Software Testing Skills

A list of the skills needed for software testing.

Preparing a test plan. Working out the test scenarios needed. Documentation preparation and test script preparation.

Project planning. Estimation of resources and timescales, monitoring progress.

Test data preparation.

Executing test plan.

Manual testing.

Automated testing. Selenium for test automation. Experience with automated testing tools (e.g. Selenium, Postman, JUnit).

API testing.

API testing tools (e.g. Postman, Insomnia, SoapUI).

Jira / Atlassian Suite.

Expertise in continuous testing and integrating automation scripts into CI/CD pipelines.

Unit testing. An individual unit, i.e. smallest testable part, of some software is tested. It usually has only one or a few inputs, and a single output.

Functional testing. Testing the specific functional requirements, i.e. the specific behaviour of the software, such as a notification is sent. Functional testing covers what the system should do. More

Non-functional testing. Non-functional requirements describe the performance and usability of the system, so non-functional testing tests these, i.e. how well the software does things, and considers resources and design. More

Boundary testing.

Performance testing. Stress testing / Volume testing.

Usability testing. GUI testing. Interface testing.

Regression testing.

Mobile testing.

Communication skills (both verbal and written).

Diplomacy (for providing feedback to developers).

Running SQL queries on databases. Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL.

Good understanding of computer hardware.

Problem-solving skills.

Jira. Issue and project tracking software.

Ability to prioritise defects by severity.