Insist on excellence within your range of power. Maybe you won’t lead a full-scale QA resistance and march on the corporate office demanding fixes for all the defects in the software — or maybe you will. Either way, give it your full effort to find, report and track software defects. Be interested in the fix, and pursue it as long as you can. Persistence is a valuable skill for leveling up your QA career.
#3. Unconditionally provide information
We’re not talking about sharing corporate secrets or information covered under an NDA. But consider opening up with teammates and sharing your knowledge and experiences. The idea seems simple but sharing information and experience is often difficult because many people see sharing their know-how as a threat to their own job security. Some testers believe you increase competition and potentially weaken your own position as you improve the skills of team members.
Sharing your QA testing knowledge and expertise does not diminish your skills. In fact, by offering training to other testers, you build upon your own skills. Developing QA training not only builds your skill base in testing, but it reinforces your qualifications by adding training development to them. Training someone else forces you to go through the paces yourself — perhaps you’ll remember and be extra mindful of some basic skills that have become automatic over the years.
Additionally, training others helps create a stronger team. Stronger QA teams are more aligned and represent a strong network of like-minded engaged testers who want to improve testing.
#4. Explore the breadth and depth of products
As a tester, you are responsible for testing a single application product, or several application products. You create test cases for new features andperform regression testsso often that you learn how the organization’s products work inside and out.
Or do you? Some software testers only follow test scripts and never test anything outside them. Why?
Sometimes employees, including testers, become disinterested or disengaged from the work or the organization. Perhaps it’s an issue with management, job boredom or just a bad fit. Not all testers are passionate about application quality and the customer experience — and that’s unfortunate.
Testers that want a new challenge can level up by moving on to more engaging positions. Maybe a role in software development, product management or customer support could better fit your skills and desires. Whatever it is that motivates you, pursue it.
Don’t blindly follow the test script. Test the script, but also test the tangents you discover. Test the integrations, the connections and the back-end processing systems. Test and discover how far you can go; this is the truest way to learn how the application functions across the full spectrum, front to back.
#5. Select and pursue your niche
In the technology industry, specialization is important to your ability to level up your testing career. While there’s no limit to how many specializations you can pursue, it’s best to prioritize your approach. Here’s what a QA specialization priority might look like:
Manual testing techniques
Automated test development
Performance testing
- Security testing
Penetration testing
Security auditing
Ethical hacking and bug bounty testing
Test design
QA testing education and training
QA lead, director or manager
Typically, QA testers go one of two ways: the technical path or the management path. But you don’t have to limit yourself to one or the other. Pursue any niche or combination of niches that appeal to you.
#6. Gain certifications in your niche
QA certifications are plentiful.ASTQBandISTQBare the prevalent authorities of QA testing certification through AT*SQA.
Achieve testing career growth by pursuing certification. The following partial list offers some software testing certifications to consider:
QA Foundations (basic skills)
Acceptance Testing
Agile Testing
AI Testing
IoT Testing
Mobile Application Testing
Performance Testing
Security Testing
Test Management
Test Manager
Test Automation
Usability Testing
Another option is to access additional software testing resources, such as theuTest Academy, which helps upskill some of the million-plus digital experts that Applause sources for crowdtesting projects.
QA certifications aren’t technically necessary. Many QA testers at various levels are not certified, and they have perfectly successful careers. Still, certifications are handy in your testing career growth as they let employers know what expertise you possess, and holding a certification demonstrates a commitment to improving upon your skills and knowledge.
#7: Enhance communication skills
Solid oral and written communication skills are must-haves for explaining defects accurately, creating reusable test cases and getting the most out of development team members. Keep in mind that software testers must communicate with product managers, UI/UX designers, developers, customer support and technical documentation professionals. These are people with different roles, goals and motivations, which makes effective communication a real asset.
