What do Quality Assurance Analysts do?

Question

What are 3 of the top skills you need to be successful at being a QA analyst?

What is the average salary?

What is involved in this line of work........ specifically?

Answer 1

To take your last question first, quality assurance involves checking some product being developed to make sure it looks and functions correctly. (Quality control is similar, but has to do with checking a product as it is manufactured.)

For instance, computer software has lots of bugs (defects and design flaws) in the first "drafts" (known as builds). QA analysts or QA engineers test it and report the bugs, the programmers fix them, the software is tested again to make sure a) that it really was fixed and b) that no other bugs got created from the changes made to fix it.

Top skills to be successful in QA:

1. Attention to detail, because you must check every little thing.

2. Good analytical and problem-solving skills, because when you find something wrong, you have to "isolate the bug" meaning you have to figure out what makes it happen. For example, clicking a button on an application causes it to crash. Why? Is it because of something you did in a prior step? You try another variation and clicking the button works this time. What made the difference?

3. Creativity, because you have to think up ways to break the software. You want to find these before the customers do, so they can be fixed before you ship the product.

4. Good written and verbal communication skills, because you have to write up the problem so the programmer can reproduce it, so they know exactly what's happening in order to fix it. And because QA basically exists to tell programmers and designers where they went wrong, you need to be able to do this in a way that doesn't anger or alienate them. you will also be writing test plans and test cases, sometimes other things.

I disagree with the person who mentioned metrics. You don't need to know the first thing about them to start in QA. Metrics are more for management level people.

Average salary depends on the industry. Software and technology QA probably pays $60,000 - $70,000 on average. This is NOT a starting salary. Starting salaries, even for people with computer science degrees, is more like $40,000-$45,000. If you're able to automate the testing, it's higher.

Other industries may pay less.

By the way, you don't need a degree in IT for QA. If you have experience in an industry and any bachelor's degree, you may be hired to do QA on software for that industry. This is especially true for medical, financial, government and ERP software.

One caution: When the company's budget gets low, QA jobs are often one of the first things they look to cut or to outsource to India or China.

Answer 2

1) commitment to quality; a passion for it; and the ability to communicate your passion

2) ability to set up metrics to measure performance (e.g. during the production cycle for a product, number of non conformance events, etc.)

3) ability to analyze the metrics and recommend changes/improvements

Salary - depends on where you live/work (big city/big company in Canada - $50 to 60,000 to start - need a technical and/or operations background and preferably quality control training).  

A QA Analyst will typically analyze the data gathered, draw conclusions and make recommendations.

Do an internet search on six sigma, kaisen, lean manufacturing and you'll get some more information.