Software Tester Career Path: Role & Job Responsibilities

Introduction

With the quality practices as a frontrunner and the constant technological advancements in testing, this is envisioned that one software testing engineer has a variety of roles to perform in the IT industry. Here, is a quick tour of the popular Software testing roles and job description of software tester by level. The objective of this blog is to explain to you all about the software tester career path, software tester job description, and more.

Software development is a discipline undergoing swift changes and expanding virtually from all walks of life. The time has gone when end-users were more focused on ‘Quantity’ but now the world is getting revolutionized around ’quality’ only. Every Software program needs to be tested aggressively to ensure a high-quality product at the end.

The popularity of web-based apps, mobile apps, desktop apps, and Internet utilities has given a new dimension to the testing world in terms of robustness, reliability, re-usability, and repeatability. Today, software testing has become a business-led activity that is taken as a mandatory practice for all software applications.

With the quality practices as a frontrunner and the constant technological advancements in testing, this is envisioned that one software testing engineer has a variety of roles to perform in the IT industry. Here, is a quick tour of the popular Software testing roles for quality engineers and the testing managers.

Relationship Between Software Testers

To ensure a high-quality software product deployment, communication among different functional teams plays an essential role. Let us see how a software tester is an important part of any IT organization and how he set up communication among cross-functional teams.

1). The relationship between Developers and Testers

The developers and the testers both need to stay connected with the stakeholders in the process like analysts, customers, operations manager, production managers, and project managers. This relationship helps to maintain consistency right from the early stage of software development.

The biggest advantage is that issues can be fixed quickly as soon as they are recognized and optimizing the total costs of the testing. As a result, the overall cost of development is reduced significantly.

2). Communication between Testers and Developers

The communication between the testers and the developers at the earliest stages helps developers to optimize their code. They would even be able to develop lightweight scripts before any production starts.

Software Tester Career Path

The software tester career path or career progression looks like this.

• QA Analyst (Fresher)
• Sr. QA Analyst (2-3 years' experience)
• QA Team Coordinator (5-6 years' experience)
• Test Manager (8-11 years' experience)
• Senior Test Manager (14+ experience)

Testing has multiple levels, types, and specializations that have given a different level of the intrinsic value of a software tester. Unlike earlier, testing is taken as one of the most popular career choices today. In the following diagram, you can have a quick look at multiple options available to a quality software engineer.

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In the technical world, testing is taken as the primary choice for aspiring youths. The testing career path is also interesting since the beginning and it leads to the quality assurance manager opportunities later. Even the number of testing tools available in the technical marketplace is also enormous.

The demand for specialized testing engineers is increasing every passing day. Few may have expertise in scriptwriting while others may be good at operating different testing tools. This is completely based on the choice of the Company for which option they really want to opt for.

Alternate Career options as a Software Tester

Once you have entered to the manual testing space, alternative testing career paths or career choice could be as follows:

• Automation Tester: Executing test cases manually can be time-consuming. An automation tester is responsible to execute test cases automatically using some software testing tools like Selenium, Selenium Web Driver, and more.
• Performance Tester: A performance tester is responsible to check the performance time of an application, how much time an application takes in loading, and maximum pressure or load that can be taken by the tool.
• Business Analyst: If testers have daily business knowledge then they can quickly succeed in their testing career paths.

Are you still testing to determine career path? Here are some aptitude tests you can attempt to improve your knowledge and get hired by companies quickly. A software tester career path is quite interesting as he grows in his career. So, you have to understand it well before you enter the testing space.

Education Background and Salary for a Software Tester

The software tester career path discussion is not complete without knowing the educational background and the salary taken by the software tester.

• He should belong to a computer science or IT background.
• A proper graduation program can increase your chances of excelling in a particular IT field.
• If you don’t have proper qualification then you can earn some testing certifications like ISTQB or CSTE. You can also register for the training program as needed. If you have the basic testing knowledge, then it is better to prefer self-learning courses online.

You must be wondering that the salary taken by a QA tester is less when compared to software engineers. There may be slight differences but salary will become almost the same as they progress in their careers. The average salary taken by QA expert is $40K to $90K as per the skills level, education background, and more. Also, the salary variation is experienced on the basis of industry types.

Become Successful Software Tester in Future

In brief, Companies are looking for quality testers that have the capability to analyze test-cases, who can identify the bottlenecks and they should have the capability to suggest tuning techniques too. Here are some of the key areas you need to specialize to become a successful testing engineer in your future.

Read: Manual Testing Salary Guide: Secret to Boost Your Salary Is Here!

