Test Engineering Fundamentals
Wikipedia has a good definition of a Test Engineer.
A test engineer is a professional who determines how to create a process that would best test a particular product in manufacturing and related disciplines, in order to assure that the product meets applicable specifications. Test engineers are also responsible for determining the best way a test can be performed in order to achieve adequate test coverage.
This definition omits any mention of SQA (software qual). SQA isn’t Test Engineering, unless the software is controlling a machine or other physical system. In my view Engineering is an activity where the ultimate goal is to create physical objects or control physical phenomena — i.e. interact with the physical universe. Software Development that doesn’t interact with physical objects or phenomena isn’t Engineering, any more than Accounting is Engineering.
Test engineers are also often designated as system designers or system integrators. Test Engineers are multi-disciplinary generalists, who posses a breadth of knowledge in industrial machinery, electronics, software programming, and statistical analysis.
To assure that a product meets the applicable specifications the product has to be tested. And testing requires performing measurements and collecting data. The measurements could be static and dynamic properties of the unit under test (UUT) and it’s response to various stimuli.
