Kazeem Razaq @K.Razaq / 6:00 PM EDT. July 19, 2022.
QA engineers have a crucial role in the software development lifecycle. They work with developers to find bugs, ensure that the code meets specification requirements, and prevent software from being deployed to production environments. QA engineers also need technical skills that can be relevant in almost any field. Although many QA engineers focus on testing and quality assurance, it's not uncommon for them to be offered roles in other departments within an organization such as operations or research and development. Here are a few technical skills every QA engineer should have in 2022 if they want to land a top job!
The world is changing fast. Technology is advancing at a rapid rate and new disciplines are coming up. In this new age, one of the most important things that you need to work on is up-skilling your technical skills and knowledge. If you want to get hired by a top QA company and gain more responsibility as an employee (and a higher salary!), there are certain technical skills you should focus on in 2022.
Choosing a technical skillset for your QA engineer is crucial, as you'll need to be able to perform all of these tasks to land a top job. You see, employers want people with the best technical skills who can help develop their product and team. Knowing how to test these skills will give you an edge over the experienced candidate.
In 2022, you'll need to know how to do just about everything as a QA engineer. You'll be expected to be an expert in automation tools such as Selenium and tooling like Jenkins, and you'll have to understand the latest frameworks and be able to interface with an entire stack of modern development tools — like AngularJS. You will have to learn an entirely new language (ideally Python). No matter what company you're working with, for now, they will also require at least one course in security best practices.
A QA engineer is a highly valuable member of any software industry. Without question, QA engineers are in high demand – especially those who possess the right technical skills. This is because these individuals are vital to the efficiency of an entire project. I've compiled a list of 10 essential technical skills that every QA engineer should have in 2022 if they want to land a top job (and make a name for themselves as an independent software tester.
Every modern-day QA Engineer (and it's a lot of them) must have a deep technical skill-set. The job market for QA Engineers is pretty poor, so many people need to learn how to code if they want any type of career. But how do you get this technical bone-fide?
Top Technical Skills Every QA Engineer Should have.
If you're looking for a job as a quality assurance engineer, you'll need to have the technical skills to get the job done. As QA engineers continue to gain more responsibility, it's even more important that they know their way around a computer and have experience with automation tools.
1. A Focus on Automation
Automation is one of the most important skills that every QA engineer should have in their arsenal.
Why? Because it allows you to create repeatable, consistent tests that can be run automatically. This means you spend less time manually testing and more time focusing on other important aspects of your job. It also helps ensure that automated tests are run frequently enough to catch any changes made by developers or managers, which keeps everyone safe from risks associated with manual testing.
What is automation? Automated software testing involves writing scripts (usually written in a programming language) that automate tasks like running code under certain conditions or setting up fake data for tests so they can run through them reliably without human intervention—and often with minimal effort!
2. Selenium is a great technology to know.
Selenium is a popular open source tool for testing web applications and mobile devices, written in Java and Python. It allows you to write automated tests that run both on the server side as well as the client side of your application. This can be very useful when you want to test an element of your websites such as your search bar or login page (also known as intercepting traffic).
You should know how Selenium works so that you can use it effectively:
How does Selenium work? Selenium uses the WebDriver protocol (WebDriver) which allows you to write automation scripts for testing websites without having any knowledge about how the browser works or what specific elements need attention during the testing phase
3. Knowing HTML, SQL and CSS is required for SEO testing.
If you're working in SEO, HTML is the language of the web. It's what allows search engines to read and understand your website's content. This means that if you want to test a website for SEO problems, knowing how to write good HTML is crucial because it will help ensure that Search Engines can read and understand what you're trying to say on your site.
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, which define how text and images look on a webpage or website. CSS also enables developers (such as QA engineers) who are not web designers themselves but only need basic functionality from their websites so they don't have full control over every aspect of its design—something else which may lead them into trouble if not done correctly!
4. DevOps skills are a must.
DevOps is a growing field. In fact, it's one of the fastest-growing fields in technology right now. And it's not just about software development—it's also about managing your delivery pipeline and automating it so you can release faster, with fewer bugs and human error.
DevOps is a set of practices that help you to manage and automate your software delivery pipeline. These days, every company needs some level of automation within their organization because they're constantly releasing new features or updates to existing ones (or both). It takes time for teams to build these new features; however, once they're finished being built by developers who specialize in building them from scratch on an individual basis (which often takes weeks), then there needs to be someone else who manages all this work until someone else releases their own version into production again.
5. Bug Tracking Tools
Bug tracking tools help you track bugs, prioritize them, and create reports. They’re a crucial part of any QA team’s workflow.
Here are some of the most useful features you should have:
The ability to track bugs in an integrated system (for example Microsoft Project) or on your own desktop.
The ability to assign priorities based on severity or impact; if a bug is a high priority but not urgent, it could be ignored until later in the process—or even after it has been fixed! This feature helps teams stay organized and focuses their efforts on fixing important issues first.
Reporting capabilities so that everyone can see where there are gaps in coverage across multiple platforms/toolsets/software versions etc., which allows everyone involved with testing to know where they need improvement before they start working on new code again (which will inevitably bring more potential conflicts).
6. Knowledge of CI/CD tools
Here's a list of the top CI/CD tools you should know.
Jenkins
JIRA
Travis CI
Bamboo
Gitlab
AppVeyor
CircleCI (formerly Jenkins)
CodeShip (formerly Codeship)
Also: Docker, Google Container Engine and CloudBees are all popular CI/CD tools that you should know about.
7. Know the fundamentals of Agile and XP best practices
Agile is a software development methodology - a set of values and principles, practices and tools. It’s all about delivering value to your customers faster by iterating quickly with short cycles and frequent releases. Agile has been used for over 20 years but only recently gained traction in the US because it requires collaboration between developers, testers, business analysts (BAs) and project managers (PMs).
Agile has three main components:
Agreement on basic principles – we want to work together as a team so here are some things that are important to us;
A shared understanding of what success looks like – how will we know when we have achieved this?
A collaborative process that allows us to deliver software faster than ever before.
8. Ability to write good bug reports and test plans.
When it comes to bug reports, you should be able to write clear, concise and easy-to-read bug reports that contain all the relevant information about your issue. You should also have the ability to update your test plan as needed during the project lifecycle—in other words, plans are not static documents but rather living things that can be modified according to changes in requirements or changes in scope.
Finally, test plans should be easily understandable by anyone reading them (including yourself).
As a QA engineer, you will be expected to write good bug reports. You must be able to tell your story in a way that’s easy for developers and testers alike to understand. This means being able to identify the problem, explain how it occurred and what caused it, as well as how you fixed it or eliminated the issue.
You also need to know Agile/XP best practices and CI/CD tools so you can ensure your work is delivered on time with a high-quality code base every time. If possible, have Selenium installed and ready at all times—it will come in handy when working with automated tests (ATs). Finally, make sure that everything gets written down in a test plan before starting any new project; this way everyone knows exactly what they’re doing when things go wrong later down the road!
By now, it should be clear that software testing is not just a matter of running a script and clicking “submit”. It’s a full-fledged profession that requires specialized skills to ensure quality software delivery with minimal errors. And if you want to land one of those jobs, then it will be worth your time to brush up on these technical skills for 2022!
At busyQA, we can help you build the skillset you need to become a world-class IT professional, with our top-quality instructors and in-house paid co-op, you'll gain the skills and experience to become a sought-after developer. Every single one of our graduates have been hired by Canada's Top 100 companies - you can be next! Click here to see our class schedule.