Is Testing Simple? I often thought about this question before starting as an SQA Engineer. I discovered that people consider themselves as SQA engineers if they found a bug in any app or software. But when I started researching, I realized that Quality Assurance and Testing are different things.
Testing is only a part of Quality Assurance. Testing is an extracted bucket of seawater if quality assurance is a sea.
Besides, I discovered that the major opinions I received about SQA Engineering before entering this field were all myths. This blog will try to uncover the most common myths with my best justification.
And yes, testing might be simple, but the quality assurance is an aching back.
Quality Assurance Is Simple
The most general delusion depends on how you define testing.
An effective SQA program should cover the entire development cycle from Software Requirements Specifications (SRS) preparation from the beginning to the final software release.
The number of software approaches, manual and automated testing, maximum responsibility of software and other factors make it really hard. The prerequisite technical knowledge needed is extensive.
When I was still an intern a couple of years ago, a senior asked me why I chose such a difficult career. He said if you become a software developer or DevOps engineer, you only had to deal with the development or DevOps-related tasks. However, in SQA, you do tens of things, from technical to managerial fields, while performing quality assurance tasks on a product.
One of the common causes making it difficult is it does not look like you have done any work. The irony is you are working the whole time. Maybe the targeted work is not finished, and you might also work overtime. This usually happens when you are stuck in managerial work more than technical one.
SQA Does Not Need Coding
There may be software engineers who dislike coding. It's more likely that their talent was uncovered by someone who realized that they have a unique point of view.
Always consider SQAs to be extremely intelligent engineers. It's up to the company and the team to pursue the intelligence they carry.
People talk about automation testing and cannot think of coding side by side. How will one automate a test without giving instructions to the automation software? The automation software does not understand our natural language, and we must provide the instructions in their language. So, automation scripts need rigorous coding in programming languages like Python and Java to automate the software.
If you are doing white box testing, you must have a very good knowledge of the technology used to build the software you are working on.
Other coding required common testing cases for an SQA could be:
- Performing data validation or ETL testing, creating test data.
- Converting code of one database to another to do migration testing.
- Validate data by writing complex SQL queries.
Human QA Will Be Obsolete
The massive misconception about any field is that people think automation will entirely wipe off human resources. We have examples that human resources are never going to be obsolete.
Automation might reduce the number of labour-based employees of a company, but in the IT industry, there is no extensive physical labour. Everyone has a level of technical knowledge to stand out and challenge automation which will always be needed.
A self-driving car being self-driven requires a human driver behind the wheel at all times. It's there to minimize a human driver's effort, not to swipe them off completely.
Aeroplanes also fly on auto-pilot once in an idle condition and at a certain height but cannot handle the emergency that an aeroplane could encounter at any time. A human pilot is always present in the cockpit to handle the aeroplane.
Likewise, QA is an incredibly challenging job for an SQA engineer worth their name. The IT industry's technology changes overnight, and IT personnel must remain updated with all the major innovations. Automation can never cope with the sudden changing environment of an industry. Automation testing saves time and effort at a certain point, like repetitive testing. They do not completely understand the software development process and business requirements.
Artificial intelligence is quickly evolving and rising in prestige. Even if machines can perform their duties, it does not mean human QA would be rendered useless. The software and gadgets function only when people can build suitable testing scripts.
Bugs Can Be Fully Removed
Never think that bugs can be fully removed. It all strikes a universal truth that nothing is cent per cent perfect, not even in this whole universe, multiverse or the entire space.
However, from an SQA engineer's perspective, all the eliminated bugs signify that most of them have been located and the software has been brought up to par. Software Quality Assurance only ensures that there aren't many bugs and that they won't render your goods useless.
Also, apps and software are often updated in a certain period. Those updates will surely encounter a bug. If you ask me, software development, bug discovery and bug fixes are never-ending processes.
Lastly...
There are more points to cover on myths about SQA, and this single blog could not encompass everything I am willing to write. You can find more on Common Myths About Software Quality Assurance - Part 2, which is out now.
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