LTS QA

Are you looking for top automation testing companies but finding yourself overwhelmed by the multitude of choices?

We understand the confusion that arises when confronted with a giant amount of information you get after looking around from this website to that research without a clear comparison and analysis.

That’s why we created a list of the best companies for automation testing around the world, designed to simplify your decision-making process.

To create these top 10 testing automation companies, we undertook comprehensive synthesis and analysis from a variety of sources, including prestige review sites such as Clutch.co, GoodFirms.co, and G2.com as well as the automation testing companies’ websites, and portfolios.
Subsequently, we refined the complete list based on the following criteria:

• Substantial experience (>3 years of experience);
• Prestigious awards and global certification in automation software testing;
• Large-scale IT talent pool;
• Core automated testing tools
• Expertise spanning diverse domains and service offerings.

Top 10 Automation Testing Companies

1. LQA – Vietnam’s Pioneer Independent Software Testing Company

As the pioneering independent Software Testing Company in Vietnam, LQA has firmly established its stature within the software quality assurance sector by providing high-quality software testing services to companies of all sizes (including Fortune 500) over the past 7 years.

Boasting a team of 150+ software testing engineers, combined with the advantage of Vietnam’s low labor cost, LQA becomes a favorable automation testing destination for enterprises that demand comprehensive quality assurance solutions, fast delivery, and budget-friendly testing services.

Having completed more than 214 projects, and serving more than 60 clients from 9 countries worldwide, LQA’s software testing services’ quality has been proven by prestigious awards and certifications like ISTQB’s Silver partner, PMP, PSM, and a 94% client satisfaction index.

Core automation testing services: Automation WinForms Tests, Automation Web UI Tests, Automation API Tests, Automation Mobile Tests, Performance Tests, Pen Tests, Selenium Automation Testing Services, etc.

Highlight automation testing tools: Selenium, Appium, Jenkins, Ranorex, Cypress, JMeter, SoapUI, LQA Solutions, etc

Industry expertise: F&B, Healthcare, Construction, eCommerce, Education, Banking & Finance.

Key clients: TOSHIBA, Panasonic, Sk Telecom, LG Electronics, MB Bank, Infiniq, SQC, Perxtech, Verb Data, Ascentis, Qualcomm, Kick ID, etc.

Rankings and international certifications:

• Top Vietnam IT Outsourcing Service in 2021 (Sao Khue Award – the most reliable and prestigious assessment program of Vietnam in the field of software and IT services)
• ISTQB Silver Partner
• Software Testing Company In Vietnam recognized by Clutch

2. QAMentor – New York-based Leading Software Testing Company

Headquartered in New York, QAMentor is a reliable software testing provider for clients from all around the globe with 313 certified QA professionals covering all time zones in 8 different countries. With more than 12 years of experience in the software QA testing industry, QAMentor has served 437 clients from startups to Fortune 500 organizations.

Core automation testing services: API Testing, Performance Testing Tools, Test Virtualization, Database Testing, Security Testing, Selenium testing services, etc.

Highlight automation testing tools: HP Unified Functional Testing Software, Selenium HQ, SmartBear-Test Complete, Telerik-Test Studio, Borland-Silk Test, Testing Anywhere

Industry expertise: Gaming, Media & Entertainment, Healthcare, Travel & Leisure, eCommerce, Education, Banking & Finance.

Key clients: HSBC, Citi, Experian, Amazon, Zyto, BrainMatch, ChefMod, ITCInfotech, etc

Rankings and International Certifications:

• CMMI Level 3 SVC + SSD v1.3 appraised;
• ISO 27001:2013, ISO 9001:2015, and ISO 20000-1 certified.

3. QualityLogic – On-shore Software Testing and QA Services

QualityLogic is a US-based QA testing provider since 1986 that has successfully completed 6,000+ onshore testing programs. QualityLogic’s on-demand and full-spectrum automation testing solutions have helped organizations improve their web and mobile applications’ quality.

Core automation testing services: API Testing, Websites & Web applications Automation Testing, Mobile Test Automation services for iOS and Android

Highlight software test automation tools and programming languages: Selenium, WebdriverIO, Cypress, Katalon Studio, Mabl, Testim, Appium, TestComplete, Espresso, XCUI Test, Kotlin, Swift, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Java, C#, and PHP.

Industry expertise: Retail, eCommerce, FinTech, Smart Energy, Media & Entertainment, Fitness, Education, Nonprofits, Telecommunications

Key clients: Verizon Wireless, Cisco, OpenADR, Hawaiian Electric, etc.

Rankings and International Certifications:

• Top Software Testing Company in 2023 recognized by Clutch
• Top Software Testing Company in the United States (2023) identified by Clutch

 

4. Impact QA – Global Software Testing & QA Consulting Company

As a global independent software testing & QA consulting company, ImpactQA has provided software testing solutions to enterprises and Fortune 500 and 1000 companies for over a decade. Having successfully completed more than 500 testing projects, Impact QA’s 350+ QA experts have helped organizations ensure the quality of their digital transformation journey using automation.

Core Automation testing services: Automated Web Testing, Automated Mobile Testing, Automated API Testing, Automated Performance Testing, Automated UI Testing, Continuous Test Automation, AI-Powered Automated App Testing, Cloud Automation Testing

Highlight automation testing tools: TestNG, Maven, Jenkins, Appium, Tricentis Tosca, Protractor, Selenium, Ranorex Studio, Micro Focus UFT One, etc.

Industry expertise: BFSI, E-learning, Healthcare, Logistics, Manufacturing, Media & Entertainment, Retail & eCommerce, Travel & Hospitality

Key Clients: Panasonic, Starbucks Coffee, Deloitte, KFC, National Geographic Learning, KPMG, Honda, etc.

Rankings and International Certifications:

• Managed Cybersecurity Service Provider of the Year (2022) recognized by The Cybersecurity Vision & Innovation Summit & Awards
• Top Software Testing Companies in 2020 recognized by Clutch
• Top Independent Software Testing Company recognized by Manifest

5. Testmatick – Leading Provider of Quality Software Testing

Established in 2009, TestMatick masters more than 20 types of QA services and possesses deep expertise in various domains. With 125 highly-skilled software testers, Testmatick has helped 68 clients worldwide execute 3,568,997 test cases and detect 25,6987 bugs.

Core Automation testing services: API Testing, Database Testing, Performance Testing, Security Testing,

Highlight automation testing tools: Xamarin Test Cloud, MonkeyTalk, Jenkins, TestNG, Maven, Eclipse, Selenium, Ranorex, Telerik Test Studio, Visual Studio Test Professional, Mercury Quick Test Pro / WinRunner, AutomatedQA TestComplete, Appium, TestPlant, etc.

Industry expertise: BFSI, Travel & Hospitality, Media & Entertainment, Game, etc

Key Clients: Hubrick, DataRockets, KEYPR, Sweetrush, Doppler Labs, Redmadrobot, SolarWinds, eWave, Axia, etc.

Rankings and International Certifications: Best Company to Work With recognized by Goodfirm

6. QA Wolf – End-to-end Test Automation Company

Founded in 2019 in Seattle, QA Wolf is a hybrid end-to-end QA automation company and platform that provides a comprehensive software testing plan, automated test script writing, and QA team setup.

With unlimited, parallel runs and Zero Flake Guarantee, QA Wolf guarantees to achieve 80% end-to-end automated test coverage within 4 months.

Besides that, all test code is written in Javascript via their open-source platform which is built on top of Microsoft’s Playwright.

Core Automation testing services: SMS and phone calls, Emails, iFrames, Chrome extensio9ns, Multi-user flows, Integrations, and APIs

Highlight software test automation tools: QA Wolf customized testing platform & tools.

Industry expertise: Social network, Property management, HR & Recruiting, Blockchain & Web3, eCommerce & Retail, Healthcare, Fintech, etc

Key Clients: Bubble, Mailchimp, Gumroad, Cohere, Napster, AutoTrader.ca, Pequity, Regal, Vividly, Makersplace, etc.

7. UTOR – QA services and Software Testing Company

Since 2016, QA UTOR – a software testing company from Tallinn, Estonia has provided end-to-end QA services for enterprises from QA audit, QA staffing, UAT, QA outsourcing, DevOps testing, to automation testing, and more. UTOR’s automation testing process can ensure 24/7 test runs and maximize test coverage.

Core Automation testing services: Test Automation Strategy, Automated Regression Testing, GUI Test Automation, Automated Performance Testing, Automation Script Maintenance, API Testing, Automated Web Testing, Mobile Automation Testing, etc.

Highlight automation testing tools: Selenium, Appium, Cucumber, Kotlin, Cypress, Jasmine, Mocha, Chai, WebDriverIO, etc.

Industry expertise: Healthcare, Finance, eCommerce, Digital Marketing, Crypto Industry, Education, etc

Key Clients: Salesflow, Hallam, Reface, InteliGems, sweet.tb, SmartSuite, Eataly, etc.

Rankings and International Certifications:

• Global B2B Leader according to Clutch
• 4.9 average rating on GoodFirms
• Top-rated software testing company on Upwork

8. DeviQA – Proven Software Testing Partner

Coming from Poland, DeviQA has been one of the global leaders in the quality assurance and testing market for over 12 years. Having completed 300+ testing projects from scratch, DeviQA offers a wide range of software testing and QA services for both web and mobile applications.

Core Automation testing services: Test Strategy Design, GUI Test Automation, Test Framework Building, Performance Testing, Regression Testing, Regression Testing, Web Apps Automated testing, Mobile Apps automated testing, API testing, etc.

Highlight automation testing tools: Appium, Cucumber, Calabash, Mocha, Robot, Selenium, TestNG, Playwright, Cypress, CodeceptJS, Watir, etc.

Industry expertise: Healthcare, Fintech, Banking, Cybersecurity, Real Estate, Retail, Social & Media, Education, Travel, Blockchain, etc

Key Clients: Mimecast, Biznessapps, Sprinklr, WeHeartIt, SoftNas, UBTteam, Connexient, SimplePractise, TechSee, and many others.

