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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Tester

💰 $ - $

Quality AssuranceSoftware TestingQA Engineer

🎯 Role Definition

We are seeking a hands-on Tester (QA Engineer / Software Tester) responsible for designing, executing, automating and validating software quality across web, mobile and API platforms. The ideal candidate blends manual testing discipline with automation skills (Selenium, Cypress, Appium), strong API and SQL testing experience, and a practical understanding of CI/CD and Agile practices. This role focuses on delivering high-quality releases by building reliable test coverage, identifying defects early, collaborating with product and engineering teams, and continuously improving testing processes.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Junior QA Tester / Junior Software Tester
  • QA Analyst or Quality Analyst
  • Software Developer in Test (entry-level) or Manual Tester

Advancement To:

  • Senior QA Engineer / Senior Tester
  • Test Lead / QA Lead
  • Automation Architect / SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test)
  • QA Manager / Head of Quality

Lateral Moves:

  • Business Analyst (focus on requirements & acceptance criteria)
  • DevOps Engineer (CI/CD & test automation pipelines)
  • Product Owner / Product Manager (quality-driven product roles)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, develop and maintain comprehensive test plans and detailed test cases (functional, regression, integration, system and acceptance) that map to product requirements and user stories, ensuring traceability and measurable coverage.
  • Develop, implement and maintain automated test suites using industry standard frameworks such as Selenium, Cypress, Appium, Playwright or similar, focusing on stable, reusable automation that reduces manual regression effort.
  • Execute manual and automated test cases across web, mobile (iOS/Android) and API layers; validate UI behaviors, business logic, data integrity and error handling under realistic user scenarios.
  • Perform thorough API testing including REST/HTTP validation, contract testing, response schema checks and error path verification using tools such as Postman, RestAssured or HTTP client libraries.
  • Identify, log and track defects in an issue-tracking system (e.g., JIRA), produce clear reproducible steps, attach evidence (screenshots, logs), prioritize by impact and severity, and drive timely resolution with developers.
  • Design and maintain test data strategies and environments—create, mask and restore realistic test data, manage test DB states, and run SQL queries or use data tooling to validate backend results.
  • Integrate test automation into CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, CircleCI) to enable automated test execution, reporting and gating of builds during continuous delivery.
  • Lead or participate in sprint ceremonies (planning, refinement, stand-ups, retrospectives), advocate for testability and acceptance criteria, and ensure stories meet the Definition of Done from a quality perspective.
  • Conduct exploratory testing and ad-hoc testing sessions to uncover edge cases and usability issues not covered by scripted tests; document findings and translate into actionable test cases.
  • Execute cross-browser and cross-platform testing, manage browser compatibility matrices and ensure consistent behavior across Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge and relevant device viewports.
  • Perform regression testing for each release candidate, compile release quality reports, document test coverage gaps and provide risk-based release recommendations to stakeholders.
  • Collaborate with product managers, UX designers and developers to review requirements and user stories early to identify ambiguities, missing acceptance criteria and potential quality risks.
  • Build and enforce QA best practices, coding standards for test code, and test documentation to make automation maintainable and approachable for other engineers.
  • Troubleshoot flaky tests and investigate intermittent failures by analyzing logs, network traces and environment issues; implement fixes or mitigations to stabilize automation.
  • Implement and maintain test reporting and dashboards (Allure, TestNG, JUnit, custom dashboards) to surface metrics such as pass rates, test coverage, flakiness, defect density and test execution time.
  • Mentor and provide hands-on guidance to junior testers and peers on testing techniques, automation patterns, and the use of QA tools and frameworks.
  • Participate in performance, load and stress testing efforts using tools such as JMeter, Gatling or Locust to identify performance regressions and capacity constraints.
  • Support UAT (User Acceptance Testing) cycles by preparing test scenarios, coordinating shallow runbooks, onboarding business testers and triaging UAT issues to engineering.
  • Validate security and access control scenarios (authentication, authorization, OWASP basics) and escalate potential security risks to the security or engineering team for remediation.
  • Manage and maintain test environments, containerized test stacks or staging environments (Docker, Kubernetes basics) and coordinate environment stability with infrastructure/DevOps teams.
  • Contribute to continuous improvement initiatives: root cause analysis of escaped defects, retrospective action items, and process changes to prevent recurrence.
  • Prepare and present quality status, release readiness and defect risk assessments to engineering leads, product owners and stakeholders to guide release decisions.
  • Participate in automation proof-of-concept projects and tooling evaluations to keep the QA toolkit modern and aligned with engineering stack and cloud platforms.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc reporting and data validation requests by writing SQL queries and validating datasets against user-facing functionality.
  • Contribute to the organization's test strategy and roadmap by recommending areas for automation investment and improvements to test coverage.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate product or business needs into testable acceptance criteria and engineering tasks.
  • Assist in the adoption of shift-left testing practices — encourage early testing, unit-test collaboration and integration testing during development phases.
  • Participate in technical evaluation and hiring for QA roles, including pair-programming/automation coding interviews and technical assessments.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Proven experience with automation frameworks and tools: Selenium WebDriver, Cypress, Playwright or Appium for mobile automation.
  • Programming/scripting skills in Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, Python or C# to write and maintain test automation.
  • API testing proficiency using Postman, RestAssured, SoapUI or custom HTTP clients; ability to validate schemas, headers and payloads.
  • Strong SQL skills for data validation, test data setup and verifying backend transactions (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server).
  • Experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, CircleCI) and using Git for source control.
  • Familiarity with test frameworks and runners: TestNG, JUnit, Mocha, PyTest or equivalent.
  • Knowledge of BDD/TDD approaches and tools such as Cucumber, Gherkin or SpecFlow for acceptance criteria automation.
  • Performance and load testing experience with JMeter, Gatling or Locust to validate scalability and throughput.
  • Experience with issue tracking and test management tools: JIRA, TestRail, Zephyr or equivalent.
  • Cross-browser and mobile testing strategies, and experience with device farms/emulators (BrowserStack, Sauce Labs, Firebase Test Lab).
  • Understanding of security testing basics (OWASP Top 10) and ability to capture and escalate security-related defects.
  • Familiarity with containerization and cloud environments (Docker, Kubernetes basics, AWS/GCP/Azure) for test environment orchestration.
  • Ability to author and maintain readable test code, automation patterns (Page Object Model, modular frameworks) and CI jobs for stable pipelines.

