QA Manager came to my desk, doesn't look happy. He said QA Engineer in HK is always not recognized as professional, always like a "lower class" job.
Does it really the case? I don't know, but to be honest, it is a bit boring to repeat the same testing again and again, but for my past 2 years experience in QA Area. I think it is not easy to be a good QA Engineer. It is always a challenging job. First, you have to be a careful person, of course, no need to explain. Second, you need to think out of the box, if the problem is trivial, then probably won't pass to your hand, because it should be fixed by developers already. It means you need to think how users use the application in an unusual way. Third, you need relative technical knowledge, which would help you to troubleshoot a problem, to minimize the chance to submit irrelevant issue. Forth, you need good communication skill, because you always need to communicate with different developers, then how you clearly state the issue you found to minimize the time on explaining the issue is very important. Fifth, you need to aware of deadline. As testing is always the last stage before delivery, it means if there is any delay on development, unless your manager can help you to delay, otherwise, you are the one who suffer.
With all those requirements, who qualified to be a good QA Engineer is actually a good candidate for developers and project manager, and i think it is main reason that make us to difficult to find QA engineer. Because if you are one of those, you would prefer to work as project manager or developers because usually those positions offer higher salary. Then why QA?
Does it really the case? I don't know, but to be honest, it is a bit boring to repeat the same testing again and again, but for my past 2 years experience in QA Area. I think it is not easy to be a good QA Engineer. It is always a challenging job. First, you have to be a careful person, of course, no need to explain. Second, you need to think out of the box, if the problem is trivial, then probably won't pass to your hand, because it should be fixed by developers already. It means you need to think how users use the application in an unusual way. Third, you need relative technical knowledge, which would help you to troubleshoot a problem, to minimize the chance to submit irrelevant issue. Forth, you need good communication skill, because you always need to communicate with different developers, then how you clearly state the issue you found to minimize the time on explaining the issue is very important. Fifth, you need to aware of deadline. As testing is always the last stage before delivery, it means if there is any delay on development, unless your manager can help you to delay, otherwise, you are the one who suffer.
With all those requirements, who qualified to be a good QA Engineer is actually a good candidate for developers and project manager, and i think it is main reason that make us to difficult to find QA engineer. Because if you are one of those, you would prefer to work as project manager or developers because usually those positions offer higher salary. Then why QA?
