8 soft skills I think a tester should have
By: Marine Lacourie
Tags: QA, Software Testing, Tester, Software Development, Soft Skills

Photo by Sigmund

If you are a tester, what soft skills do you think you have in common with your fellow testers?

If you want to become a tester, this can help you understand what are the important soft skills for these roles.

Note: in this article, a tester can be: a QA, a QC, a SDET, or any names that are given to this software testing job.

#1 Passion for details

That’s not something we can fake. When discussing with testers, we can feel if they are really passionate about it. During an interview, a tester told me when being asked “what’s your favorite type of testing”: “I truly love quality, so it doesn’t matter if it is functional, design, or else as long as it makes sure that the quality is controlled. I don’t like a specific testing type, but I like testing.”

Testing is a mindset that we embrace in and out of work. How many of our friends post a photo of a misspelling on a restaurant menu, a registration form…?

#2 Be a team player

I don’t know any testers who work alone. We are getting the requirements from someone, testing someone else’s work, reporting to another team member, to say the least. We need to like interacting with others.

#3 Be kind

I didn’t write be nice, but be kind. It is the main job of a tester to report bugs or improvement suggestions. If we are not sharing the findings with respectful and kind communication, devs and other stakeholders can easily get crossed and feel attacked. We need to make sure we report facts and never make it personal.

#4 Want to understand, not just execute

If you don’t understand what & why you test, are you even really paying attention to what you’re testing? Testing is not only about reading the acceptance criteria, but it is understanding them enough to be able to challenge them and test all scenarios.

#5 Embrace stressful situations

Let’s be honest, we are always in challenging situations. Whether it is not enough time to test and write new automation tests, not enough to maintain the existing ones, being the last checks before the go-live (yes, even in Agile teams). We need to be able to cope with stress and a high pressure environment.

Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng

#6 Like investigating

One of the differences between a good tester and an ok one is how much they can/like to investigate by themselves. Whether it is to add clearer information in a ticket, helping a business person to understand a problem, or supporting the developers when they need: the investigation skills are very useful. By the way, it can be a technical investigation or just using common sense and curiosity to fully investigate a situation.

#7 Speak up

I believe that testers should have the ability to argue their point. We are not only monkeys pressing buttons, and we need to report what we think is not as expected. Sometimes (often?!) there are missing requirements, and not accepting this makes us request the team to do this better. It also allows us to make sure we deliver the best for the users by suggesting improvements to the product.

#8 Be ready to grow, always

The testing industry is in constant evolution. New technologies and methodologies are being often released and we need to learn and adapt. Even more than that, we need to proactively be looking around to be able to know what is available and suggest internally to the team if we find it can help.

It also helps us keep being competitive in the market when we need to find a new job.

🧐 Are there other soft skills that you think should be added to this list?