Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers

One time, I was trying to buy a product through an online store's app, but I kept failing to complete the purchase. Every time I tapped the "order product" button in the app, I'd end up on a blank white page with nothing on it. This happened to me more than once, which left me frustrated and annoyed, and eventually pushed me to delete that company's app from my phone entirely. Things like this bother all of us — how many times has a technical glitch happened to you in one of the programs or apps you use on your computer or smartphone? And how many times have you come across a video game that doesn't work and won't run because the developers failed to catch the bugs in it? In our era, computer programs and apps are no longer just tools for entertainment — practically every business transaction around the world now happens through them. Almost every company and institution in every country has apps, software, and systems to manage its various operations, and today there are thousands of apps and programs used by millions of people. That's why any glitches or technical problems in these programs and apps can cost the companies that own them millions of dollars in losses, and may push some of their customers to stop dealing with them altogether — a disaster for any company. Because of these many technical problems that show up in computer programs and apps, especially newly developed ones, developing companies now run what's called "quality testing" — hiring experts in computer science and information technology known as "software quality assurance testers" to handle the task of testing programs and apps, searching for technical problems in them, and trying to find the coding bugs that keep them from working properly. In the next section, we'll talk in more detail about the nature of the work of "software quality assurance testers."

Meet the Writer: Waleed Abo Omiraa