Rankings and International Certifications:

• The finalist of the Software Testing Award in the nomination “Best Test Automation Project – Functional.”
• ISO 9001:2015
• ISO 20000:2018
• ISO 27001:2013
• Top Software Testing Companies in 2023 recognized by superbcompanies.com
• Top B2B Companies Global 2022 recognized by Clutch

 

9. QAlified – QA and Software Testing Company from Uruguay

Founded in 1992, QAlified is a well-established QA and Software testing company specializing in solving quality problems by reducing risks, maximizing efficiency, and strengthening organizations. They have served more than 100 worldwide clients and catered to 600 projects in various domains.

Core Automation testing services: Mobile App and Web App Automated Testing, Performance Testing, Security Testing, Test Automation Consultant, etc.

Highlight automation testing tools: Selenium, Katalon, Appium, SoapUI, Postman, etc.

Industry expertise: Finance, Government, Healthcare, etc

Key Clients: NASA, Gemological Institute of America (GIA), BlueCross & BlueShield, MAPFRE, Boscov’s, Liquibase, Loog Guitars, Santander, etc.

Rankings and International Certifications:

• 4.8 average rating on Clutch
• 4.9 average rating on Goodfirm

10. HikeQA – Independent Quality Assurance Agency

With 3 years of providing software testing solutions with a dedicated team of … engineers, clear communication capability, flexible 24/7 support, and timely delivery, HikeQA has become a rising star in the QA services industry. By using well-studied and proven strategies and various cutting–edge tools, HikeQA automated testing services can ally itself with clients to launch and operate fast and flawless software.

Core Automation testing services: Mobile app and Web app automated testing, performance testing, Regression Testing, etc.

Highlight automation testing tools: Selenium, Protractor, Appium, etc.

Industry expertise: Recruiting, Real estate, Property management, Travel, F&B, Finance, Media & Entertainment, etc

Key Clients: Everreal, Optix, Artrepreneur, Del Mar Vacations, Evati, The WorldCast On Demand Media Platform®, etc.

Rankings and International Certifications:

• 4.9 average rating on Clutch
• 5.0 average rating on Goodfirm

How To Choose the Best Automation Testing Companies?

Prior to selecting the top automation testing companies, it’s crucial to establish precise requirements. Clearly outlining your automated testing requirements, including the type of software, devices, and testing frameworks will help you communicate your needs effectively to potential providers.

When in the process of choosing the best automation testing companies, decision-makers should thoroughly explore several foundational requirements. To aid you in making a well-informed choice, we have compiled a catalog of key factors to take into account:

• Expertise and experience: Check for the automation testing companies’ proven track record in software automation testing. Review their portfolio, case studies, and client testimonials to assess their experience and expertise in your domain and technology stack.
• Technical capabilities: Evaluate the automation testing companies’ technical skills. They should have proficiency in the relevant automated testing tools, frameworks, programming languages, and automation methodologies. Make sure their testing tools are up-to-date and aligned with your project requirements.
• Cost and budget: While cost is a factor in QA outsourcing, don’t just base your conclusion on price. Focus on the value and the services’ quality you’ll receive.
• Legal and security assurance: Review the automation testing companies’ terms of engagement, including contracts, and other confidentiality agreements such as NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), to assure privacy and data security for your organizations.
• Trial period: Look for automation testing companies that offer trial periods or pilot projects. Consider starting with a smaller project or a trial period that will help you assess concisely the company’s capabilities before committing to a long-term partnership.

What is Automated Testing?

Automated testing is a software testing technique that uses automation tools and test sequences to automate the processes of examining a software’s functionality to ensure it meets the requirements before being released.
Here are some test types that are normally automated:

• Code analysis,
• Unit tests,
• Integration tests,
• Acceptance tests,
• API tests,
• Regression tests,
• System tests,
• User interface (UI) tests,
• Smoke tests.

When to Use Automation Testing?

When it comes to software quality assurance, there are two popular types, manual testing and automation testing.
Manual testing is the traditional and fundamental test method that is best used when we don’t have a clear understanding of the software products or when the systems haven’t been stable.
On the other hand, automation testing is considered a high-tech test method and is often applied to reduce resources and time consumed for the system that is stably functioning.

Before deciding to choose which testing types for your project, it is crucial to conduct a thorough comparison between manual testing and automation testing. Each testing type has its own advantages and disadvantages in different situations.
And here are particular scenarios in which you need help from the external automation testing companies:

• When dealing with repetitive, duplicative tasks within a stable system
• When aiming to minimize manual intervention
• When striving to accelerate testing cycles and overall software QA processes in cases where the system experiences frequent updates
• When aiming for improved transparency in testing activities, involving clear representation of test process data, performance metrics, and error rates through statistics and graphs.

Pros and Cons of Automation Testing

Here are the pros and cons of automation testing:

1. Pros of Automation Testing:

• Time efficiency: Automation testing significantly decreases the time required to implement repetitive and time-consuming software testing cases. Automated tests allow faster and up-to-date feedback on software quality by running testing overnight or during off-hours.
• Reusability: Automation testing scripts can be reused across different software versions or even different projects, saving time and effort in test case development.
• Consistency: Automated tests execute the exact steps and checks consistently, avoiding the risk of human errors raised by manual testing.
• Regression testing: Automated tests are particularly effective for regression testing, as they quickly notify if there is any unintentional side effects arise during new code changes.
• Coverage: Automation can help reach more expansive test coverage by running a huge number of test cases that might be impractical to manual testing.
• Cost savings: For a long-term period, automation testing can bring cost efficiency, as it decreases the demand for vast manual testing efforts in every release cycle.
• Data-driven testing: Automation allows straightforward parameterization of test inputs, enabling the same test script to be implemented with diverse data sets.
• Continuous integration/delivery (CI/CD) integration: Automated tests can be seamlessly integrated into CI/CD pipelines, providing immediate feedback on code changes and assuring the software’s quality in continuous deployment conditions.

2. Cons of Automation Testing:

• Initial setup time: Developing automation testing scripts can take time, especially for complicated software applications. The initial investment in setting up automation tests might not deliver immediate outcomes.
• Initial cost: Even though automation can lead to cost savings in the long run, there is an upfront cost for implementing automation tools and training the QA team.
• Skill requirement: Automation testing requires technical skills, including proficiency in scripting languages automated testing tools, and frameworks. Testers and QA engineers need official training to become proficient in automation testing.
• Not suitable for all tests: Some tests, such as usability testing or tests requiring human assessment, are better suited for manual tests.

Why is LQA An Excellent Choice Among Top Automation Testing Companies?

Among so many good automation testing companies, which companies are best for automation testing? We understand the challenges that you, as decision-makers have to face, in how to create a budget-friendly automation testing strategy, while assuring your software product’s quality.

That’s why LQA works hard to deliver a customized software QA solution package for your business’s requirements. We stand out by:

• Expertise in Industries: Our specialized experience guarantees efficient and exceptional outcomes, verified by prestigious awards like ISTQB, PMP, and ISO.

• Budget Efficiency: LQA’s automation testing solutions ensure tasks are completed effectively within your budget, leveraging Vietnamese low labor costs.
• TCoE Compliance: We align with the TCoE framework that helps optimize QA processes, resources, and technologies for your software testing project.
• Strategic Location: Vietnam’s stable socio-economic status and government policies ensure timely project delivery. Tax incentives and VAT exemptions further reduce outsourcing costs.

• Abundant IT Talent: Our diverse pool of testers accelerates time-to-market by encompassing various specialties like Mobile and web app testing, Automation (Winform, Web UI, API), Performance, Pen Test, Automotive, Embedded IoT, and Game testing.

Our Clients Also Asked Us

 

Wrapping Up

Automation testing delivers multiple benefits in terms of efficiency, consistency, and coverage, particularly for regression testing and repetitive tasks. However, it demands careful setup, skill development, ongoing maintenance, and a precise understanding of its restrictions to maximize its advantages. That’s why it is highly recommended that businesses should have professional automation testing companies to ensure the utmost quality of IT products.

Searching for top companies for automation testing requires considerable effort and time. This process includes investigating vendors’ expertise, time zone differences, and pricing.

Each automation testing companies have their advantages and disadvantages, therefore, before making the final call, it is crucial to dig deep into your project’s requirements to pick the right partner.

Should you have any further inquiries regarding automation testing companies or automation software QA, please drop LQA a line to find the best answers.

In the field of software testing, there are many software Testing methods applied today. In this article, we will share three basic methods that are most commonly applied and its advantages and disadvantages. They are black box testing, white box testing. and gray box testing.

1. Black Box Testing Method

1.1. Black Box Testing Method – Definition

Black box testing is a method of software testing that examines the functionality of an application (eg: what the software does) without peering into its internal structures or workings

1.2. Black Box Testing Method – Advantages:

• Testers will not need to understand any code knowledge.
• Can find more bugs.
• Testing is done independently by developers, allowing objective views.

1.3. Black Box Testing Method – Disadvantages:

• Only a small number of inputs can be checked and many program paths or few sections will not be checked.
• The tests may be redundant if the software designer / developer has run the test.

2. White Box Testing Method

2.1. White Box Testing Method – Definition

White box testing (also known as clear box testing, glass box testing, transparent box testing or structural testing) is a method of testing software that tests internal structures or workings off an application, as opposed to black box testing.

While white box testing can be applied at the unit, integration and system levels of the software testing process, it is usually done at the unit level.

2.2. White Box Testing Method – Advantages:

• Automate easily
• Provide clear technical-based rules when stopping testing.
• Forcing testing experts to think carefully about error testing so the bug will be thorough.

2.3. White Box Testing Method – Disadvantages

• It takes time and effort.
• There will still be errors.
• Testing by this method requires extensive experience and expertise in testing.

3. Gray Box Testing Method

3.1. Gray Box Testing Method – Definition

Gray box testing is a combination of white box testing and black box testing. The aim of this testing is to search for the defects if any due to improper structure or improper usage of applications.

3.2. Gray Box Testing Method – Advantages:

• It is a combination of black and white box testing, so might be more optimal.

• Testing by gray box method can design complex test scenarios in a smarter way.

