Your QA specialists work on tickets with developers and write feature tests alongside the feature. If you're doing TDD then QA can work on turning feature requi

Your QA specialists work on tickets with developers and write feature tests alongside the feature. If you're doing TDD then QA can work on turning feature requirements and designs into tests for the next iteration. Integration and performance test development and automation happens alongside, often as separate sprint tasks done by QA specialists. If your QA specialists aren't essentially developers specialising in writing test code then they probably don't belong in a modern development team.