An Evolution from Software Quality Assurance to Test Engineering

This article gives you an insight into the transformation that is taking place in the software testing industry. The Software Quality Assurance process is now evolving into Test Engineering.

What is Software Quality Assurance?

Software quality assurance is a validation process to check whether the developed software meets predefined quality specifications or not. It is an ongoing process which goes along with the software development life cycle to confirm that the developed software is exactly in line with the client requirements.

The Evolution of Software testing

Earlier on organizations used the waterfall development cycle in which no working software was available during the development cycle. The testing started post development and there was no room for making any changes to the requirements.

This led to the evolution of the entire software testing industry as it shifted from quality control to quality assurance. Companies adopted agile development practices to improve team engagement and quality of software.

Today, the development process is complicated as there are frequent changes in the requirements, test plans, and resource allocation. Testers and developers need to align with changes as they can significantly impact software quality and delivery. The quality assurance process needs to evolve to accommodate all the changes.

The ongoing transformation from quality assurance to test engineering

A new way of testing is required to deliver digital products quickly with high-quality. The customers are looking for an Omni-channel experience which means an integrated experience across different devices and browsers. The software development companies need to ensure that the software is compatible with all the platforms. The change is only possible when the development and testing teams have a higher level of collaboration.

Changing customers needs

The testing process is also undergoing transformation with the evolution of the software being built. Quality assurance now involves the entire team to evaluate the user requirements from the end-user point and a testability perspective.

More secure applications required

It is vital for organizations to prevent and protect their software from all kinds of threats, breaches, and data leaks by performing test engineering. Test engineering is the continuous testing process which focuses on fixing bugs quickly at the time of development.

What is Test Engineering or Continuous Testing?

Test Engineering is the process of continuous testing in which testing is an integral part of the development process from end to end. This type of testing is most suitable for DevOps and Agile development initiatives.

Test engineering or continuous testing is a process where the focus in on feedback to reduce business associated risk with the software release; It takes place by executing automated tests which are an integral part of the software development lifecycle.

Key features of continuous testing:

Continuous testing evaluates complete coverage in terms of business risk.
It also provides insights on the risk involved in releasing the application through the delivery pipeline.
This form of testing ensures testing to be in line with the development process instead of the released software.
Continuous testing avoids software failures by creating a safe environment which protects user experience while the application is in the development process.
It ensures the availability of valid test data for each and every test run.
It easily implements “shift left” (unit, component, coverage…) to “shift right” (monitoring/ APM, Testing in Production) testing.
This testing prevents bottleneck by testing at the right stage of the delivery pipeline.
It also offers actionable feedback for each stage of the development process.
Continuous testing also checks the application change and its impact on functionality.
It also reduces rework, prioritize robust, flexible and modern framework.
Continuous testing reduces redundancy by consistently optimizing and reviewing the test suites.

Summary

Test engineering or continuous testing is going to be an integral part of software development lifecycle with time. Test engineering will improve cross-platform testing capabilities of the QA team and also further increase collaboration between development and testing team.