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QA Engineer's Mindset

Author: Syafiq Hadzir
Email: syafiqhadzir@live.com.my
GPG Key: EBE8 BD81 6838 1BAF

Table of Contents

Who is a QA Engineer?

A quality assurance (QA) engineer is an utter perfectionist who looks and evaluates something another way around, to the certain extent, divergently.

Being a QA engineer is not just about a position in structured organisations, but inquisitiveness of life which requires that extreme curiosity, or that sense of not letting broken things stay broken. It is something that one can’t acquire but to be born with. As the saying goes, “Quality is not an act; it is a habit.”

We, who sit in this position, should have the ability to vigilantly prepare for whatever life throws our way, because we work in the intersections, between a wide variety of machines and people. Otherwise, there won’t be any difference with the developers and the project managers.

How to be QA Engineers?

QA engineers are the ones who possess an analytical mindset, good communication skills and an aptitude for manual & automated processes.

You should have (or at least have the effort to have) all the attributes listed.

QA Misconceptions

The most widespread myths that I have encountered are “quality assurance should be done last” and “it is all just about finding bugs & errors”.

Some may even regard QA as a quick and easy process. Eventually, it is not. People tend to think that their job is the hardest and they are living in the hardest life.

The truth is, it is the definition of quality assurance, that we fail to understand. The fundamental concept of QA itself, on how to become one and also the responsibility of being one.

Quality assurance is not about the process, it is about the mindset. Also, it is not just about bugs and errors, it is about the point of reliability for the customers. To ensure that the deliverable does what it promises, while also behaving reasonably in difficult or unexpected circumstances.

Conclusion

We should spread the awareness about the importance of QA in a software development life cycle (SDLC). Each of us, QA engineers, should be an evangelist on promoting the habits. Shifting from a “gatekeeper” to an “enabler”, we empower users and we enable developers.

Adopting a new mindset is one thing, and expanding it with quality engineering is a much bigger challenge.