3.3. Gray Box Testing Method – Disadvantages:

• It is difficult to link errors when performing a gray box test for a distributed system application.

4. Comparison Between 3 Software Testing Methodologies

Black-Box Testing	Grey-Box Testing	White-Box Testing
The internal workings of an application is necessary	The tester has limited knowledge of the internal workings of the application.	Tester has full knowledge of the internal workings of the application.
Performed by end-users and also by testers and developers.	Performed by end-users and also by testers and developers.	Normally done by testers and developers.
Testing is based on external expectations – Internal behavior of the application is unknown.	Testing is done on the basis of high-level database diagrams and data flow diagrams.	Internal workings are fully known and the tester can design test data accordingly.
It is exhaustive and the least time-consuming.	Partly time-consuming and exhaustive.	The most exhaustive and time-consuming type of testing.
Not suited for algorithm testing.	Not suited for algorithm testing.	Suited for algorithm testing.

Above are the 3 most basic software testing methods that any programmer needs to know. Choosing which method depends on the ability as well as the project you carry out.

Final Thoughts on Software Testing Methods

The diverse landscape of software testing methods plays a pivotal role in ensuring the reliability, functionality, and user satisfaction of software products. 

By strategically incorporating Black Box, White Box and Gray Box testing approaches, development teams can uncover issues early, enhance overall software quality, and deliver products that meet both user expectations and industry standards. Embracing this trinity of testing methods empowers developers to navigate the complexities of modern software development with confidence and precision.

Should you have any questions related to methods of testing, contact us for further support.

Lotus Quality Assurance (LQA)

• Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474
• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://www.lotus-qa.com/

Frequently Asked Questions about Methods of Testing

 

 

Quality assurance (QA) is always of paramount importance to any IT business as it can make or break an IT product or service. That’s why millions of IT firms outsource software testing to top software testing companies to ensure the highest caliber for their web apps, mobile apps, and electronic devices.

Among a handful of software testing companies, we have delved deep, synthesized, and analyzed data to shortlist the top 10 trusted testing partners for businesses in all industries to pick and choose.

• Criteria for this list boil down to:
• Considerable years of experience (>5 years);
• Prestigious awards and global certification in testing;
• Verified client reviews (>4.7 average scores);
• Large-scale IT talent pool (>90 employees);
• Diverse domains, and technology expertise.

Let’s zoom in on juggernauts in software testing and honest reviews of their service!

Top 10 Software Testing Companies

1. Lotus Quality Assurance

Lotus Quality Assurance is the first independent Software Testing Company in Vietnam. Currently, we have subsidiaries in Japan & the United States to completely fulfill clients’ demands for quality assurance of diverse domains regardless of geographical distance.

During the years of operation, LQA has developed experience in industry specialization to best support our client’s growth. Thanks to the relentless efforts of our passionate and talented team throughout the years, we have earned trust from clients in the most demanding markets of the USA, Japan, Korea, and more.

Besides, belonging to LTS Group’s solution ecosystem, LQA can also provide software development services, becoming a one-stop destination for businesses when looking for technology or digital transformation solution.

• Headquarters: Vietnam.
• Founded year: 2016
• Employees: 300+
• Hourly rate: <25$ / hr
• Core Services: SW/HW integration testing, Mobile Application Testing, Automation Testing, Web Application Testing, Embedded Software Testing, Quality Assurance Consultation, QA Staff hiring, etc.
• Key Clients: TOSHIBA, Panasonic, Sk Telecom, LG Electronics, MB Bank, Infiniq, SQC, Perxtech, Verb Data, Ascentis, Qualcomm, Kick ID, etc.

• Rankings and International Certifications:

1. Top Vietnam IT Outsourcing Service in 2021 (Sao Khue Award – the most reliable and prestigious assessment program of Vietnam in the field of software and IT services)
2. ISTQB Silver Partner
3. #1 Software Testing Company In Vietnam recognized by Clutch

2. DeviQA

DeviQA is one of the well-known software testing outsourcing companies that collaborate with large enterprises and SMEs across diverse domains. Whether you need to set up a QA team from scratch, optimize an existing QA process, or scale up an in-house team, DeviQA is a global leader in Quality Assurance to go for.

• Headquarters: Poland
• Founded year: 2010
• Employees: 200+
• Hourly rate: $25 – $49 / hr
• Core Services: QA outsourcing, QA consulting, automation testing, manual testing, performance testing, functional testing, full cycle testing, mobile app testing, web app testing, API testing, etc
• Key Clients: Mimecast, Biznessapps, Sprinklr, WeHeartIt, SoftNas, UBTteam, Connexient, SimplePractise, etc
• Rankings and International Certifications:

1. ISO 9001:2015
2. ISO 20000:2018
3. ISO 27001:2013
4. Top Company for Software Testing in 2022 recognized by Clutch
5. Top 1000 Companies Global in 2022 recognized by Clutch
6. Leading Testing Providers in 2021 recognized by Software Testing News
7. Top QA & Software Testing Companies in 2020 recognized by techreviewer.co

3. QualityLogic

QualityLogic is a well-established and fast-growing software testing company. With over 30 years of experience in the QA industry, they yield seasoned testing experts for myriad companies working in multiple domains. QualityLogic supports businesses with QA processes and proven QA solutions.

• Headquarters: Idaho, USA.
• Founded year: 1986
• Employees: 51 – 200
• Hourly rate: $25 – $49 / hr
• Core Services: Mobile App Testing, Web App Testing, API Testing, etc.
• Key Clients: Verizon Wireless, Cisco, OpenADR, Hawaiian Electric, etc.
• Rankings and International Certifications:

1. Top Software Testing Company in 2023 recognized by Clutch
2. Top Software Testing Company in the United States (2023) identified by Clutch

4. QAMentor

QA Mentor is an award-winning software testing company headquartered in New York with 15 offices worldwide. Serving 437 clients from startups to Fortune 500 organizations in 28 countries and nine industries, QAMentor is a reliable partner when it comes to software testing services.

• Headquarters: New York, USA.
• Founded year: 2010
• Employees: 313
• Hourly rate: <$25/ hr
• Core Services: Mobile Testing, Functional Testing, Automation Testing, Compatibility Testing, Load/Stress/Performance Testing, Security/Penetration Testing, Crowdsourced Testing, Regression Testing, Migration Testing, Database Testing, API Testing, AI Testing, Internet of Things Testing, Big Data Testing.
• Key Clients: HSBC, Citi, Experian, Amazon, Zyto, BrainMatch, ChefMod, ITCInfotech, etc.
• Rankings and International Certifications:

1. CMMI Level 3 SVC + SSD v1.3 appraised;
2. ISO 27001:2013, ISO 9001:2015, and ISO 20000-1 certified;
3. 102 Industry Awards

5. A1QA

A1QA provides Software QA and Testing Services to critical players in the global market including Fortune 500 companies. The global presence gives A1QA an opportunity to deliver QA services in any time zone and comply with any project requirements.

• Headquarters: Colorado, USA.
• Founded year: 2003
• Employees: 1100+
• Hourly rate: $25 – $49 / hr
• Core Services: Full-cycle testing, Consulting, Web Applications, Automation, etc.
  Key Clients: Adidas, QIWI, Pearson, Kaspersky, InterCall, Equisys, ForexClub, etc.
• Rankings and International Certifications:

1. ISO 9001:2015
2. ISO 27001:2013
3. Agile certifications: PMI – ACP (Agile Certified Practioner)
4. PMP certification (Project Management Professional)
5. IAOP Global Outsourcing 100 in 2023 recognized by Forrester
6. Leading Testing Providers 2023 recognized by Software Testing News
7. Globee Awards Gold Winner (IT World Awards Information Technology Cyber Security)
8. Top Software Testing Companies recognized by Goodfirm

6. QASource

QASource is one of the renowned software testing companies in the USA providing QA services for over 23 years to industries like Cyber Security, Legal, Healthcare, Finance, Retail, Startup, etc. On-time delivery and customized solution are what make QASource a chosen partner for businesses of all kinds and sizes to manage the quality of their software products while keeping cost efficiency.

• Headquarters: USA.
• Founded year: 2002
• Employees: 1400+
• Hourly rate: $25 – $49 / hr
• Core Services: Automation Testing, Manual Testing, API Testing, Mobile QA, Security Testing, Performance Testing, QA Analysis, Salesforce Testing, etc..
• Key Clients: eBay, Ford, TechSmith, IBM, Facebook, etc.
• Rankings and International Certifications:

1. Top Software Testing Company in 2023 recognized by Clutch
2. ISO 9001:2015
3. ElectronicsForYou #1 Software Testing Company

7. ImpactQA

ImpactQA is regarded as one of the giants in software testing and QA consulting. They serve businesses of all sizes, from startups, and SMEs, to Fortune 500 companies across multiple domains including healthcare, e-learning, eCommerce, media, logistics, real estate, etc.

• Headquarters: USA.
• Founded year: 2011
• Employees: 250+
• Hourly rate: $25 – $49 / hr
• Core Services: automation testing, functional testing, mobile app testing, security testing, IoT testing, performance testing.
• Key Clients: Panasonic, Starbucks Coffee, Deloitte, KFC, National Geographic Learning, KPMG, Honda, etc.
• Rankings and International Certifications:

1. Managed Cybersecurity Service Provider of the Year (2022) recognized by The Cybersecurity Vision & Innovation Summit & Awards
2. Top Software Testing Companies in 2020 recognized by Clutch
3. Top Independent Software Testing Company recognized by Manifest

8. AppSierra

AppSierra is known as a fast-growing company in QA services providing software testing solutions to businesses of all sizes and across various domains. From microservices testing, blockchain testing, IoT testing, and Big Data testing, to CRM testing – all of these are within the coverage of AppSierra capabilities.