Soft Skills

  • Excellent verbal and written communication for clear defect reports, test plans and stakeholder updates.
  • Strong analytical and critical thinking skills to design effective test cases and troubleshoot complex failures.
  • Attention to detail and a meticulous approach to ensure high-quality deliverables and reproducible results.
  • Proactive mindset: identifies gaps, proposes solutions and drives improvements in testing practices.
  • Collaboration and teamwork; ability to work cross-functionally with developers, product managers and operations.
  • Time management and prioritization skills to balance sprint work, regression cycles and ad-hoc testing demands.
  • Adaptability to learn new tools, frameworks and domain knowledge in fast-paced Agile environments.
  • Mentoring and coaching ability to support junior QA engineers and spread testing best practices.
  • Customer (end-user) empathy to evaluate quality from a user-centric perspective.
  • Problem ownership and accountability: follows through on issues until resolution and documents learnings.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or related technical field.
  • Professional certifications such as ISTQB Foundation, Certified Software Tester or related automated testing certificates are a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Information Technology
  • Data Systems or related technical disciplines

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2 - 6 years in software testing / QA roles (range depends on seniority of the Tester position).

Preferred:

  • 3+ years of hands-on experience in both manual and automated testing for web/mobile applications.
  • Demonstrated experience integrating test automation into CI/CD pipelines and working in Agile/Scrum teams.
  • Prior exposure to API testing, test data management, and performance/load testing is highly desirable.
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