Have you ever been asked if you can achieve zero bugs in a product? A younger me would have laughed and said it’s not possible, but not all projects are the same. We once worked on a military project where budgeting is on another level and where there was no expense spared starting from documentation and planning (both under heavy testing and monitoring). Or you might be dealing with the medical industry, where a bug doesn’t mean an angry customer but the difference between life and death.

In the agile approach test engineers will be working as a part of their scrum teams and they can easily become isolated from other test community. What to do? Build your QA Guild!

Everybody is talking about test engineers as part of Scrum teams, but what happened to the test team? Is there a place for a test team in the Agile world? Although there is no discrete test team in the Scrum framework, you still have some options for organizing your test engineers, supporting them and helping them exchange knowledge and best practices.

But let’s go back to the beginning …

The test team must be aware that they are a major filter between failure and satisfied customers and as a result they are responsible for the success of the product and company as a whole. Without a test team, all issues would go directly to customers. That’s why it is important to develop friendly relationships with the development team in the first place and to have excellent communication with them. There is no success with a strong development and weak test team or the other way around.

Having technical skills will certainly help you land the job you want, but if you want to be really good at what you’re doing, you’ll need some extra help. While some soft skills are common and expected for everyone, there are some that are specific for test engineers and can make a difference between an average tester and a master of testing.