• Headquarters: Vietnam.
• Founded year: 2015
• Employees: 150+
• Hourly rate: $25 – $49 / hr
• Core Services: compatibility testing, functional testing, performance testing, automation testing, usability testing, localization testing, QA engineering, etc.
• Key Clients: Swiggy, Barcode Inc, Stax by Fattmerchant, Rocketium, Avora, Ubibot, MoneyView, Leap Finance, EnthusiastGaming, etc.
• Rankings and International Certifications:

1. TOP 100 Software Testing Companies in the UK recognized by Manifest
2. Top Software Testing Company in 2021, 2022, and 2023 recognized by Clutch

9. QA Madness

QA Madness is a leading independent software testing company from Poland. They help businesses unleash high-quality software products by creating custom-testing solutions and plans tailored to your project requirements.

• Headquarters: Poland.
• Founded year: 2013
• Employees: 50 – 249
• Hourly rate: <$25 / hr
• Core Services: Functional Testing, GUI Testing, Regression Testing, Acceptance Testing, Compatibility Testing, Load Testing, Integration Testing, Localization Testing, QA Audit & Consulting, etc.
• Key Clients: Orderly, Varis, Vaimo, DotcomWeavers, Lunaphore, Solarflare studio, Fishermen Labs, Naduvi, Rock Paper Reality, Acumen Commercial Insights, etc.
• Rankings and International Certifications:

1. ISTQB® Partner Program Silver Member
2. 1 On G2 “Best Testing and QA Providers” List

10. PFLB

Headquartered in Silicon Valley, PFLB is a provider of premier load and performance testing services for enterprises in all industries. They help businesses test their applications’ performance, resolve bottleneck localization, and craft performance optimization guidelines.

• Headquarters: USA.
• Founded year: 2008
• Employees: 50 – 249
• Hourly rate: $50 – $99 / hr
• Core Services: Performance Testing, Website Performance, Mobile Application Performance, Enterprise System Performance, IVR & Contact Centers Performance, etc.
• Key Clients: Samsung, Tinder, Moody’s, Udacity, KFC, SolwarWinds, RiptLabs, Raiffeisen Bank, etc.
• Rankings and International Certifications:

1. The European Software Testing Awards Finalist 2019
2. Top Testing Services Companies recognized by Goodfirms
3. Top QA and Software Testing Companies in 2022 recognized by techreviewer.co
4. Top BPO Companies in 2021 recognized by Clutch

How to Choose the Best-fit Quality Assurance Company?

Before choosing any vendor, you have to define a clear requirement first. Clearly identifying the testing types needed for your projects, working scope, timelines, and any technologies or framework involved is essential. This first step will allow you to easily assess if the outsourcing vendor meets your needs.

When choosing an outsourcing software testing provider, decision-makers should consider several fundamental requirements. In order to help you make an informed decision, we have created a list of key considerations:

• Experience and Expertise: When choosing a provider, it is crucial to select one with a proven track record and relevant experience in executing successful testing cases, preferably in your domain. In addition, it is necessary to thoroughly review their industry knowledge, industry awards, and certifications.
• Privacy and Confidentiality: Security is a considerable concern when outsourcing IT projects to an external testing vendor. Therefore, you have to ensure that your outsourcing vendor has strict protection policies, confidentiality agreements, and any relevant certifications (e.g., ISO 27001) to protect your sensitive data and information.
• Communication and Collaboration: Effective communication between your in-house team and outsourced software testing vendor is the key to every outsourcing project’s success. Hence, you have to ensure that your vendor has the ability to provide regular updates and reports while delivering transparent and responsive communication channels.
• Staff Testing Skills and Certifications: When evaluating a potential outsource software testing team, it is imperative to assess the qualifications and skills of its members through their certifications, training, and experience. Furthermore, you must ensure that the team possesses the expertise needed to handle your project’s specific requirements.
• Scalability and Flexibility: Given the importance of flexibility in a software testing services provider, you should consider if they can adjust their testing efforts and necessary resources (staff, infrastructure, etc.) based on your project’s needs. It is crucial that you evaluate their ability to accommodate changing requirements, timelines, or project scope.
• Cost-effectiveness: Even though cost shouldn’t be the deciding factor, it’s important to make sure “you get what you paid for”. Therefore, make sure you’ve compared the cost to the value they provide, including their expertise, quality, and continual support.

LQA’s Tailored Testing Services for IT Businesses

Among so many good choices, which companies are best for testing? We understand the challenges that you, as decision-makers have to face, in how to balance between quality and cost-efficiency. That’s why LQA works hard not to deliver mediocre off-the-shelf services like thousands of independent software testing companies. We aim to deliver a customized software QA solution package for your business’s requirements. We stand out by:

Industry specialization

LQA can fulfill your requirements and exceed your client’s expectations in a time-efficiency way with our experience in industry specialization.

Being the first independent software testing in Vietnam, we have more than 7 years of experience in being a reliable safeguard to detect all software bugs and issues before being delivered to the market.

Our QA solutions and processes have been proven by international and prestigious awards and certifications in software testing including ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualifications Board), PMP (Project Management Professional), and ISO.

Cost-effectiveness

LQA offers IT experts who can efficiently handle tasks while assuring your optimized budget by taking advantage of the cost gaps in the Vietnam outsourcing market:

• Lower labor costs compared to many Western countries enable businesses to access high-quality quality assurance engineers at more affordable rates (only around $12,000 to $18,000 per year)
• Lower cost of living and operating a business in Vietnam than many other developed countries allow businesses to reduce overhead expenses (infrastructure, equipment, training, and hiring, etc)

Favorable location

We can ensure timely project delivery thanks to Vietnam’s stable socio-economic status and supportive policies:

• The Vietnamese government has been proactively promoting and supporting the IT industry through The National Digital Transformation Programme 2020–2025
• Vietnam’s tax incentives indirectly help foreign businesses reduce costs for IT outsourcing projects. Science, and technology businesses in Vietnam are eligible for a 4-year tax exemption and a 50% reduction in corporate income tax for the following 9 years. Additionally, software projects are eligible for VAT exemption, including outsourced software projects in Vietnam.

Compliance with TCoE

TCoE (Testing Center of Excellence) is a framework to optimize strategic assets such as processes, resources, and technologies. ​LQA’s commitment to TCoE compliance empowers us to provide your testing project with a seamless blend of top-notch resources and methodologies, assuring exceptional results and satisfaction.

An abundant IT talent pool

You can accelerate time to market by leveraging our vast pool of on-demand enthusiastic testers, including:

• 50% of QA engineers for Mobile and Web app testing
• 18% of QA engineers for Automation Winform, Automation Web UI, Automation API, Performance, and Pen Test
• 20% of QA engineers for Automotive and Embedded IOT test
• 12% of QA engineers for Mobile & Web Game testing

Furthermore, the skills and qualifications of our 150 highly-skilled software testing engineers are proven by prestigious international certifications such as ISTQB, PMI, PSM, etc. In addition to that, our software testing engineers are constantly learning and honing their technical skills on a daily basis.

Language competence

Language ability is a fundamental aspect of our testing process, as effective communication is critical for successful collaboration. Our software testers are not only fluent in your language but also open to adapting to your country’s cultural context to deliver exceptional collaboration.

Advanced Technology

By leveraging leading-edge testing devices, tools, and frameworks, our team ensures your software runs smoothly, ensuring a flawless user experience and a competitive edge in the market. With our advanced and diverse technological solutions, you can be confident in detecting all the possible bugs and issues promptly before your users do.

The Brand You Trust, Trust Us

When it comes to reliability, our track record speaks for itself. Big names such as TOSHIBA, Panasonic, Sk Telecom, LG Electronics, MB Bank, Infiniq, SQC, Perxtech, Verb Data, Ascentis, Qualcomm, Kick ID, and many more have placed their faith in our solutions.

Our Clients Also Asked Us

The Bottom Line

Software Quality Assurance (SQA) is an essential phase in every software life cycle. It helps prevent bugs, decreases development costs, and enhances performance. Many companies choose to outsource to external software testing companies, while others choose to set up their own in-house quality assurance department.

Software QA Outsourcing has its own pros and cons. However, setting up an in-house software quality testing team can present much more challenges such as costly infrastructure and resources, time-consuming recruiting and training processes, limited expertise, and scalability. That’s why many global companies now prefer outsourcing their software testing to an external vendor.

Searching for a reliable and suitable vendor of software testing services requires considerable effort and time as IT businesses are supposed to investigate vendors’ expertise, language proficiency, cultural compatibility, time zone differences, and pricing. Each provider has their advantages and disadvantages, therefore, before IT firms make the final call, dig deep into the project’s requirements to pick the right partner.

Should you have any further inquiries regarding software testing, please drop LQA a line to find the best answers.

Offshore Testing Center is an outsourcing testing company that supplies you all the infrastructure, support, human resources and equipment necessary to remotely run an entire software testing team, but located in another country where it has much lower living standards.

>> Learn more about Market Insights – Why IT Outsourcing To Vietnam?

7 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD SET UP OFFSHORE TESTING CENTER

• Time Efficiency: Take advantage of time zone differences to optimize 24 hours of work. OQAC as an “extended arm” helps to shorten life cycle but improved quality.
• Team Scalability: To meet the everchanging demand of HR, OQAC can apply different engagement models with flexibility.
• Cost Saving: Thanks to geographical pricing, OQAC ensure highly skilled employees while reducing operating expenses.
• Focus on Core Competencies: In-house QA team can focus on strategic business tasks, unbothered of the trivial ones.
• High Quality: An OQAC allows you to access to a larger pool of IT talents, diversify skill sets, eliminate the burden of staff shortage.
• No Bias: Eliminating the trails of in-house testers and approaching fresh perspectives from OQAC to get the most objective and accurate quality assessment
• Quick team ramp-up: OQAC allows businesses to set up on-demand teams flexibly, quick team ramp-up or ramp-down anytime.

The specific and practical case studies below will demonstrate 7 benefits that Offshore Testing Center brings to businesses.

Offshore Testing Center Case Study 1: A well-being measurement instrument save 50% test effort and speed up time to market with Automation testing

Client’s Description

The client has the definitive well-being measurement instrument, and they use it to help their clients understand the opportunities for improvement in the populations across five key well-being elements: purpose, social, financial, community, and physical. 

They apply comprehensive, highly configurable Well-Being Improvement Solutions to keep people healthy, mitigate lifestyle risks and optimize care.

