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Who are you, QA engineer or tester?

QA and QC are like reeds and cattail. Of course, there are nerds who distinguish them, but most people are still confused. Sometimes QA and QC themselves are easier to accept the view of the townsfolk than to go into lengthy explanations, but what is the difference. I propose to make an effort on yourself, deal with terms and concepts, see the differences and never again confuse them.



For more than three years I have been engaged in ensuring the quality of products. And all this time I have been watching the evolution of testing processes in the company.

From its inception, when the first two people were hired. For six months they tested the product with their hands, and after that they became business analysts, and the next two people already stood behind them.

Prior to current processes with Scrum-Less blackjack and Selenium self-tests.

The accumulated experience and character traits typical of my profession have led to thinking about who the testers are, QA and QC. Are these different entities or intersecting? In articles and conferences I often come across some kind of confusion, I do not like it. Therefore, I decided to share my thoughts on this subject. Caution, this article is not the first instance truth. This article is thoughts out loud and a desire to find like-minded people.

QA, QC and testers: three big differences?


We begin our search and digging with an appeal to the International Standard of the Quality Management System ISO 9000: 2015 . In each article, in each video on the topic of the difference between these concepts, there is a link to this document, my article is no exception.



Clause 3.2 of the standard discloses two definitions:

  1. Quality Assurance (3.2.10) is a part of quality management aimed at ensuring confidence that quality requirements will be met.
    Original
    Quality assurance (3.2.10) — part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled.
  2. Quality control (3.2.11) is a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements.
    Original
    Quality control (3.2.11) — part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements.

From these definitions it follows that we either provide a quality product, or we check the product for quality.
I note that in the standard ISO 9000: 2015 there is no concept of tester as such. I was looking for.
So how are the concepts of Quality assurance, Quality control and Testing interconnected?

You can often find this kind of illustration with a layered quality structure, where testing is part of quality control, quality control is part of quality assurance.



But personally, it seems to me that since there is no concept of tester or testing in the standard, and QC is all kinds of testing, then the illustrations should be like this:



However, the standard is the standard, and here we have real life. And in real life of the IT industry, there are only two names of our profession:

  1. QA engineer.
  2. Software Tester.

And very often, these concepts are interchanged and confused. The confusion begins at the stage of job description.

Looking for a Software Tester (QA Engineer)


I would not write this article if these roles were not mixed in the industry and testers were not called QA engineers and vice versa. According to my observations, two professions are not shared in Russia. All for simplicity (or maybe out of ignorance) are called testers. Well, only employers would sin in such a way, but the testers themselves support the confusion. For example, on Habré one can find articles where authors throughout the text call the same people testers, QC engineers, QA specialists, testing engineers and testers.

HR managers add fuel to the fire: they often write in the job title “Software Tester (QA Engineer)” to increase audience reach. The case does not end with a vacancy cap, the salad continues in the description itself.

Let's look at the vacancies of QA engineers:



All tasks are related to testing and are aimed at finding bugs, although the company is looking for a “QA engineer”.

Or another colorful example:



And yet:



And for the sweet:



In fact, many employers are looking for a software tester (if you focus on the description of duties), but in the name they indicate that they are in search of a QA engineer. 

If you remember, in ISO 9000: 2015 there are QA and QC. What happens if you execute a request to hh.ru with the QC keyword? But nothing will happen. You will not see vacancies of either QA or tester. Upon this request, vacancies will appear related to the production and quality control of products.

It turns out that in the IT industry there are no QC professions, they were replaced by software testers, and in other areas of activity there are no QA specialists, but there is QC. The job descriptions of QA engineers do not indicate obligations to improve product quality and prevent bugs, they probably take it for granted.

What is quality assurance


Before continuing, let's stir up a little interactive. Go to the link and look at the site QualityConf conference. Wander a couple of minutes on the topics of speeches and answer a few questions for yourself:

  1. Who is this conference for?
  2. What does it associate with you?

The QualityConf conference is entirely dedicated to quality, not testing. However, during the preparation of the next conference, the organizers conducted a study and asked their visitors a question: "What is your conference associated with?"

As you all probably already guessed, the main associations were exclusively with testing.

It turns out that today, saying the word “quality”, many hear “testing”, and very often this is functional testing, although the concept of quality is much broader.

Quality is the definition of the consumer, not the definition of an engineer, not the definition of marketing, and not the general definition of management. It is based on the actual experience of the client in relation to the product or service, measured in accordance with its requirements - stated or unstated, conscious or simply felt, technically valid or completely subjective. Quality always represents a moving target in a competitive market.
Original
Quality is a customer determination, not an engineer's determination, not a marketing determination, nor a general management determination. It is based on the customer's actual experience with the product or service, measured against his or her requirements — stated or unstated, conscious or merely sensed, technically operational or entirely subjective — and always representing a moving target in a competitive market (Armand Feigenbaum «Total quality control»).

Testing is one way to ensure product quality. In addition, you can improve the quality of the product by introducing coding standards, introducing new engineering practices, design reviews, and so on. There are many ways to ensure quality, but at different stages of maturity of teams and processes in the company, these methods will have different effects, this must be remembered. But this is a completely different story.

QA ≠ QC: how to distinguish between them


QC: who are these people, what are their tasks, what are their limitations


Who are these people? People who are called testers are identical to QC quality control. According to the logic of things, at the last stage of development, they check the quality of the product (by any type and type of testing - manual, automated, stress testing, security testing, etc.).

What is their task? Their task is to validate the product and provide information to business and developers about the product's compliance with the stated requirements.

What are their limitations? What could be the disadvantages if you have all the employees checking the product for compliance:

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QA: , ,


Who are these people? Quality Assurance Engineers (QA) are people who help development teams produce a quality product as quickly as possible for as little money as possible. After all, we all know that the sooner a bug is found, the cheaper it is to fix it. It’s best to fix bugs at the idea level.



QA engineers are involved in the very early stages of product / feature creation. If they could get into the heads of POs to tell them about the lack of acceptance criteria or usage scenarios for features, they would do so.

What is their task?The task of the QA engineer is to prevent the product from meeting the requirements. The QA engineer measures the quality of the product, knows its current status and what needs to be done to raise it not only at the testing stage, but also at the development, design or preparation of requirements.

What are their limitations? It is difficult to assess the quality of work of a QA engineer, because if he does his job well, then the minimum number of bugs that do not affect the functionality and launch of the product in prod will reach the testing stage. 

Unlike QA, you can evaluate the work of QC, especially if you start from the simplest and evaluate effectiveness by the number of bugs - how many bugs I found and how many bugs I missed on the prod.

How to live further?


A large staff of testers will not be able to significantly improve the quality of the product. But it can improve the quality control itself. If you, fellow testers, want to take quality to a new level, think about moving to QA engineers.

Just don’t wait when you are called to a meeting where features are discussed with developers or designers, come to it yourself. Express your opinion on any aspect of product quality. Do not let the prevailing rules, job descriptions and other garbage stop you from making the product even better than now.

I know that most of you care about what you are testing. And you sincerely want to supply a good product that will be pleasant to use.

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