Quality Analyst Job Description

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When a software is developed, each stage of the development cycle needs to be monitored and approved by a quality analyst team. The quality analyst ensures that the progress of the software is according to plan, and that the user friendliness and utility of the software is similar to what was envisioned by the creators. This and many other software testing duties are a part of the quality analyst job description. Though this is not the most important and crucial part of the software development process, the importance of a quality analyst is absolutely vital to the software's success.

There has to be an interface between the final users of the software and the developers of the software, and it is the quality analyst that fills this interface. Out of the many quality analyst responsibilities, the primary task entrusted to him is to ensure that the applications are being developed according to the expectations and demands of the customer. The primary factor of the job analyst job description is to check if everything is working properly and that there are no glitches in the programming of the application. Here is a software testing tutorial that could help you learn more.

Quality Analyst Job Overview
The nature of work of a quality analyst is to check new programs and/or modified old programs for their durability and relevance. The job description of a quality analyst also requires him to perform any task that would crash the program, in order to check how sturdy the program actually is. There could be many bugs in the code of the program that could hamper its usefulness, that may have been overlooked by the developer of the program. It is mandatory for the quality analyst to check the entire program using software testing methodologies and detect and report the presence of any bugs in it. This task is generally referred to as software reverse engineering for debugging.

A quality analyst job description requires a quality analyst to perform the following tasks.

    * See if the programs are easy to use.
    * Determine and locate any weaknesses or faults in the software code.
    * Depending on the nature of the program, alter the speed of usage in order to see what effect that has on the running of the application.
    * Discuss any problems or bugs in the program code with the developers of the software.
    * Write a testing program that checks another program or application for faults.
    * See if the particular application interferes with any other programs that normally run on a computer.
    * Recommend changes and modifications to the developers of the program.
    * Check if the overall aesthetic look and design of the software is good enough for users.
    * Analyze the software completely from a customers point of view.

Depending on the size of the company that employs the quality analyst, he/she will either work in a highly structured and organized team, or simply as part of a 2-3 man team.

Quality Analyst Salary
The salary and payments that are given to a quality analyst vary greatly. The contents of the quality analyst job description usually determine how much payment they will receive. This is comparative as it depends on many different factors like the size of the company that is developing the software, the size of the quality analyst team, the nature of the application itself, and the nature and size of the end users. If the final customer is a big multinational corporation, obviously the chances of a large payment are very high. But if the end users are individual customers, the margins are much lower.

The experience of the analyst also plays a major part. For a beginner a job would fetch anything between $1,000 - $3,000. For a quality analyst that has been in the field for a long time and is an expert at his job, the going rates are around $8,000. Some analysts are even paid on an hourly basis. As you can see, the job is not a very high paying one if you are a beginner, as getting work at that stage is extremely difficult. The best kind of job for a quality analyst would probably be to check the durability and functionality of video games. Read more about the software development life cycle.

Quality Analyst Requirements
Having a degree that is related to a field of software development is a must for any person attempting to be a quality analyst. Simply knowing the quality analyst job description and being able to carry it out is not good enough. A formal mode of education in the relevant field is mandatorily required. Knowledge of various software development languages is also extremely important for a quality analyst. More than anything though, the primary requirement for a quality analyst is relevant experience. The more experienced a quality analyst is, the more thoroughly he will check the functionality of an application, and higher the price he can charge. Read more about IT jobs.

At the end of the day, the job of a quality analyst is highly specialized and skill based, and requires more than just a fundamental knowledge of computers and software development languages. The quality analyst job description makes it sound like a fairly simple task, but in reality there are many more fine details in the job that make it a very elite field.