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Agile has become the standard for many companies in the past few years. As a result, the job requirements of QA managers became more demanding. Although the traditional roles are gone, managers still have their place, but their responsibilities and scope may look different, especially for QA managers.

Test automation is one discipline every QA team should practice and use productively. While automated checks are the tester’s companion, they extend support in reducing time spent on cumbersome, redundant tasks. QA teams are supporting businesses in achieving faster time to market by driving the left shift in their test strategy. A growing team is a clear indication of a growing business, and it’s a problem good to have. However, as the QA team gets into the growth spurt, managers have a hard time keeping up with the status quo of test automation.

The spectrum of tech startups is wider than ever in today’s ever-changing, globalized IT industry. But while tech companies come in all shapes and sizes, they still have one thing in common – they all need exceptional testers.

One thing that COVID evidently changed forever is the way we work; remote and virtual teams are the new normal. COVID certainly pushed the Medicine practitioners to an edge, but also HR teams and Managers. From onboarding to exit processes, everything went virtual. As the famous saying goes, “every risk comes with an opportunity.” COVID allowed us to realize it is possible to run the show virtually.

Team sizes vary across organizations. For example, some companies have an in-house QA Team of 50 people (including QA Engineers, Automation Engineers, SDETs, etc.), while others have only a few testers. Some teams have no QA support at all. In addition to team size, release cycles are another variable to consider. Some companies release new updates or versions of their apps every week, while others have cycles ranging from one to three months.

There’s been an increased demand for several roles related to Quality Assurance (QA) such as Quality Assurance Engineers (QAE), Automation Testers, Software Developers in Test (SDT or SDET), Performance Testers, or hybrid QA Engineers. However, what do these imply job-wise? Perhaps when we look into possibly applying or hiring someone with experience in testing or automation, we’d need to better understand the different roles and responsibilities in software testing teams. At the moment, nearly all companies rely on some kind of test automation as the source of truth for quality verification and, in some cases, quality validation. However, there is still the need for humans to be on the other side of the tools we use for automation. When we adopt a quality mindset and understand every role to identify the best fit for our company we ensure that we can get a team that is talented and aligned with the goals.