it where appropriate. Testing is ultimately about uncovering information about your product, so that you can gauge levels of confidence as to its quality (once you've worked out what quality looks like to your customer, of course!)?

Marien Tagaban, Software Quality Assurance Manager at Emerson Automation Solutions?

What are the recent developments in the QA and Testing profession that excites you??

DevOps and automation for continuous testing, Security testing, performance and scalability, IOT, big data and analytics, cloud-hosted applications.?

What are the top 3 QA software testing/tools you'd recommend newcomers focus on??

Selenium, Postman, Katalon.?

What is an ideal career path to follow if one decides to pursue a career in QA??

Junior QA then if you want to focus on the technical path, Automation/Developer. If specialized try performance tester or security testing. If you want to utilize soft skills, your path can be Business Analyst or Manager (people or project).?

Any career tips and best practices that you can share to the newcomers??

Be inquisitive, curious, and creative. Never stop learning.?

Emna Ayadi, Testing Consultant at Sogeti?

What are the recent developments in the QA and Testing profession that excites you??

Recently we started seeing people talking about quality engineering and quality coaching to enable quality across the whole team where everyone feel empowered to contribute to the success of the project they are working in and how quality coaches enable building quality in the product since the start to avoid waste at late stages of the process.?

What are the top 3 QA software testing/tools you'd recommend newcomers focus on??

I'd choose activities first because if you have a clear vision of what you want to do you can find many tools that answer your needs, but I'll give tools just as an example from my personal experience??

• Microservice testing: I'd recommend postman it's an easy platform to use??
• Test management tool: Jira you can create dashboards and also you can add plugins to the tool like Xray?
• CI/CD pipeline: It’s important to make your automated test running continuously through the development lifecycle for that you need basic knowledge of code version control (I recommend GitLab) and for the continuous integration I personally like team city easy to configure and used by the team.?

What is an ideal career path to follow if one decides to pursue a career in QA??

I would say it depends on the person skills and what he/she wants to do. but to put it general working in a DevOps team could enable lots of learning and then it depends whether you are more into performing activities (testing, automation, exploration, ...) or into management activities or maybe the facilitator of the team to unlock blockers and coach them.??

So no ideal path but I'd say try to visualize where you want to be in which angle then you will easily find what you need to do to reach your goals.?

Any career tips and best practices that you can share to the newcomers??

My advice to first time testers, be a continuous learner as there are always new tools and technologies you need to know, try to unlock the knowledge about the product that you may need and understand the context, be a critical thinker, always ask questions mostly when you are starting up.??

Also, join communities if you have one in your company or even global communities where you can learn with other passionate testers who may have same problems as the ones you are facing.?

China Anne Sadiasa, Senior Quality Assurance Engineer/Analyst at Infor?

What are the recent developments in the QA and Testing profession that excites you??

Documentation and various Test Management tools.?

What are the top 3 QA software testing/tools you'd recommend newcomers focus on??

Selenium. API testing. Test Management tools.?

What is an ideal career path to follow if one decides to pursue a career in QA??

Ideal would be business analyst or project management path.?

Any career tips and best practices that you can share to the newcomers??

Find a good mentor and keep the mindset that every person you meet in the industry will somehow teach you to be better at your chosen profession. Be open-minded as this industry is fast paced. The only constant is change.?

Jason Dr. Lee, Director of Software Quality Engineering at ATI

What are the recent developments in the QA and Testing profession that excites you??

QA and Testing is part and parcel of development and engineering?

What are the top 3 QA software testing/tools you'd recommend newcomers focus on??

BBST, fundamental of software testing and engineering?

What is an ideal career path to follow if one decides to pursue a career in QA??

Quality coach, quality analyst, quality lead?

Any career tips and best practices that you can share to the newcomers??

Be yourself, be curious and think like a customer, and be bold!?

Gabriel Castilan, Test Architect Assoc Manager / Scrum Master at Accenture Philippines?

What are the recent developments in the QA and Testing profession that excites you??

Providing Quality (which includes Testing) in Complex Systems and Advanced Technologies - Blockchain, Data Science, Web 4.0, VR/AR. Cross-disciplinary systems are also trending, especially on Healthcare, Agriculture, Animal Sciences... all with IT?

What are the top 3 QA software testing/tools you'd recommend newcomers focus on??

Rather than tools and/or specific testing, I would recommend anyone (not just newcomers) to have knowledge on the following:?

1. SQL and databases?

2. APIs?

3. Value Stream Mapping (VSM)?

First two are self-explanatory I would say - core knowledge on those will always be useful even if there are "new" versions or similar technologies emerge in the future. VSM on the other hand is like taking a step back to visualize entirety of the process/project. This will enable you perform quality checks on a process which will increase quality as a whole.?

What is an ideal career path to follow if one decides to pursue a career in QA??

Software Quality (not just testing) is a mindset, and eventually every QA will amass that 'enough' knowledge and experience to be tagged as Senior QA. What happens after that largely depends on your motivation and 'focus':?

- Scrum Masters / Product Owners??

- Architects / DevOps Engineers / Site Reliability Engineers (SRE)?

- Project Managers?

- QA Directors / C-level suites?

It should be noted that circumstances differ from one person to another. And NO one is stopping you to have detours along the way.?

Any career tips and best practices that you can share to the newcomers??

1. Find a good role model, if s/he can be your mentor that's better - Let us accept the facts, as a junior/newcomer you will not be assured to have the correct mentor or guide in the workplace. It will not be assured that you’ll have anyone supervising your work. So FIND yourself a role model that you can look up to. Have a role model whose stories and experience in the workplace you know of, how s/he does in times of challenges. S/he does NOT need to know you.?

2. Do NOT stop at 'what', know the 'why'. During your first few years/projects, you will be told to do this... to do that. And more often than not, you will just follow, thinking this is just a task. Do NOT waste that opportunity to learn more. Find out "why" it is done that way and not this way. Do NOT be afraid to ask questions however simple it may sound to you.?

3. Do NOT be afraid to commit mistakes (within reason). Those mishaps are gems for learning.?

4. YOU control your future. If you think you are being stagnant in your career, then move. Ask for career advice from someone you trust. Know what you think you need, then plan to achieve it.?

Michelle Ilag, Software Quality Assurance Manager at Mynt (Globe Fintech Innovations, Inc.)?

What are the recent developments in the QA and Testing profession that excites you??

Testing is exciting as we are the one knows every single detail of a product and service. We have the edge to determine what makes costumers happy.?

What are the top 3 QA software testing/tools you'd recommend newcomers focus on??

Jira, Appium, JMeter, selenium.?

What is an ideal career path to follow if one decides to pursue a career in QA??

Start with being a tester, do a manual testing— understand the testing analysis phase first.?

Any career tips and best practices that you can share to the newcomers??

Decide where you are good with or where your passion is. If you’re always curious about something, QA is for you!?

Wrapping Up?

The experts that I gathered openly shared their insights as experienced Software Quality professionals. Make sure to use what you’ve learned from this article in assessing your focus, path, and goals as someone entering the world of Software Quality.?

For Software Quality leaders, be the key to your colleagues’ growth by ensuring that they learn continuously from amazing mentors. Facilitate the expansion of knowledge as it would benefit themselves, you, your organization, and your clientele in the long run!?