4 ms·

QA is a massively underappreciated position. A QA person that knows when to automate, when to manually test, and how to report and file issues relevant to the p

QA is a massively underappreciated position. A QA person that knows when to automate, when to manually test, and how to report and file issues relevant to the project can save a significant proportion of hours on a project overall. I wish many more companies included budget for QA, it saves developers a lot of time. A bit of a side-note: this sort of analysis is a great answer to "I want to contribute to open source, how?". Some fairly simple wins for significantly better user experience, and no coding required!

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
The old wisdom in the US, is that if you have "Quality" in your job title, your career is over. At the Japanese company that I used to work for, it meant that you were one of the most powerful people in the corporation, and was a sought-after adornment. Different strokes, and all that...
- ivan_gammel 3y ago
  I always give the power to my QA team to block any release no matter what and to give higher priority to tickets than product manager. If CEO wants to override, I cover them and take the blame. This is not a guarantee that there will be no bugs in production, but it saved us a few times.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    The Japanese testers were the best I'd ever seen. They never reported a "NotABug." They could back up every report, and give exact reproduction steps. They found weird, obscure corner cases, and that was by hand (they hated automation tools). They had 3,000-line Excel spreadsheets. If even one of those rows failed, the whole shooting match (like an entire product line) could come to a halt (so that meant they had to cross their t's, and dot their i's). They seldom had "opinion-based" reports, and, when they did, the report was presented by the manager, after long discussions. The company I worked for, was renowned as one of the highest-Quality optical corporations in the world.
    - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
      > They never reported a "NotABug." "Every ticket should result in a code change, *or* a documentation change" was one of the coolest sentences I ever read on some web page.
    - MR4D 3y ago
      I worked with NTT Docomo years ago for a short time. First time I ever got to see a CMM Level 5 organization. It was insane. No wonder Japanese cars were so much better than everyone else for so long. If you ever get the chance, take it - you will learn way more about software quality than you thought existed!
      - pixl97 3y ago
        >No wonder Japanese cars were so much better Heh, this reminds me of an episode of Top Gear I was watching years ago about quality of British cars. They said something along the lines of "The manufacture sais 'eh, good enough' the moment the car is able to move under its own power.
        skibbityboop 3y ago
        Anyone who has owned a Mini would probably question whether their QA even gets that far.
    - aaronbrethorst 3y ago
      Do you have any insights into why desktop and mobile software from these companies is so universally horrible? I’m thinking of Canon’s remote tethering tools, Fuji’s instax and remote control apps for iOS, and Epson’s scanner software.
      - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
        I don't want to get into slagging these folks, but I feel your pain. In a big way. Hardware != software. Hardware companies have a really difficult time, understanding this. They insist on running in-house software projects as waterfall-based-measure-twice-cut-once-never-accept-a-bug-count-greater-than-0. Anything different is "bad quality cowboy." It can be difficult. I rapidly learned not to use the word "agile," within earshot of many senior types. This applies to US hardware companies, as well as Japanese ones. Most folks, hereabouts, seem to think of me as an unbearable, retentive, snob, but my former managers would often think of me as an undisciplined, reckless, slob.
brightball 3y ago
Good QA people are hard to find and it's a weird balance to strike. I've seen QA get run over by aggressive developers. I've seen QA people who were so good, detailed and provided clear reproduction steps that developers couldn't wait to see them work. I've seen QA people who were completely unwilling to work on efficiency improvements, automation or even testing things in parallel so they became a bottleneck to the entire organization. I've seen QA people who just fall into a routine, do exactly what is asked of them and never try to improve. Like with anything, it comes down to the person in the job. If you get QA people who are really committed to the work, take pride in what they do and are always trying to improve it's the dream. When you don't have that, it's a very mixed bag.
- ivan_gammel 3y ago
  From manager perspective, no matter what people do you have at start of the journey, the team culture can be changed. Most people are willing to learn something new and try new processes if they see the value. In more than 20 years I have seen maybe 2 or 3 pathological cases, where a person had to leave the team rather than play by new rules. It is not easy, it may take time for the team to adapt, but that’s a manager‘s job to unlock the potential of every team member and that job is doable.
- pixl97 3y ago
  >Good QA people are hard to find In general, I'd say that's because it's a position that's shit on. You're apt to be paid far less than actual dev positions. If you're a QA manager you're always pushed on by upper management to outsource and lower costs. There is none of the prestige of being a "QA 10xer" that you'd see heaped upon a dev in the same position. And I see little training/courses pushed out for QA like is typically seen for dev. It seems like QA in most companies is a necessary evil that management would take out back and shoot the first moment they could.
  - a_wild_dandan 3y ago
    Developers are artists and QA is critique. Worse, you must entertain their complaining, and pay for the privilege! The vultures. (This implicit bias would explain the treatment disparity. But it's a baseless hypothesis. It just seems like the simplest behavioral explanation.)