1). Domain-specific Knowledge

The domain-specific knowledge adds more value to your testing profession. You may look for the options in any of the areas like Healthcare, Telecom, IT sector, manufacturing, etc. There are separate certification courses for each of the domains to give relevant proof to your career.

2). Niche areas in Testing

According to experts, skill-based learning is getting momentum in the testing industry. You just need to keep yourself updated as per current technology trends and advancements.

3). Hands-on experience in different testing tools

Today, there is great demand for the testers having hands-on experience with different testing tools. The basic knowledge of programming scripting is the primary requirement to succeed in the automation testing field. You should also be sure on many other basics like creation, validation, and test-cases enhancements etc. to grow exponentially in the testing world.

4). Software Testing Training and certifications

Today, there are various institutes that offer online training and certifications in different testing domains. JanBask is one of the most popular names to take you one step ahead in the testing industry with its job-oriented testing training programs and certifications. To know more about JanBask training programs, you should start with our testing training courses and certifications right away.

Software Tester Job Description

How well can you achieve your testing goals solely depends on the testing capabilities of a software testing team. For this purpose, you should have a perfect blend of testers who can work effectively to achieve the common testing goals. This would be great if testers have different domain knowledge and they specialize in various niche areas. Most importantly, the software testing team should have a proper structure where role and job responsibilities should be defined more clearly and properly. When the team is well defined, then each of the team members is able to handle their work precisely. It would affect not only the individual’s performance but the overall performance of a testing team too. The results are even more visible when all team members are serious and pretty much sure about the testing goals.

In the below sections, we have defined software testing engineer roles and responsibilities so that you may get a clear idea of your job based on the Company standards only.

Software Tester Job Responsibilities by Level

Testing professionals may come from a variety of backgrounds. This is the reason why there are multiple job roles and responsibilities defined by the Companies. Let us take you one step ahead to find the different level in a software testing team.

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Let us discuss the hierarchy of job responsibilities for different testing roles as defined by the most reputed IT Companies to Create Software Tester Resume.

1. Job Description of Software Tester Managers

• A test manager is responsible to define different testing activities to the subordinates.
• He is the person responsible for test-case planning, execution, modifications etc.
• A test manager should be sure of the necessary resources available to execute the testing scripts.
• He needs to check if other testing activities are going hand in hand with development phases or not.
• He needs to establish proper communication with the customers.
• In the end, he is responsible for preparing the status report for all the testing activities and updating the project manager regularly to inform about the progress of various testing activities.

2. Job Description of Software Tester Experts

• He needs to check all the documents well and plan accordingly what needs to be tested and what should he skip actually.
• Once he has decided on the facts, then a quality tester should prepare a testing plan too.
• He will decide on the resources and he will update the test manager for the same.
• He needs to develop, test cases and assigning priority to each test case.
• He will execute all the test cases one by one based on the priority and report defects as well.
• In the end, he needs to carry out testing activities aggressively to fix all the defects one by one.

3. Job Description of Software Tester at the Experienced level

• A technical tester is responsible for designing test cases and he also defined multiple testing scenarios too for usability testing.
• He will analyze the test-cases and submit the observations to the development team as well.
• He has the capabilities to understand product requirements in depth and suggests relevant modifications too.
• At the highest level, he may be asked to create documentation for testing products and participate in the testing related walk-through.

4. Automation Software Tester Job Description

• He is the person responsible for automated software testing services.
• He is asked to design automated test scripts that can be reused whenever required.
• He has to be sure that all automation testing services are carried out on time as per Company standards only.

5. Software Tool Tester Job Description

• He is the person having hands-on experience with different testing tools.
• He is asked to decide on the most relevant testing tools required for the product.
• He is also responsible to keep himself updated based on current market trends and advancements in the testing tools industry.

6. Job Description of Software Tester Architects

• He is the person responsible for test case guidance.
• At the highest level, he may be asked for test cases designing. 

Software Testing Career Path Infographic

Final Words

In the final words, it would not be saying wrong that there is always a need for testing whether one implements new technology or one maintains existing code only. The new testing tools and the methodologies are evolving continuously, so passionate testers always need to update themselves with current technology trends and advancements. Also, you must be sure of the software testing career path and software tester job description before you enter the QA space.

The trusted relationship amongst developers, testers, and the stakeholders can always take you one step ahead in your career. In brief, testing is a field that can leverage an individual’s skills in business, technical processes, different domains, and nice areas. To know more about the tester career path and job description of software testers, you should start with JanBask training and certification programs right away.

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