What makes a great QA engineer?

How to find great QA engineers who can keep problems from slipping into production before they impact your bottom line, brand reputation or development capabilities.

What makes a great QA engineer? What qualities do they possess that elevate them above just average testers?

We’ve compiled six traits of a great QA engineer.

1. Inquisitive

• Asks, “What if…?” to better understand the product or the requirements.
• Questions bad practices.
• Finds defects by wondering what will happen if you do things differently.

2. Thorough

• Obsessed with checking work, recreating defects to verify them and testing everything that needs to be tested.
• Not bound to test to the “letter of the law,” but testing the spirit of the requirement beyond what’s written.
• Tests to break to find flaws so they don’t make it farther into development.
• Cares about quality. Doesn’t want things to just work, wants them to work well.

3. Diplomatic

• Great communicator. Clear and concise when reporting on issues.
• Able to judge an audience (developers, project managers, product owners, etc.) and adjust communication as needed.
• Cognizant that QA testing is a team game and the ultimate success is team success.
• Can negotiate and make a strong, informed case for why a requirement should be a certain way or why something really is a defect.
• Doesn’t play the blame game and understands that everyone makes mistakes. If not, they wouldn’t have a job!

4. Creative

• Unconventional thinking helps test the usability of an application and hammer out all use cases.
• Thinks on their feet to create solutions if Plan B or C don’t work.
• Improves process by finding better ways to do things.

5. Perceptive

• Can get into the mindset and understand how developers, product owners and users view the product.
• Sees/pinpoints where the issue happened, often without help from the log.
• Knows what’s important and what’s not. Sometimes you need to decide what you are going to test next based on business priority or need.
• Understands how software development works outside of just their QA role.

6. Skilled

• Great at finding glitches/bugs/defects.
• Can read and write code to fully understand developers work and make changes as needed.
• Writes and runs automated tests.