1. Who is The Tester?

A tester is an individual that tests Software for bugs, errors, defects, or any problem that can affect the performance of computer software or an application.

Software testers are part of a software development team and perform functional and non-functional testing using manual and automated software testing techniques.

Some kinds of testers are:

• Test automation: engineers are the programmers under the testers. They generally write scripts in various languages to perform automated tests on a system. Usually, the testing system is as a black box, but sometimes the test scripts are more on integration or unit-test level with a white-box system.
• Test engineers: write test scripts which means to be executed by hand, either by themselves or by the manual testers. These scripts should be based upon the requirements and issues that were previously reported.
• Manual testers are the ones that mainly execute (manual) test scripts and play around with the system as a kind of power user.

2. Technologies Tester Use

The goal of utilizing numerous testing methodologies in your development process is to make sure your Software can successfully operate in multiple environments and across different platforms. These can typically be broken down between functional and non-functional testing.

Functional testing involves testing the application against the business requirements. It incorporates all test types designed to guarantee each part of a piece of Software behaves as expected by using uses cases provided by the design team or business analyst. These testing methods are usually conducted in order and include:

• Unit testing.
• Integration testing.
• System testing.
• Acceptance testing.

Non-functional testing methods incorporate all test types focused on the operational aspects of a piece of Software. These include:

• Performance testing.
• Security testing.
• Usability testing.
• Compatibility testing.

The key to releasing high-quality Software that your end users can quickly adapt is to build a robust testing framework that implements both functional and non-functional software testing methodologies.

3. What Do Testers Actually Do in SDLC?

SDLC is the whole process of investigating, planning, executing, and preserving the software product. This cycle continues until the Software goes through all these processes. Testing is an essential part of this process.

It has a significant role in the whole SDLC.

The role of Software Testing revolves around STLC, which has some phases to pass the Software with primary bug-free code. Those phrases that Software Testing involves to be a significant part of SDLC are as follows:

A tester should be capable of designing test suites and should have the ability to understand usability issues. Such a tester is expected to have sound knowledge of software test design and test execution methodologies. A tester needs to have great communication skills so that he can interact with the development team efficiently. The roles and responsibilities of a usability tester in SDLC are as follows:

3.1 The Roles of a Tester

A tester is an individual that tests Software or similar projects for bugs, errors, defects, or any problem that the end-user may come across. Basically, the role of a tester is to test out products and provide reports to the project team about any issues or improvements that the product may require. The roles of testers include:

• Examine code/program for discovering problems and errors early in the system.
• Always test for simulating a system/application to perform a program operation.
• Evaluate the capabilities of the code or program over entire products.
• Review requirements and design as well as executing the code.
• Measure system/application functionality and quality of the product/project.
• Lower the maintenance cost of the software product/project.
• Provide interaction between developers and users.

3.2 The Responsibilities of Tester

Basically, testers are responsible for designing testing scenarios for usability testing, defining test conditions, and creating test designs, test cases, test procedure specifications, and test data. They may then automate or help to automate the tests. They often set up the test environments or assist system administration and network management staff in doing so.

Once the tests are implemented and run, technical testers must log tests, evaluate the results, and document problems. They monitor the testing and the test environment, often using tools for this task, and often gather performance metrics.

The responsibilities of the software tester include:

3.2.1 Interacting with the clients

It is the most common responsibility of testers to help understand the mindset and requirements of the client. While the product may technically sound reasonable, there may be the team's chances to go too deep in technical details, ignoring the actual requirements.

So, before creating test planning, testers' fundamental role is to gather the client's requirements and understand the client's perspective.

3.2.2 Understanding the architecture of the product being tested

It is essential to know the platform and the devices that the Software is going to run on. There are a variety of devices and platforms available in the current technological world. The devices may include desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices where the Software requirements are implemented.

So, it is crucial to get the client's agreement over the testing platforms and the devices. It will help in shortlisting the targeted devices and the platforms where the audience will gather.

3.2.3 Planning out the testing strategy

After gathering all the information and the requirements, it is one of the significant roles that the testers must create test designs, test processes, test cases, test-product documentation, and test data. The team must divide the tasks in hierarchal order and distribute the work for the test cases as they plan.

It is necessary to understand the business needs and opting for the correct testing techniques and the types to execute tests and find the hidden issues

3.2.4 Choosing the correct testing tools

Many helpful testing tools, such as Selenium, Protractor, Cucumber, Apache JMeter, Appium, and LoadRunner, are available in the market. It becomes necessary to use one of the tools to simulate thousands of users from a single machine. These testing tools can help a tester to generate the test data within a matter of seconds.