Business Need

They deliver 3-month releases and they are doing testing manually. They need to apply automation to reduce time to market and reduce test effort.

Challenges

The system is complicated, including Embrace (desktop app), Well Being Portal (web app), Well Being Plus (mobile app), Data Warehouse, and Web services. The automation solution must do End-2-End Test.

LQA’s Offshore Testing Center Solutions

• Provide the set of tools for each component: Ranorex for the desktop app; Selenium for the web app with multiple browsers; ETL Validation for ETL Testing.
• Use CI – Jenkins to integrate tests to automate End-2-End tests.

Test Result:

• Automated test cases: 36
• Bugs detected: 92
• Regression runs: 2000

Offshore Testing Center Case Study 2: Leading restaurant chain model in Vietnam maximized end-to-end test flow and achieved 30% faster time to market

Client’s Description

• The client is the pioneer and the leading restaurant chain model in Vietnam.
• They currently own more than 21 brands and nearly 400 restaurants, serving 17 million customers annually, and is still expanding.

Business Need

• They have approximately 20 applications and each has 5-6 releases per year. The demand for testing hence is huge, which makes their current QA team struggle to handle it.
• They need to apply UI automation testing for their mobile and web applications. Additionally, they require APIs for backend testing to reduce the time to market and test effort, as well as increase quality.

Challenges

• End-2-end test flow is complicated. It requires actions on various platforms.
• The data test is huge for the API test, making it hard for the current manual test to cover.

LQA’s Offshore Testing Center Solutions

• Build automation framework for both mobile testing and web testing.
• Develop API test program (using Java), support data-driven to test with a huge dataset.
• Java, Maven, TestNG, Appium (to support mobile), and Selenium (to support Web applications) are used.

Test Result:

• Test cases: 71
• Bugs detected: 3
• Regression runs: 10
• The time for executing a regression cycle has been reduced from 7 days/week to 4 days/week.

Offshore Testing Center Case Study 3: Big Insurance Company in Vietnam Achieved 30% Faster time to market 

Client’s Description

The client is a big insurance company in Vietnam. They have a wide relationship with other insurance groups such as AIG, AXA, Amlin, Munich Re, Swiss Re, Hannover Re, Lloyd’s, Atrium Space, Catlin, ACE, Hiscox, SCOR, SpaceCo, Watkins… They work in areas of Insurance, Life, Securities, Funds, Banks, and Invest.

Business Need

The client maintains more than 40 applications and 30 services but they did not have enough effort to run regression testing for new changes.

Challenges

We have to increase testing coverage by automation testing and continuously integrating with the development environment which can make it easy to see test results for each deployment.

LQA’s Offshore Testing Center Solutions

• Do POC and assessment with the current system.
• Propose a solution to automate testing for web, and mobile applications.
• Implement automation testing for systems.

Test Result:

• Test cases: 41
• Regression runs: 27
• Time for executing a regression cycle: for one app, it is reduced from 2 hours to 45’; for another app, it is reduced from 1.5 hours to 13’.

Offshore Testing Center Case Study 4: A Marketing and Loyalty Platform achieves 40% faster time to market 

Client’s Description

The Marketing Analytics module acts as a real-time universal cockpit, allowing you to review and manage the performance of your loyalty programs, membership tiers, rewards, and merchants.

Loyalty Management gives large companies the ability to connect with customers on a more intimate level. Small businesses have the advantage of being able to micromanage relationships and truly get to know their consumers — one by one, person to person. They can personalize service based on a customer’s likes, dislikes, and behavior.

Business Need

• Optimize testing effort by automation test.
• Programming language: JavaScript
• Automation Framework: Cypress, Mocha
• Process: Agile

Challenges

• End-2-end test flow is complicated.
• The data test is huge for the API test, making it hard for the current manual test to cover.

LQA’s Offshore Testing Center Solutions

• Build automation framework for web testing.
• Develop API test program (using JavaScript), support data-driven to test with a huge data set.

Test Result:

• Test cases (updating): 250
• Bugs Detected: 15
• The time for executing a regression cycle has been reduced from 7 days/week to 3 days/week

Offshore Testing Center Case Study 5: A Mobile Game App maximize test coverage with 2000 test cases and more than 1 million actual users 

Client’s Description

• The client has over 45 free multiplayer games.
• Public rooms/Private rooms/Tournaments are created to allow many people to play games together. Also, users can chat, create rooms, create groups, create impress profiles, participate in tournaments or buy gifts/IAPs.
• Millions of players are enjoying games and creating lasting friendships daily.

Business Need

• Thoroughly testing all scenarios of all games
• Ensure that the system is always stable
• Ensure that the system is compatible with multiple types of devices

Challenges

• The client has more than 1 million actual users from many countries around the world, so we must resolve the huge request number every time.
• Maintaining a stable server all the time and diversifying with many devices is also one of the big difficulties.
• The client has a lot of scenarios with each game to be thoroughly tested.

LQA’s Offshore Testing Center Solutions

• Cross-testing with multiple devices to minimize bugs associated with specific devices. Also, the client created an environment called Unrelease Production. It is linked with real user data to help QA easily manage quality in a real environment.
• Testing types: Functional & Non-functional testing, Cross testing

Test Result:

• Test cases: 2000+
• Bug found & verified: 500+

Why Choose Lotus Quality Assurance Solutions?

We, at Lotus QA, are just a contact form away:

Website: lotus-qa.com/

Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474

Fanpage: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lqa//

Software Quality Assurance (SQA) is an important part of the entire software development life cycle. Through the testing phase, software defects can be identified early and remedied before final product delivery.

Why Software Quality Assurance is a MUST in every software development life cycle?

Software bugs can cause serious loss of money and people. Starbucks was forced to close about 60% of its stores in the United States and Canada, even serving free coffee because it was unable to process the transaction due to a software bug in its POS system. In 1994, China Airlines Airbus A300 crashed due to a software error, killing 264 people.

The examples above show that businesses can save up to millions per year, minimizing serious problems if they have a reliable and strict testing process. Besides, a software that is error-free and undergoes many rigorous quality checks will easily win the trust and satisfaction of customers; bring efficiency in both cost, security, as well as sustainable development.

>> Learn more about Software Testing And 8 Common Questions

What are the challenges and difficulties of building a software quality assurance process?

However, enterprises will face many challenges to be able to build an optimal testing team and a strict quality management process such as:

• High initial investment cost for human resources: According to Payscale, based on the latest updates on Jan 04 2022, the average salary for a Software Tester is $56,468. However, the investment cost for a Software Tester Engineer does not just stop at salary, but also includes the cost of recruitment, training and other employee benefits.
• High initial investment cost for testing tools: Besides the investment in human resources, businesses will have to prepare a budget for both facilities and testing tools. It can be the cost of investing in machinery, testing tools, and even in different testing environments.
• Bias in Software Testing: How Do Testers Miss Bugs? When the testers implement any test case, they might be influenced by their own biases – framing thoughts and judgments based on their previous experiences such as where there would be potential defects, the history of the program, who is developing it and what might be their common mistakes,…

The following infographic will give you the deepest knowledge about SQA to help you overcome these challenges more easily.

To Know Deeply About Software Quality Assurance Infographic

 

>> You can find a more specific comparison between Manual Testing and Automation Testing in this infographic.

Final Thoughts 

With a profound and specific infographic above, LTS hopes to help you understand more about this field and find the best solution to optimize your business’ QA process and speed up time to market. If you are still struggling and need further professional advice, our experts can help!

 

We, at Lotus QA, are just a contact form away:

Website: lotus-qa.com/

Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474

Fanpage: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lqa//

Software testing is an important part of the entire software development life cycle. Through the testing phase, software defects can be identified early and remedied before final product delivery. Therefore, many software development companies focus on building strict testing processes and investing in in-house testing teams. This article will help you unlock the most common problems before diving in.

1. Why Software Testing is a MUST in every software development life cycle?

Software bugs can cause serious loss of money and people. Starbucks was forced to close about 60% of its stores in the United States and Canada, even serving free coffee because it was unable to process the transaction due to a software bug in its POS system. In 1994, China Airlines Airbus A300 crashed due to a software error, killing 264 people.

The examples above show that businesses can save up to millions per year, minimizing serious problems if they have a reliable and strict testing process. Besides, a software that is error-free and undergoes many rigorous quality checks will easily win the trust and satisfaction of customers; bring efficiency in both cost, security, as well as sustainable development.

 

2. How many types of Software testing?

Based on different criteria, we can classify Testing in many ways including:

a. According to test levels

• Unit testing: the process of testing corrections on an individual unit or component to assure that they work properly on their own. Unit testing is important because it enables us to find more defects at the unit test level, reduce wasted tests, and speed up testing strategies.
• Integration tests: a level of software testing where two or more modules of an application are logically grouped and tested as a whole. The focus of this type is to search for the defect in communication, interface, and data flow among modules. A top-down or Bottom-up approach is used while integrating modules into the whole system. This type of testing is done by integrating modules of a system or between systems.
• System Testing: a level of software testing that validates the complete and fully integrated software product. The purpose is to evaluate the end-to-end system specifications. Usually, the software is only one element of a larger computer-based system. Ultimately, the software is interfaced with other software/hardware systems. System Testing is defined as a series of different tests whose sole purpose is to exercise the full computer-based system.
• Acceptance testing: ensures that the end-user (customers) can achieve the goals set in the business requirements, which determines whether the software is acceptable for delivery or not. It is also known as user acceptance testing (UAT). Acceptance testing is a type of testing where the client/business/customer test the software with real-time business scenarios. The client accepts the software only when all the features and functionalities work as expected. This is the last phase of testing, after which the software goes into production. This is also called User Acceptance Testing (UAT).

b. According to test types

• Functional testing: a type of testing which verifies that each function of the software application operates in conformance with the requirement specification.
• Non-functional testing: a type of testing to check non-functional aspects (performance, usability, reliability, etc.) of a software application.

c. According to test methods

• Automation testing: a testing technique utilizing tools and test scripts to automate testing efforts. In other words, specified and customized tools are implemented in the testing process instead of solely manual forces.
• Manual testing: the technique in which a tester/a QA executes the whole testing process manually, from writing test cases to implementing them. In manual testing, QA analysts carry out tests one-by-one in an individual manner to find bugs, glitches and key feature issues prior to the software application’s launch. As part of this process, test cases and summary error reports are developed without any automation tools.

