You may notice that most software testing job postings are for QA Analyst or QA Engineer. There are other software testing job titles out there, but these two are the most common. So what’s the difference between a software QA Analyst vs. QA Engineer?

The truth is that there’s no evergreen definition of the differences between a QA Analyst and a QA Engineer. Sure, you might find articles with well-thought out details for each position. However, in real workplaces, the reality can be quite different. Read on for the standard definitions for each, as well as what you can expect (or not expect) on a more practical level.

QA Analyst Job Description

The “QA Analyst” job title usually refers to a manual QA position testing software like websites or mobile apps. These are some of the tasks you can expect from a QA Analyst role:

• Writing test cases (or using test cases written by others)
• Manually testing software
• Reporting bugs
• Identifying user experience issues
• Collaborating with developers and project managers (often in an Agile QA process)
• Providing QA estimates to help the team plan out release timelines

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So you have a solid resume and LinkedIn profile, and you’re ready to get a new software testing QA job. How do you find QA jobs, what do you apply for, and how do you follow job application best practices?

Where to Look For QA Jobs

In this day and age, there are dozens of major job sites. On one hand, it’s great to have so many resources. But on the other, it can be difficult to cut through the noise. You also don’t want to end up wasting time.

Some of the best sites for finding QA jobs include:

• Indeed
• Hired
• Vettery
• LinkedIn
• Dice
• AngelList

Interested in working from home? If you’re located in America, Mindful QA is often hiring for remote QA jobs, including remote manual testing jobs and remote QA automation jobs. If you’re just looking to pick up extra hours on the side, we also have work for part-time freelance QA testers.

Indeed QA Jobs

Indeed has two main options: Indeed Prime and an online job board. If using the latter, you can filter and save searches by location, job title (for example, QA analyst or QA engineer jobs), experience level, salary, and more. You can also read reviews of the employer posting the position.

Indeed Prime is a free service that lets you post your resume Continue reading →

Smoke testing is one of the most common terms in a QA vocabulary. It involves doing light (and often ad-hoc) tests of major features, typically right before or after a release. While smoke testing is one of the quickest and most basic forms of QA testing, it’s also one of the most important when time is tight.

To understand the purpose, it can be helpful to think of the phrase, “when there’s smoke, there’s fire.” A big part of smoke testing is keeping an eye out for red flags, which could indicate other instabilities in the software.

Smoke Testing Examples

Ideally, a mobile app or website will have also gone through more rigorous testing. But smoke testing is used as a back-up, to be extra cautious, or when there’s not enough time for the ideal level of QA testing.

For example, say that you’re about to launch a new version of an app. It already passed QA, but you want some quick last-minute testing done before you publish to the App Store, just to be safe. If you ask QA to smoke test the login feature, they might check that logging in with valid credentials works. They would also likely verify that attempting to log in with an incorrect password brings up an error message.

However, with smoke testing, QA would not be nearly as thorough as other types of testing. Regression testing, on the other hand, would likely incorporate testing case sensitivity, switching between different users, etc. Continue reading →