I think that there is a very real problem around the definition of the purpose of a ‘QA’ or ‘Quality Engineering’ department and what it is expected to do in an organisation.
I have been hired for many ‘QA/QE’ roles which had vastly different ideas about what the purpose of that role was, what my responsibilities were, how I should communicate with other people, and what I should do day-to-day.
So much so, that I don’t believe there is at all any ‘universal’ definition of what someone working in QA does. It completely changes from company to company, and even WITHIN a company there are people trying to define it in different ways, and arguing about what the role is, and what it should do.
You look online, and it’s the same. People on LinkedIn arguing strenuously around different perspectives of what the role actually is.
You read the literature, and there are different established conflicting ‘camps’ or ‘schools of thought’ which some people follow, but many don’t and engineering managers just end up ‘rolling their own’ idea of what QA/QE is and how it should fit in their organisation.
Most of the time those people that in charge of actually defining what a ‘QA/QE’ person should do, have little to no experience in actually doing a ‘QA/QE’ job in ANY capacity, let alone following the path that they themselves are setting!
This is of a huge concern for me. How can anyone be reasonably expected to succeed in this situation?
I don’t think there is a solution, but perhaps I can describe what I think a ‘QA/QE’ person should do, and hopefully organisations or companies who agree with what I’m saying might actually get in contact and offer me work. Hopefully.