 

3. Is Automation Testing the most popular and why?

Manual Testing has been the most popular method of the quality assurance process in general, yet it exposes some limitations that cause many businesses to become testing-ineffective.

Up until now, automated testing is considered a more innovative technique to boost the effectiveness, test coverage, and test execution speed in software testing. With this new “approach”, the testing process is expected to yield more test cases in a shorter amount of time and expand test coverage.

While it does not entirely exclude manual touch within the process, automation testing is a favorable solution for its cost-efficiency and limited human intervention. To put it in other words, automation testing requires manual efforts to make automation testing possible.

The 8 promising prospects of Automation Testing include:

•  High yield of ROI

• Consistent regression testing
• Broad test coverage
• Accuracy and Reliability
• Faster pace
• Developers and Testers unburdened

• Reduce Human Intervention
• Records of measure quality metrics

>> Learn more about From Manual to Automation Testing: Why Even Bother?

 

4. Manual Testing vs. Automation Testing comparison, and when to use each method?

Manual testing is the traditional and fundamental test method in software testing. We often use the manual method to test new products or when we don’t have a clear understanding of the products or when the systems haven’t become stable yet.

Automation testing is considered a high-tech test method in comparison to manual one. We often use this test method to reduce resources and time consumed for testing a system that is stably functioning and we already clearly know about it.

You can find a more specific comparison between Manual Testing and Automation Testing in this infographic.

 

The answer of whether you should choose automation testing or manual testing depends on your situation.

Choose manual test if:

• Your product is new and you don’t have experience with this kind of product before.
• The AUT (Application under test) changes frequently.
• You have a limited budget.
• You want to ensure user-friendliness in the product.

• You want to handle complex test cases.
• Your team doesn’t have the tech ability (for any reason) to set up and maintain automation.

And choose automation test if:

• There are repetitive tasks in a stable-functioning system and you want to reduce these tasks.
• When your system has frequent releases and you want to decrease test cycle time to speed up the processes.

• You have a great budget for building automation testing.
• You consider the test ability is needed in a long-term period.
• You want better transparency of testing activities. Statistics and graphs about the test process, performance, and error rates are explicitly indicated.

> Learn more about Which is the cost-effective solution for your firm?

 

5. Automotive test vs Automation test: Aren’t they the same?

Many people still misunderstand that Automotive testing is Automation testing. Therefore, to better understand Automotive testing, let’s distinguish those two concepts:

Automation testing – is a software testing method with an automated nature, precisely, the Tester only needs to write a piece of code or use some tools such as Selenium, Test Complete, and JMeter,… to run all the stages automatically, including entering information, clicking, checking results, comparing actual results with hypothetical results, etc., without having to perform manual operations over and over again.

Automotive testing – is the testing of embedded software written for embedded systems. Specifically, embedded software is software that is pre-installed by the device manufacturer into a product and that is utilized immediately with the electronic device without the need for the user or third-party installation. An Embedded system is a combination of hardware and software and here the software is embedded in the hardware.

 

6. What are the challenges and difficulties of building a software testing team and process?

High initial investment cost for human resources 

According to Payscale, based on the latest updates on Jan 04 2022, the average salary for a Software Tester is $56,468.

However, the investment cost for a Software Tester Engineer does not just stop at salary, but also includes the cost of recruitment, training and other employee benefits. The IT industry is currently facing a shortage of human resources; therefore, recruitment becomes extremely competitive among businesses. Software testers have a high chance of job hopping when they find a company with better benefits and salary. Employers have to invest a lot of money and effort for headhunt services to successfully recruit a quality employee.

In addition, Software Testers at different levels also have different salaries range. Below is the salary range of a Software Tester from Entry level to Experienced.

The costs listed above are only calculated for one employee. Try to do a quick calculation, multiply this number by 5 or more if you want to build an in-house testing team.

High initial investment cost for testing tools

Besides the investment in human resources, businesses will have to prepare a budget for both facilities and testing tools. If it’s automation testing then you will only need to set up your computer and buy testing tools. But if it is an embedded test, the enterprise will have to invest in more complicated and expensive testing machines such as CANoe and CANat equipment, … Not to mention, when it comes to Integration and system testing, it requires set up for different test environments.

Bias in Software Testing: How Do Testers Miss Bugs?

According to Psychology Today, a bias is a tendency, inclination, or prejudice toward or against something or someone. Some biases are positive and helpful—like choosing to only eat foods that are considered healthy or staying away from someone who has knowingly caused harm. But biases are often based on stereotypes, rather than actual knowledge of an individual or circumstance. Whether positive or negative, such cognitive shortcuts can result in prejudgments that lead to rash decisions or discriminatory practices.

One of the fundamentals of software testing; as referred to by the International Software Testing Quality Board (ISTQB); is that testing helps detection of defects. Taking into consideration that humans are an integral entity in software development, it is impossible to certify a 100% bug-free program when tests aren’t detecting any defects. Human testing detects and reduces the probability of undiscovered defects remaining in the software but even if no defects are found, it is not proof of perfection.

When the testers approach any testing, they are already influenced by their own biases – framing thoughts and judgments based on what to look for, where there would be potential defects coming up, who is developing it, the entire history of the program etc., and the list goes on.

 

7. In-House Software Testing vs. Outsourcing: What should you choose?

For the above challenges, many businesses choose to outsource software testing services. Because a flexible and quick team ramp-up/down on demands will bring benefits to businesses such as:

Cost-Effective and Time Efficient:

As mentioned above, effort, resources and investment costs for an in-house testing team are extremely expensive. Outsourcing a testing team will be the optimal choice to save the above investment costs. In particular, businesses can take advantage of low-cost labor when offshore outsourcing. For example, in Vietnam, the average salary of Software Test Engineer is $18633.55/year, 5 times lower than in the US and 6 times lower than in Japan (according to Salary expert data).

In addition, by outsourcing, your business can set up a testing team immediately, skipping the entire process of recruiting, training, setting up office equipment. An 24/7 available and flexible testing team that can ramp up or ramp down on demand. A team works independently, along with the in-house team to increase work efficiency and speed up time to market. Especially, when the demand for testing is huge due to continuously release, in-house QA team struggle to handle, offshore team can help optimize resource allocation. Your in-house team will not be overloaded and be able to focus on core business.

 

Access to larger pool of Expertise and quicker transformation to another test method

When outsourcing to another country, your business will expand its talent network. This will also make it much easier to switch testing methods or types. No need to compete with domestic enterprises to hunt for candidates, no time to research and train new methods. If you want to move from manual testing to automation testing to optimize testing effort and speed up time to market, why not outsource it?

For example, in Vietnam today, IT resources are growing in both quantity and quality. According to the latest report of TopDev, Vietnam currently has 1.03M IT labor force and 62,000 graduated IT students/year. The Vietnamese government also has policies to support the development of the IT industry and facilitate international cooperation.

In Vietnam, there are also leading testing companies, meeting international standards. LQA is an example when it becomes a silver partner of ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualifications Board).

No bias and Fresh perspective:

As shared above, one of the challenges and disadvantages of in-house testing teams is bias. To solve this problem, businesses can ask a 3rd party to cross-evaluate the quality of the product. From there, compare with the results of the in-house team to get the most objective result. Eliminating the trails of in-house testers and approaching fresh perspectives is the special benefit that offshore testing teams bring to businesses.

Below is a comparison table of the most basic criteria between Offshore Software Outsourcing Testing and In-house Software Testing. Businesses can rely on this assessment to choose the most optimal model for their needs at this time.

 

However, every coin has two sides, outsourcing software testing also has some drawbacks, including language barrier and low security. Therefore, businesses must survey, learn and thoroughly evaluate the reputation of vendors before cooperating. Deeply aware of these concerns of businesses, LQA has always focused on improving the English skills of its personnel and always puts security first. With a closed quality management process and absolute security, LQA has been trusted by many large enterprises such as LG Electronics, Toshiba, Qualacomm, FPT, Baoviet,…

 

8. How many Offshore Software Testing Models are there and Which one is the Best-fit?

Once you have chosen a reputable vendor to outsource testing services, the next thing you need to pay special attention to is to agree on technical and engagement models from the very beginning. Working remotely with a team sitting on the other side of the globe will lead to miscommunication, misunderstandings in the process of cooperation. To limit this, businesses must agree on the process and way of working from the beginning. Below are the commonly used models and the cases where each specific model should be applied.

 

Final Thoughts

LQA has listed and answered the above questions based on previous experience working with businesses. The above 8 questions are the 8 problems that many businesses worry the most when learning about Software Testing solutions. With thorough answers, LQA hopes to help you understand more about this field and find the best solution to optimize your business’ QA process and speed up time to market. If you are still struggling and need further professional advice, the LQA experts can help!

 

We, at Lotus QA, are just a contact form away:

Website: lotus-qa.com/

Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474

Fanpage: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lqa//

 

Hi there! Welcome to LQA’s guide on Manual Testing vs. Automation Testing comparison, their characteristics, applications, and when to use each method. 

We will cover manual testing and automation testing differences in an infographic. But before going into details, we want you to be clear that:

• Manual testing is the traditional and fundamental test method in software testing. We often use the manual method to test new products or when we don’t have a clear understanding of the products or when the systems haven’t become stable yet. 
• Automation testing is considered a high-tech test method in comparison to manual one. We often use this test method to reduce resources and time consumed for testing a system that is stably functioning and we already clearly know about it.

So, an ideal path is to use manual testing for the first time(s) and utilize automation testing to reduce test efforts and increase test productivity when things become stable and predictable!

Also, automation test doesn’t mean that the whole test process will be automated. Such steps like Requirements analysis, Test planning, and Test case design are done manually before a test automation engineer can program the test script and start automation test execution and test report.

That’s a quick look. And now, let’s go into comparison!