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

The old wisdom in the US, is that if you have "Quality" in your job title, your career is over. At the Japanese company that I used to work for, it meant that you were one of the most powerful people in the corporation, and was a sought-after adornment. Different strokes, and all that...

ivan_gammel 3y ago
I always give the power to my QA team to block any release no matter what and to give higher priority to tickets than product manager. If CEO wants to override, I cover them and take the blame. This is not a guarantee that there will be no bugs in production, but it saved us a few times.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  The Japanese testers were the best I'd ever seen. They never reported a "NotABug." They could back up every report, and give exact reproduction steps. They found weird, obscure corner cases, and that was by hand (they hated automation tools). They had 3,000-line Excel spreadsheets. If even one of those rows failed, the whole shooting match (like an entire product line) could come to a halt (so that meant they had to cross their t's, and dot their i's). They seldom had "opinion-based" reports, and, when they did, the report was presented by the manager, after long discussions. The company I worked for, was renowned as one of the highest-Quality optical corporations in the world.
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
    > They never reported a "NotABug." "Every ticket should result in a code change, *or* a documentation change" was one of the coolest sentences I ever read on some web page.
  - MR4D 3y ago
    I worked with NTT Docomo years ago for a short time. First time I ever got to see a CMM Level 5 organization. It was insane. No wonder Japanese cars were so much better than everyone else for so long. If you ever get the chance, take it - you will learn way more about software quality than you thought existed!
    - pixl97 3y ago
      >No wonder Japanese cars were so much better Heh, this reminds me of an episode of Top Gear I was watching years ago about quality of British cars. They said something along the lines of "The manufacture sais 'eh, good enough' the moment the car is able to move under its own power.
      - skibbityboop 3y ago
        Anyone who has owned a Mini would probably question whether their QA even gets that far.
  - aaronbrethorst 3y ago
    Do you have any insights into why desktop and mobile software from these companies is so universally horrible? I’m thinking of Canon’s remote tethering tools, Fuji’s instax and remote control apps for iOS, and Epson’s scanner software.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
      I don't want to get into slagging these folks, but I feel your pain. In a big way. Hardware != software. Hardware companies have a really difficult time, understanding this. They insist on running in-house software projects as waterfall-based-measure-twice-cut-once-never-accept-a-bug-count-greater-than-0. Anything different is "bad quality cowboy." It can be difficult. I rapidly learned not to use the word "agile," within earshot of many senior types. This applies to US hardware companies, as well as Japanese ones. Most folks, hereabouts, seem to think of me as an unbearable, retentive, snob, but my former managers would often think of me as an undisciplined, reckless, slob.

brightball 3y ago

Good QA people are hard to find and it's a weird balance to strike. I've seen QA get run over by aggressive developers. I've seen QA people who were so good, detailed and provided clear reproduction steps that developers couldn't wait to see them work. I've seen QA people who were completely unwilling to work on efficiency improvements, automation or even testing things in parallel so they became a bottleneck to the entire organization. I've seen QA people who just fall into a routine, do exactly what is asked of them and never try to improve. Like with anything, it comes down to the person in the job. If you get QA people who are really committed to the work, take pride in what they do and are always trying to improve it's the dream. When you don't have that, it's a very mixed bag.

ivan_gammel 3y ago
From manager perspective, no matter what people do you have at start of the journey, the team culture can be changed. Most people are willing to learn something new and try new processes if they see the value. In more than 20 years I have seen maybe 2 or 3 pathological cases, where a person had to leave the team rather than play by new rules. It is not easy, it may take time for the team to adapt, but that’s a manager‘s job to unlock the potential of every team member and that job is doable.
pixl97 3y ago
>Good QA people are hard to find In general, I'd say that's because it's a position that's shit on. You're apt to be paid far less than actual dev positions. If you're a QA manager you're always pushed on by upper management to outsource and lower costs. There is none of the prestige of being a "QA 10xer" that you'd see heaped upon a dev in the same position. And I see little training/courses pushed out for QA like is typically seen for dev. It seems like QA in most companies is a necessary evil that management would take out back and shoot the first moment they could.
- a_wild_dandan 3y ago
  Developers are artists and QA is critique. Worse, you must entertain their complaining, and pay for the privilege! The vultures. (This implicit bias would explain the treatment disparity. But it's a baseless hypothesis. It just seems like the simplest behavioral explanation.)