Please Break the Software: The Importance of Quality Assurance

It was December 2014. Interstellar was still in theaters, and Psy’s Gangnam Style was about to trigger a bug in YouTube’s code. The programmers for the site never expected an upload to be watched more than two billion times, so they figured they were safe to use signed 32-bit integers to track views, as their max value was 2,147,483,647. However, when Gangnam Style rolled past that, instead of displaying a view count of 2,147,483,648, there was an overflow error that made it -2,147,483,647.

Preventing this is where quality assurance (QA) comes in. And the value of this profession goes so much further, too. So let’s dive in. 

Here’s why QA is important — not just for the world, but for you, too.

What is QA engineering, anyway?

In the most simple terms, the quality assurance process is all about methodically testing software to expose its weaknesses before the end user does. This stage in the software development life cycle ensures quality control by creatively and thoroughly prodding the code. This makes sure that it’s robust enough to go out into the world, where the end user might interact with it in unexpected and unintended ways. 

Does the user enter a word in a field that was designed to only intake numbers? Does the user say they were born in the year 32,000? Does the user keep on switching back and forth between two interdependent pages? QA engineering_{How to Become a QA Engineer} makes sure that the software stays strong, regardless of the circumstances. 

So in that way, we approach the basic underlying reason explaining the importance of quality assurance: it makes sure that products meet customer expectations, the most basic of which is for the software to, well, work. Reflect on all the times digital products or services have bugged out on you. Have you wanted to use them again? Probably not. That’s dangerous to a brand’s reputation.

It’s more than just reputation, though

Sure, QA can increase customer satisfaction, and satisfied customers are good for business, but the benefits of quality assurance go far beyond KPIs and ROIs. We’ve already talked about the example of Psy’s video, which is admittedly harmless (and was easily fixed). But QA is about more than preventing negative view counts on a catchy music video. In fact, even people whose entire jobs are about attention to detail fall victim to a lack of robust quality management in the production process. We’re talking about the best of the best — the scientists at NASA.

In December 1998, NASA launched the Mars Climate Orbiter. This $125-million module was intended to circle the planet and relay information about the Martian atmosphere and surface back to earth. It took ten months to get to the planet, but the day had arrived: it was going to slow down and start orbiting. Instead, it kept going and buried itself into the planet’s red landscape.

See, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory had been using the metric system for navigation while Lockheed Martin Astronautics, who built the craft, designed it to provide acceleration data in imperial units. And the necessary conversion just didn’t happen, throwing off all the navigational calculations. This digital miscommunication is the exact sort of thing that integration testing, a key sector of QA, is designed to prevent.

So why is quality assurance important? It makes sure that scientific endeavors actually end up succeeding in gathering data about our solar system as opposed to launching expensive interplanetary cannonballs.

But we can take it back to earth. QA is one of the most accessible ways of getting your foot in the door if you want to launch a career in tech. In fact, if you work in manual QA, you might not need to code at all. That makes it important not just for our exploration of the stars, but also in the human stories playing out around us every day.

How it matters for one of our grads

If you could think of a job, chances were that Kyle Kolodziej_{In QA and Never Looking Back: Kyle Kolodziej’s TripleTen Story} had worked it. Food trucks, breweries, logistics — he covered the gamut. The thing was that nothing clicked, and when he found himself in project management, he started looking for the path he could commit to. 

He knew that role wasn’t for him. While he was in that job, he felt like he was falling prey to malicious spells. “Warlocks in D&D or World of Warcraft — they do soul drain. It felt like I was the target of that very consistently,” he said. 

So he knew he needed a change. He’d always wanted to get into tech, and after some research, he settled on quality assurance engineering. It meshed with his interests, but he also saw how important it was.

“Everyone needs a QA, whether it's an automation QA, or just a manual QA. It's always needed. You can't have a product that hasn't gone through QA.” Kyle Kolodziej, TripleTen grad

He enrolled in TripleTen’s QA Engineering program. He found himself encountering obstacles, but when he reached out to the community for help, people were there to help guide him. Once he’d mastered the crucial QA skills_{The Quality Assurance Engineer Skills You Need in 2024}, he sat down with a career coach, who helped him hone his resume and portfolio. After sending out applications, he got a hit, and a few interviews later, he’d landed the job.

Now, he no longer feels like there’s a supernatural force draining him of his energy. Quite the opposite in fact: “I'm enjoying automating things a lot. I'm also enjoying using similar skills that I took from my old job that I wasn't enjoying — like teaching people or training people.”

In fact, reflecting on the change, one shift stands out. “The main thing is I would definitely say I'm way happier.”

So quality assurance is important at every level — from the cosmic to the individual. Want to save NASA from a blunder? Try QA. Want to find a job you love? QA might also be the path for you.

How to tell if QA is for you

If you want some extra guidance on whether this is truly the profession you should go for, here are some questions to spur reflection. The more times you say “Yes,” the more likely it is that you’re a good fit for QA (but even one affirmative answer is enough to indicate it could be the right profession!).

• Do you like playing puzzle games?
• Do you find satisfaction in making sure that things are just right?
• When you encounter new things, do you find yourself eager to know how they work?
• Do glitchy sites and apps infuriate you?
• Did you notice what’s wroпg with this sentence?

Still unsure? Take our quiz

But if you want an even more in-depth exploration to see if QA is the field for you, we’ve got you covered: take our quick career quiz to find out what tech profession suits you best.