Diversity of opportunities – the key to QA career development

Quality assurance (QA) plays a major role in making sure that a company is shipping quality software. They are, after all, accountable for running the necessary software tests and conducting experiments. Still, their role has traditionally had limited responsibilities and opportunities for advancement. This is not the case at Nortal.

At Nortal, the role that quality assurance (QA) specialists play is akin to a mix of a delivery manager and a QA specialist.

”This approach on its own is not unique to Nortal, many companies have divided responsibilities in a similar way” says Kaidur Heliste, Partner, Senior QA Specialist at Nortal.

What is different at Nortal is the manner in which tasks are organized inside project teams. Each team/project is like a small start-up — they are given the freedom and autonomy to decide, among themselves, how they want to organize and define their work.

For QAs, this gives them an opportunity – based on their strengths and interests – to assume extra responsibilities outside their main tasks.

Diversity of opportunities

Nortal has offices in ten countries and projects are happening in even more. All this leads to many, many projects happening simultaneously time which leads to a diverse set of opportunities.

For juniors or QA specialist at the beginning of their journey, personal tutors and a detailed orientation program are used to accelerate learning. They are given time to familiarize themselves with the work and project and to acquire the basic knowledge needed to be successful in the role.

For mid-level and senior specialists, more often than not, their roles are mixed whereby QAs take on extra responsibilities. Exactly which responsibilities depends largely on the direction an individual wants to develop toward.

If a person is more technical-minded, automation and closer co-operation with developers is most likely the way to go. If more analytically minded, a person can assist analysts and even take over smaller tasks. If most interested in sales and building client relationships, being the right hand of the project manager is something that could potentially interest them.

“All those directions are not open to every QA in every project; however we have many bigger and smaller projects happening at the same time, and we can often offer these kinds of opportunities. You shouldn’t fear that the project you’re joining will be the project at which you’ll stay forever” Kaidur adds.

Strong internal QA community

Explaining the strength of Nortal QA community, Kaidur continues “We (Nortal) have reached a critical mass of specialists, 45 in total in our Estonian offices, so there are always talented and capable colleagues to learn from and which whom to discuss things. This is something, not every company offers.”

This setup has benefits for both juniors and seniors. For juniors, this means a lot of potential for learning new things and for seniors, the added benefits include sharing knowledge with other Nortal QAs as well as attending conferences and events and participating in internal community groups.

“For a motivated QA specialist who is ready and eager to learn, there is no limit to what they can achieve at Nortal. The opportunities are there, it’s just a question of taking advantage of them.”
Kaidur Heliste

For a more in-depth look into the kind of opportunities, events and otherwise, we offer for our QAs at Nortal, browse the interactive graphic below:

Interested in joining Nortal’s crew of QA specialists? Check out our careers page!