Quality assurance and quality control are essential components of every company that produces software applications. Quality assurance (QA) or quality control (QC) engineers are the resources that maintain the quality level of a company and its products. The industry term for this is QA/QC engineer. Quality control and quality engineering are involved in developing systems to ensure products or services are designed and produced to meet or exceed customer requirements and expectations. These systems are often developed in conjunction with other business and engineering disciplines using what is called a cross-functional approach. QA/QC engineers also test software to ensure total functionality meets ranging requirements of possible user demands placed on it.
Quality Assurance covers all of these activities; design, development, production, installation, servicing and documentation. The motto is: "fit for purpose" and "do it right the first time". One of the most widely used paradigms for QA management is the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) approach. The main goal of QA is to ensure that the product fulfills or exceeds customer expectations. This is a precise science. You need to make sure that your product not only works but that the functionality meets the needs of your clients. A Professional QA/QC engineer will help you effectively create and test your applications ensuring they accomplish what is expected.
QA/QC engineers distinguish software faults from software failures. In case of a failure meaning the software does not do what is expected the engineer will take decisive action. A fault is a programming error that may or may not actually manifest as a failure. A fault can also be described as an error in the correctness of the "semantic" of a computer program. A fault will become a failure if the exact computation conditions are met, one of them being that the faulty portion of computer software executes on the CPU. A fault can also turn into a failure when the software is ported to a different hardware platform, or if the software gets extended. Software testing may be viewed as a sub-field of software quality assurance but typically exists independently. They examine and change the software engineering process itself to reduce the amount of faults that end up in the code or deliver faster.
A problem with software testing is that the number of defects in a software product can be very numerous. Bugs that occur infrequently are difficult to find in testing. A rule of thumb is that a system that is expected to function without faults for a certain length of time must have obviously already been tested for at least that same length of time. This has severe consequences for projects to write long-lived reliable software. A common practice of software testing is that it is performed by an independent group of testers after finishing the software product and before it is shipped to the customer. This practice often results in the testing phase being used as project buffer to compensate for project delays. Another practice is to start software testing at the same moment the project starts and it is a continuous process until the project finishes.
Now that we understand better the need for QA/QC engineers, it is important that you evaluate the longevity of the needed position. Does your organization already have an IT group? How busy are they? What are their expertises? Answers to these questions will help you know if you need only to consult with an engineer or if you should contract out the work. QA/QC engineer sometimes will fill a permanent position in an organization.
Mark Keller is an internet marketer for 10xMarketing, To find a qualified QA/QC engineer visit Aculis.com