In Automation Testing, if decided in the testing strategies, tools like Selenium and WAPT will help. For mobile Testing automation, Appium is a great option. So, to opt for the proper testing tool, the essential role of the tester team.

3.2.5 Optimizing and Estimating the QA efforts

Depending on the testing strategies and the testing tools, the testing process can be optimized, and efforts can be estimated for any project developed for a client. The role of testers here has an important aspect that gives precise estimations of the Testing process.

Optimization of the tasks can be done by writing efficient scripts using any language. There may be some data-related queries written using SQL, which help in testing the correct test scenarios in the project.

Estimation reports can be generated based on the resources and the skill sets available in the project. Another option to analyze the resources is to create test data for the application.

3.2.6 Scheduling the Quality Assurance Activities

This task requires analyzing the overall relationship between the ongoing testing tasks, the development tasks, and the approvals by the client or the higher team member. Since the testing tools, the resources available, and the correct testing strategies are known by now. It becomes a significant role to allocate the resources on the right tasks based on the code releases at the regular interval.

It might get delayed as the coding and development part may take more effort and time. So, it is the central part of the tester team to analyze all these things and schedule the QA assurance activities accordingly.

3.2.7 Carrying out and re-testing

Testers will carry out testing as per the defined procedures and participate in walkthroughs of testing procedures. They will ensure that all tested-related work is carried out as per the defined standards and procedures.

It has as much importance as the planning part and becomes more critical when the test plan was created is needed to perform the risk analyses and some other tasks—analyzing and logging issues and providing appropriate feedback—analyzing the pros & cons of the specific plan, as well as the risks linked to each of the components and interfaces in the product.

4. Importance of Testing in SDLC

Testers are considered as one of the essential and necessary phases in SDLC because of the following reasons given below:

• Testing always helps to verify that complete software requirements are implemented correctly or not, which means it is implemented according to the defined requirements or not.
• Testing helps identify defects/bugs and ensure they are recognized/addressed before the software deployment stage.
• Testing demonstrates that the application appears to work as specifications, and the defined performance requirements are also met.
• One of the main reasons why testing is vital in SDLC is, testing always helps to verify proper integration and interaction of each component in the system.

5. What Skills Are Required For Tester?

Testers should have in-depth knowledge about software testing and a good understanding of the system, which means technical (GUI or non-GUI human interactions) and functional product aspects. To create test cases, testers must be aware of various testing techniques and which approach is best for a particular system. They should know the various phases of software testing and how testing should be carried out in each phase.

5.1 Technical Skills

Technical testers are often required to have testing skills that have nothing to do with automation. It is invaluable for any tester to be able to use the different tools available to them skillfully.

• Database/SQL.
• Linux commands.
• Test Management tools.
• Defect TRacking tools.
• Automation tools.

Here are the most valuable technical skills that a technical tester can have:

• Basic knowledge of Database/ SQL: Technical testers deal with projects that work with a large amount of data in the background. This data is stored in different types of databases like Oracle, MySQL, etc.
• Basic knowledge of Linux commands: Most software applications like Web-Services, Databases, Application Servers are deployed on Linux machines. It makes it almost crucial for technical testers to know Linux commands.
• Working with Test Management tools: Test Management is an essential aspect of a technical tester's day-to-day role. Without proper test management techniques, the software testing process will fail.
• Working with Defect Tracking tools – It is incredibly critical to properly manage defects and track them systematically using tools such as QC, Bugzilla, Jira, etc.
• Working with Automation tools: Automation tools such as Selenium, Ranorex, and Cucumber are the basic necessity of being any kind of tester, not just technical.

5.2 Soft Skills

• Analytical skills: Any good tester can benefit from excellent analytical skills. They allow you to break up a complex software system into smaller units to understand each element better.
• Communication skills: This one goes without saying. When working on a collaborative project, good communication skills can go a long way when it comes to relaying information and providing reports on tests you've run.
• Time Management & Organization Skills: Technical testing can at times turn into a demanding role. Being able to manage workload against time constrictions efficiently can benefit a tester. Other skills to have are high productivity, optimal time management, and organization skills.

Conclusion

Testing plays a vital role in software development. Techniques used for software testing differ from one company to another. Software testing is not an easy task. Every day there will be challenges in coding as well as decoding.

It is better to start testing from the very early development phase to avoid the future difficulty by correcting the bug/defect at the final/last stage. If any issue is found and fixed after development, then the cost of correction will be much higher than the cost of fixing it at earlier stages of development. Therefore, testing is an important and valuable stage in the Software Development Life Cycle In every company.