The Top 5 Soft Skills Every QA Engineer Needs

You’ve got drive, you’ve got passion, you’ve got…what do quality assurance engineers need?

Quality assurance engineers catch pesky bugs that hinder projects and ruin user experiences. The QA team is essential to delivering a quality product. And you might have the technical skills to do the job, but if you lack some of these other key attributes, you might lose out on your dream job.

So how can you make sure that you’re the right person for the role? Keep reading to learn the top five soft skills_{Why are soft skills important?} every QA engineer needs.

Soft skill #1: Problem solving

QA engineers have the ability to hunt down and highlight flaws in programming code. To accomplish this, they have to design and run several tests, both manual and automated. 

Besides the technical knowledge and mastery of key testing tools, such as Selenium, Puppeteer, or WebdriverIO, this job requires meticulous attention to detail and concentrated focus to be able to spot errors and write bug reports.

Are you considering a career switch to QA_{Can You Be a Successful Software Engineer Without Math Skills?}? It may not be as big of a jump as you imagine because some qualities from your previous job will help you succeed in tech. Editors and proofreaders are just one profession that comes to mind. These specialists routinely look for writers' mistakes and help make corrections and improvements. Accountants are another example, as their mission is to ensure all of the figures add up and produce accurate financial statements.

Soft skill #2: Time management

The job of a software tester is sometimes challenging and stressful, as you process a lot of incoming data on a tight schedule. Most development teams work in sprints_{I’ve Never Taken an Online Class. What Should I Expect?} wherein you’re expected to submit results at set intervals. This approach helps speed up the whole process and guarantees higher quality.

But it can sometimes feel like you're constantly behind, especially if you don't have a good grasp on deadlines. Balancing and organizing your time is key for a QA engineer. If you have everything planned out, deadlines will be your friends, not foes. Not to mention, stress won’t grind you down as much.

These time management qualities are often stretched to the limit in other lines of work. Think of TV and film producers or event organizers who seem to be constantly running against deadlines while juggling so many other priorities. For these professionals, a move to QA and tech shouldn’t be a problem and could even help them improve their work-life balance, as it did for TripleTen grad A.C. Slamet_{A Producer Switches to Tech to Find Time for Life: AC Slamet’s TripleTen Story}.

Soft skill #3: Patience

The process of finding and fixing bugs is rarely resolved in just one go. Not only do you need to systematically spot defects, but you also have to analyze them thoroughly and cooperate with developers to set the code straight. This requires readjustments and running your tests over and over again.

Numerous iterations of fixing, re-testing, and validating the results may be repetitive, but they are absolutely necessary if your team is on a mission to build a thing of beauty that works properly. Patience and even perseverance are among the top qualities a good test engineer will benefit from.

You'll also see patience as a prerequisite in many other walks of life. For example, healthcare providers, social workers, and teachers all persevere while seeing to the needs of their charges. You'll find many stories of people moving from such careers to tech. Take a cue from Colin Maretsky_{From Teacher to Student to Front-End Engineer: Colin Maretksy’s TripleTen Story}, who quit teaching English to learn programming languages.

Soft skill #4: Creativity

QA engineers are often driven by curiosity and the desire to get to the root of problems. As you mature in your role and acquire more technical skills, you’ll start looking at issues from different angles — and will offer creative and more efficient solutions.

As a QA engineer, you don’t have to be a full-fledged developer, but knowing a thing or two about programming languages like JavaScript will certainly help you step up your game. This is where your creativity comes into play. With the JS basics in your skill set, you’ll be able to write your own automated test scripts and develop even more ways to approach problem-solving.

By the way, it’s not uncommon for creative types to go for a career in tech. Whether you’re a former artist, fashionista, or designer_{Are You an Artist? Here’s How to Break into Software Engineering}, you’re not alone in transitioning into the tech world.

Soft skill #5: Interpersonal skills

Software testers are fully capable and happy to work independently on a particular portion of a project. However, QA people must also have great communication skills. Their job is not only about detecting malfunctions but also pointing them out to team members. Jointly, the group looks for ways to fix the bugs quickly and efficiently. Cooperating with developers, project managers, and business owners who may not always be as tech-savvy as their colleagues, is something QA engineers regularly do.

The requirement of collaboration is not unique to the tech industry. If you’ve ever worked on a research team or been employed by a marketing or advertising company, you know that getting your message across can spin the entire project.

Put those skills into practice

Ready to take the next step? If you’ve been thinking about ways to break into tech and you already possess some of these traits, take a look at TripleTen’s Quality Assurance bootcamp—it might be just the right thing for you.