 

Manual Test vs. Automation Test Comparison

 

You may want to know: 6 steps to transition from manual testing to automation testing.

So, Manual Testing vs. Automation Testing – Which one is for you?

The answer of whether you should choose automation testing or manual testing depends on your situation. For example, choose manual test if:

• Your product is new and you don’t have experience with this kind of product before.
• The AUT (Application under test) changes frequently.
• You have a limited budget.
• You want to ensure user-friendliness in the product.
• You want to handle complex test cases.
• Your team doesn’t have the tech ability (for any reason) to set up and maintain automation.

And choose automation test if:

• There are repetitive tasks in a stable-functioning system and you want to reduce these tasks.
• When your system has frequent releases and you want to decrease test cycle time to speed up the processes.
• You have a great budget for building automation testing. 
• You consider the test ability is needed in a long-term period.
• You want better transparency of testing activities. Statistics and graphs about the test process, performance, and error rates are explicitly indicated.

Want to dig deeper into manual testing vs. automation testing and decide the one suitable for your business? Contact LQA now for a FREE consultation with our specialists and experts.

• Website: https://www.lotus-qa.com/
• Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474
• Fanpage: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lqa

 

Kiểm thử phần mềm là một quy trình quan trọng trong vòng đời phát triển phần mềm. Tuy nhiên, nhiều doanh nghiệp với sự hạn chế về nguồn lực cũng như chuyên môn và thời gian đã lựa chọn thuê ngoài dịch vụ testing như một giải pháp thay thế hữu hiệu cho nguồn lực nội bộ. 

Trong bài viết này, chúng ta sẽ tìm hiểu 5 lý do tại sao nên thuê ngoài dịch vụ testing nhằm giúp các doanh nghiệp có thêm thông tin trong việc lựa chọn giữa insourcing và outsourcing. 

1. Hiệu quả về chi phí 

Sử dụng dịch vụ testing thuê ngoài giúp doanh nghiệp giảm thiểu các chi phí về nhân sự, quản lý và cơ sở hạ tầng cho hoạt động kiểm thử phần mềm.  

Đầu tư nguồn nhân lực và cơ sở hạ tầng cho một quy trình kiểm thử phần mềm nội bộ luôn là một thách thức với các doanh nghiệp có nguồn lực hạn chế. Bằng việc sử dụng dịch vụ testing của công ty kiểm thử phần mềm, doanh nghiệp có thể tránh được một số vấn đề như sau: 

• Sự thiếu hụt nguồn nhân lực testing trong bối cảnh cuộc chiến nhân tài công nghệ ngày càng gay gắt. 
• Chi phí tuyển dụng và phúc lợi cho nhân viên trong ngành IT cao. 
• ROI thấp do nhu cầu sử dụng thấp nhưng chi phí đầu tư cho cơ sở hạ tầng (phần mềm, thiết bị test) cao. 

2. Cải thiện chất lượng kiểm thử 

Thuê ngoài dịch vụ testing giúp doanh nghiệp tăng chất lượng kiểm thử nhờ nguồn nhân lực có chuyên môn cao, đa dạng phương pháp kiểm thử và tiếp cận nhiều luồng quan điểm khách quan hơn. 

Lợi ích về nguồn nhân lực 

Nguồn nhân lực testing tại các công ty chuyên về dịch vụ kiểm thử phần mềm thường được đào tạo bài bản và có nhiều kinh nghiệm trong ngành. Ngoài ra, các công ty dịch vụ chuyên nghiệp có khả năng thu hút được các chuyên gia trong ngành cao hơn. Do đó, thuê ngoài testing giúp doanh nghiệp ở mọi quy mô tiếp cận nguồn nhân lực chất lượng cao và thực hiện việc kiểm tra chính xác hơn. 

Đa dạng phương pháp kiểm thử 

Trong một số trường hợp, việc kết hợp các phương pháp kiểm thử khác nhau giúp gia tăng hiệu quả phát hiện lỗi và giảm chi phí kiểm thử phần mềm về lâu dài cho doanh nghiệp. Tuy nhiên, để đầu tư một đội ngũ kiểm thử nội bộ đa chuyên môn luôn là một thách thức. 

Ví dụ: Xu hướng kết hợp phương pháp Kiểm thử thủ công và Kiểm thử tự động trong một sản phẩm phần mềm đang trở nên phổ biến.   

• Kiểm thử thủ công cho functional testing, compatibility testing. 
• Kiểm thử tự động cho API testing và performance testing, cũng như các thao tác lặp đi lặp lại. 

Tuy nhiên, kiểm thử tự động yêu cầu người kiểm tra có khả năng về code và các công cụ phần mềm hỗ trợ như Selenium, Katalon và không phải nhân viên kiểm thử thủ công nào cũng có thể nhanh chóng chuyển qua kiểm thử tự động. Do vậy, việc thuê ngoài testing sẽ giúp doanh nghiệp liên tục cập nhật các công nghệ, phương pháp testing mới nhất, mang lại hiệu quả phát hiện lỗi và lợi ích về đường dài cao hơn. 

Tiếp cận nhiều luồng quan điểm 

Một nhóm kiểm thử nội bộ có thể có các thiên kiến hoặc những hiểu biết trước về sản phẩm và chỉ chăm chú vào các khía cạnh đó. Tuy nhiên, một nhóm kiểm thử bên ngoài không có kiến thức trước đó về sản phẩm sẽ chú ý đến mọi góc cạnh và có xu hướng đánh giá lỗi khách quan hơn, nhìn ra nhiều vấn đề hơn và thực hiện testing toàn diện hơn. 

3. Giảm thời gian đưa sản phẩm ra thị trường 

Một lợi ích khác của việc thuê ngoài testing là sự linh hoạt trong việc tăng/giảm quy mô nhóm để nhanh chóng đáp ứng với các biến số và tránh sự gián đoạn trong quá trình phát triển phần mềm.  

Ngoài ra, quy trình làm việc tối ưu cùng năng suất làm việc cao của công ty kiểm thử phần mềm cũng góp phần đẩy nhanh giai đoạn kiểm thử, giúp rút ngắn thời gian phát triển và đưa sản phẩm ra thị trường nhanh hơn.  

4. Giảm rủi ro mâu thuẫn nội bộ 

Thuê ngoài dịch vụ testing giúp doanh nghiệp giảm được rủi ro về mâu thuẫn giữa nhóm phát triển và nhóm kiểm thử trong một quy trình phát triển phần mềm.  

Trong khi các nhà phát triển muốn hoàn thành công việc trong thời gian ngắn nhất, các chuyên gia kiểm thử thường vô tình kéo dài thời gian phát triển với việc cố gắng tìm ra lỗi và yêu cầu sửa lỗi. Do đó, mâu thuẫn này luôn tồn tại trong các công ty công nghệ và việc thuê ngoài đội kiểm thử sẽ giảm thiểu tình trạng xung đột trong nội bộ công ty. 

5. Tập trung vào lĩnh vực cốt lõi 

Một lợi ích rõ ràng khác của việc thuê ngoài dịch vụ tesing là doanh nghiệp có thể tập trung nguồn lực vào các hoạt động quan trọng và mang lại hiệu quả sử dụng nguồn lực cao hơn. Ngoài ra, việc chuyển giao bớt công việc cho đối tác giúp giảm áp lực lên các nhân viên của công ty, giúp mọi người làm việc năng suất hơn và tạo nên môi trường làm việc hiệu quả hơn.  

Lựa chọn đối tác kiểm thử tin cậy với LQA 

Như vậy, có nhiều lợi ích để một công ty quyết định thuê ngoài dịch vụ testing. Nếu bạn đang tìm kiếm những yếu tố này thì kiểm thử phần mềm thuê ngoài rất đáng để cân nhắc: 

• Tiết kiệm chi phí 
• Cải thiện hiệu quả kiểm thử 
• Hiệu quả về đường dài 
• Giảm thời gian phát triển sản phẩm 
• Giảm rủi ro mâu thuẫn nội bộ 
• Tập trung vào lĩnh vực cốt lõi 

LQA là một công ty chuyên về dịch vụ kiểm thử và đảm bảo chất lượng phần mềm với 6 năm kinh nghiệm cung cấp giải pháp tùy chỉnh cho khách hàng đến từ 9 quốc gia. Liên hệ LQA ngay để được tư vấn về dịch vụ kiểm thử phần mềm cũng như các kiến thức liên quan!   

 

A test automation framework defines a set of rules or best practices which you can follow in a systematic way to achieve the desired results in test automation. The success of automated testing highly lies in choosing the right type of test automation framework. Unfortunately, different automation projects come with separate requirements and challenges, making it hard to find a one-size-fits-all solution to go.

So, let’s learn how to choose a suitable automation framework for your project.

How to choose the right test automation framework?

 

Selenium is among the most popular test automation frameworks

Step 1: Clarify the project requirements

Every effective automation test project starts with the right requirements set. First and foremost, you need to have a clear understanding of the project characteristics as well as the target testing outcome.

For example, when we designed test automation frameworks for our client’s F&B applications, we listed out the following:

• Test scope: 20 web & mobile applications with 5 – 6 releases per year for each application.
• Client’s needs: UI automation testing & APIs for backend testing; Cross browsers and operating systems testing.
• Target outcome: Reduced time for regression test.

• Challenges: End-2-end test flow is complicated and the data set is huge for API tests.
• Solution: Develop API test program (using Java), support data-driven to test a huge dataset.

Step 2: Define the budget

To set a budget for your test automation project, you have to calculate the effort for developing and maintaining scripts, plus the budget for automation testing tools and infrastructure. Types of test automation framework include:

• Open-source frameworks

• Commercial frameworks
• Customized frameworks

Then, decide whether you will use a free, open-source framework or pay for a commercial tool. There are pros and cons to each option:

• Open-source tools: They are free tools with an active community, free tutorials, and meetups. However, open-source tools may become outdated, become too slow, not 100% fit your project, and require high-tech capacity to customize.
• Commercial tools: Also called paid tools, offering a lot of features outside of the box. Still, with high costs, they’re unpopular and hard to find tutorials and support from the community. They should provide users with prompt customer support for all technical issues.

