There are continuing debates whether QA in software testing is redundant or not. Often automated testing is considered to be the panacea for all QA problems. Many development teams often argue that they do very well without QA engineers. Companies employ this strategy but without giving any open credit to it for obvious reasons, but some of them even brag about it.  

We are not among those who vouch for redundant roles. We do not argue for eliminating the QA role, rather to go with the evolution.     

Agreed, that some software companies in Dubai due to their scale, domain or context having a full time QA testing engineer might be unnecessary. But these is an exception rather than the norm. Developers and especially automated tests cannot supplant QA engineers. Also, there are more benefits in differentiating development and QA roles. Here are some of them:

Diverging mindset: Developers write tests to prove the correctness of their code. Testers- to find the areas of failure.

There are critical differences in the mentality of developers and testers. Developers’ hold their code closer to their heart and know them inside out. Hence it is difficult for them to be impartial about it. This the reason why developers test cases are often limited.

Programmers already have in their mind how the software should perform and what they need to achieve and therefore stick to a familiar scenario while
software testing in UAE . This leads to building a perfectly accurate but at time error prone in nonstandard situations (missing edge cases) fragment of code.

On the other hand, testing engineers, are not attached to the code they test. They test out different creative scenarios of using the software, just like many future users, and seek bugs that stay outside the developers reach.

Generally, testers understand business premised better and follow requirements more precisely, which is essential for delivering software that meets business needs.

All this doesn’t mean that one is better than the other. Both are excellent and is needed, as true superpower comes from the collaboration between the testers and developers. 

Sharing of Responsibility

While programmers are generally responsible for a specific feature, system, microservice, or simply a fragment of code, testing engineers are accountable for the product as a whole.  They ensure that tests are actual and new bugs or fragilities do not appear after modifications (to different segments of the software! By separate development teams!) have been applied.

A good example here is the role of performing end-to end testing of a product based on microservices spread among different development teams. Having a QA tester from a software testing company in Dubai devoted to such complicated tasks that needs the coordination of different teams is crucial.

Not Every Type of Testing Can Be Automated or Done by Developers

Although there is a huge fan base for automation, let us be honest with ourselves-all tests cannot be done by automation some still do require human cognitive ability and common sense.

A fine example would be exploratory testing. Testers need to apply their creativity, experience, analytical skills and be familiar with the logic behind the software to find all possible issues. Sometimes it is insight or instinct that help them accomplish their task.     

 Another possible example is black box testing, which is not possible without a pair of eyeballs.