QA Vs Tester

A lot of companies in their job positions and descriptions always look for QA and some others for testers, you may think it's the same thing, however there's a lot of difference between a tester and a QA. Those differences are marked not only in what they do, but also in their knowledge on software testing and processes.

Let's start clear, a tester is what the name implies, test, the tester is there to test and only test, he/she is focused on test execution and to guarantee all scenarios, test cases, acceptance criteria and functionality is met and works as expected on the system. A tester is a really important role within the project and I know a lot of companies that hires only testers, however I think it doesn't end there and there's where the QA appears. For me, the tester evolves into a QA or the QA includes testers tasks, that's why a QA gives more impact and importance to companies than a tester, a QA is not only in charge of testing the system, he/she is also in charge of the quality of the process and the product, from my perspective, the QA must have the whole picture of the project, ensure the team is aligned, be an intermediate point of contact between the developers and product owner (talking about agile) and have constant communication with the team and leaders to ensure all of them are in the same page to clear expectations about the deliveries, demos or stories.

But it doesn't stop there, the QA is and must be present on all phases of the project, including the planning, risk identification and mitigation, designing test cases, feature files or documentation that is not present on the requirements, QA should be active in all meetings, refinement of requirements and be the gatekeeper of the process to make sure the team is aligned and follows the process, he/she must be a great tester too because the execution of the tests must be awesome and it is the main task for both QAs and testers, bugs reported must have all the correct data for developers to understand them, of course leadership and proactivity are part of the qualities a good QA should and must have.

So, as you can see there's a lot of difference between these two roles that are often confused by companies or clients, I always try to hire and work with QAs rather than testers because the impact, learning and constant improvements of processes and techniques is spread through the company and projects and they give more input than a tester.

Hope you like this post, next Tuesday I'll talk about Test plans

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