Although the commercial tools come with high initial investments, they help increase productivity and benefit us much better in the long term. If you’re ready to spend money on a commercial tool, it’s better to start a free trial and experiment on a small project before buying the full package.

Step 3: Consider the tech stack

An ideal framework for test automation should be compliant with the programming language used for the project as well as familiar with your team.

Firstly, you should see if your test automation engineers are well versed in a particular language and framework, then, compare it with the programming language that your project was developed on. If there’s a difference, take into account the effort spent on getting familiar with the language and the effect of using it. Maybe it will decrease your team’s productivity, but it won’t expand the required tech stack and allows you to ease into the process while helping to avoid unexpected issues.

In case you work with mobile apps, you’ll also have to consider the supported platforms. If you target various platforms, you should choose a tool that supports all. For instance, Selenium and Appium support both IOS and Android.

Step 4: Evaluate the test automation framework

There are some aspects that you need to consider before choosing a framework for the automation project.

Maintenance and reusability

A significant factor that escalates the total cost for test automation is script maintenance. Even a small change of application can cause the script to fail. So, if debugging is easy, it could reduce the effort.

On the other hand, script reusability saves you and the team a great deal of time for similar test cases as you can reuse test scripts.

Integration capabilities

CI/CD is now becoming quite popular in software development. The chosen framework should be able to integrate into the CI/CD pipeline to ensure full automation.

Nice-to-have features

• Report: A well-categorized, easy to read, easy to understand report display will be a bonus for an automation framework. Because the ability to analyze errors when reading reports will help reduce debugging effort for the project.

• Behavior Driven Development Framework: If you are not a techie, using BDD frameworks with Gherkin syntax will be an advantage to help you better understand the project. The BDD framework also gives a fairly readable report with the steps written in human languages (English, Vietnamese…)

Step 5: Verify the selection

When you come up with your selection among automated test frameworks, don’t implement it immediately. Proof of concept (POC) may be very useful for conformity checks or in case you still have some doubts about the tool.

This POC can help you identify:

• How the framework is maintained

• How easy it is to use
• Whether it meets your requirements
• If it addresses some of the high-priority edge cases you have, as well as different scenarios and controls in the application.

Step 6: Make the final decision

You now have all the necessary information to decide the right framework for your automation test project. You should have a strong awareness of the test automation tool, understand all the strong and weak points of the solution and keep the balance between cost and benefits.

Let LQA helps you choose the right test automation framework

Although choosing between different types of test automation framework will take some time and effort, it is a prerequisite to ensure effective automation tests in the long term.

At LQA, we have 6 years of providing custom testing and QA solutions to global clients. We implement both manual and automated tests to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of your project. Don’t hesitate to contact us for a free consultation regarding selecting the test automation framework or figuring out the plan for your next steps!

• Website: https://www.lotus-qa.com/
• Tel: (+84) 24-6660-7474
• Fanpage: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lqa/

 

Automation testing has emerged as a new destination for quality assurance, resulting in consistently high demand for automation testing labor. But amid the tech talent war, companies do need an effective test automation engineer hiring process to attract quality automation candidates.

So, in this article, we will guide you through 5 steps to hire a test automation engineer. This guide comes from real recruitment experience at our company as well as consulting some experts in the industry. Let’s take a look first:

• Clarification of requirements
• Write a job description
• Source and shortlist candidates
• Interview
• Final step

How To Hire A Test Automation Engineer?

1. Clarification of requirements

Clarifying the role should be the first step to hiring a true Test Automation Engineer. To do that, you need to define whom you want to hire, their contribution and the skills needed. At LQA, we divide automation test workers into three main groups which are junior, middle, and senior. Also, this article will focus more on a senior automation tester interview as it requires more aspects to consider.

Generally, a senior tester engineer will take part in the planning phase, make decisions, handle complicated tasks, and lead a small team. He/she can also be the bridge between the team and other stakeholders if needed. Therefore, we often require as follows:

• Manual test experience
• Automation test experience
• Test scripts creation ability
• Understanding of test automation technique
• Language ability
• Management skills

As automation tests differ from manual tests in the way that they use code-based test scripts to automate processes, a senior automation test worker should be able to define, develop, execute, and maintain test scripts. He/she also possesses manual test experience and understands test cases, hence can decide when to use manual tests and when to apply automation tests to optimize the QA process. Besides, he/she ideally understands various kinds of test automation frameworks to select the best suit.

2. Write a proper automation test engineer job description 

A smart JD is a key to an effective test automation engineer hiring process. This is when the hiring department understands the above requirements and builds an ideal candidate profile on paper. As we are seeking a senior role, the job description (JD) should be custom and specific. We recommend you include the following aspects.

Company summary

Talk about the employer branding, working environment, and whatever makes your company stand out. Especially, employer branding is an important part of a good job description. According to Glassdoor statistics, 75% of active job seekers are more likely to apply if an organization manages its employer brand. So, don’t forget to briefly convey your company’s reputation in your JD.

Job responsibilities

Here, let talk about the role’s duties and contribution to the company. Senior automation engineers also care about their effect on the company as well as their career path. Thus, they wish to see more impactful activities in the responsibility section, such as planning, managing, optimizing, and innovating, instead of raw tasks only.

Requirements

This is the section for must-have and nice-to-have skills and expectations for this role. Here, clearly mention what you expect from the applicant. For example, bachelor’s degree in computer science, Python language knowledge, mobile or web application automation test experience, Selenium WebDriver framework ability, etc. Plus, they ideally have equivalent certificates in software testing like the ISTQB and in languages such as IELTS certificates.

Benefits

And last but not least, don’t forget to include details of the salary and other compensation that he/she will get. According to Glassdoor, money is the biggest motivator for 67% of candidates. Meanwhile, Zety statistics showed that 74% of job seekers expect to find salary information right in the JD.

3. Source test automation candidates and pre-screen

In this step, the HR department seeks candidates through various sources, including active and passive candidates. Remember to post the job as soon as possible to increase the chance of receiving more applications as well as for the selected candidate to get ready. Particularly, when you source passive candidates who are employed, it may take a month or more for them to be ready.

Here, we recommend two effective ways to source automation engineers as follows.

Find them in forums and groups for automation engineers, such as:

• The largest communities of testers in the world like uTest.
• Top-performed automation test groups on Facebook like Automation testing – Seleniums.
• The top recruitment sites for IT talents, e.g. Dice and Linkedin.
• Place where tech engineers are the most active such as Github and StackOverflow.

Partner with companies that provide hiring support, including:

• Headhunting like McDermott + Bull.
• Employee referral programs like Boon and Jobvite.
• Staff Augmentation or B-O-T services such as LQA.

Recruiters then come up with a list of potential candidates, do pre-screening and brief telephone interviews, and return to the automation department with a list of ideal profiles. The person in charge of the test department will screen again to find out the top potential candidates for the interview phase.

At LQA, the automation leader is responsible for screening and evaluating the candidates. For such high-level positions, apart from reviewing the information provided by this person, he also refers to the references of previous colleagues and checks the candidate’s social networking profile.

4. Conduct automation test engineer interviews

After several steps to find out the most potential applicants for a test automation expert, we now come to an in-person automation test interview. But first, do you know what our CTO and automation leaders advise the most when it comes to an interview in tech? They are:

• Make it a comfortable and practical talk instead of police interrogation (obviously, right?).
• Focus on effect, as experience is not always the number of working years.

• Don’t bring a big technical test into the interview that takes 5-6 hours of your candidates, unless you are hiring employees for Google and Microsoft.

Why should you focus on effect?

At LQA, we concentrate on the impact when hiring a senior automation test engineer. E.g., if a candidate has generated 100 test scripts for UI automation tests but none of them work efficiently, or he has executed a small number of similar tasks during his previous 3 years of working, then we won’t prioritize him.

Conversely, once an applicant with less working time proves his ability via the effect, such as in a previous automation project, he was able to lower the time for executing a regression cycle from this time to that time and reduce time-to-market for new releases, then we highly value this.

Why shouldn’t you ask for a big test? 

Because we already have an overview of the candidate’s ability from step 3, plus there are various questions that the interviewer can ask to deeper check if this person is proficient in automation testing techniques. At LQA, we prefer to bring an actual project to the interview and ask related questions to know if they have the practical knowledge and skills that we need.

Here are some test automation interview questions to more accurately assess an automation engineer’s ability.

Define the scope of automation:

1. How would you define the test cases for automation?
2. Please select the test scenarios to be automated from this QA process and say why or why not for a scenario to be automated.

Select automation testing tool:

1. How would you decide on the tools and frameworks?
2. Please choose automation testing tools and framework for this QA process and explain why.

Management skills:

1. What is your principle to avoid and handle conflicts between testers and developers?
2. Please tell us about your previous challenges in test automation and how you dealt with them.

Others:

1. Any other examples that you want to show to demonstrate your abilities?
2. Do you have any questions for us?

Lastly, remember to check if the candidate fits your organization’s culture and working environment, as he/she as a senior member will have a relative effect on other employees. Don’t hesitate to ask why he/she wants to be part of your company, their working methodology, management style, etc., and observe the way he/she behaves.

5. The final step to optimize future recruitment

The final step is when you make decisions and inform both selected and non-selected candidates about the test automation interview results. We have only one piece of advice here – do get back to all the candidates.

What we’ve noticed is that some companies just don’t get back to all interviewed applicants. Still, carefully informing them of the results will give the candidates a better feel for the company, help you extend the candidate pool for the future, and avoid bad reviews that lower the company’s reputation.

Final words

This article has come to an end! Above is what we want to share with you about how to hire a test automation engineer. Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for companies to attract tech talent, but we’ve seen this Test Automation Engineer hiring process works for our company as well as our partners so we give it to you as an additional reference source.

About LQA

LQA has been a trusted Quality Assurance partner in the global IT market with clients in 9 different countries including Japan, Korea, the U.S., Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. We have implemented the best QA engineer hiring practices to build a qualified tech talent pool with over 50 testing staff. Hence, don’t hesitate to contact us if you need a trusted QA vendor for your business!