Things You Should Master as a Software Tester

“Quality is free, but only to those who are willing to pay heavily for it.”— DeMarco and Lister

The Software Tester is responsible for the quality of software, and he/she needs to enhance skills to deliver quality software. Here I will try to cover software testing topics that help you reach your career's new height.

Software Testing Fundamentals

This is very basic, but still, many professionals don't know those concepts in depth. If you have attended an interview for a software testing job, 80 percent of the time, you will encounter questions related to testing fundamentals. Fundamentals such as how we can define software testing, the importance of software testing, the seven principles of testing, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC), and other similar questions. These topics are the basics, and every tester should know those topics comprehensively.

Types of Software Testing

"Programming not needed in the career of testing" is the biggest myth while working in the software testing field. You can assume this if you are not willing to enhance your salary and career progression. Automation testing is one type of testing, where a tester needs working knowledge of programming to automate functional tasks.

As a tester, at least you have ideas and deep concepts of manual testing, automation testing, unit testing, integration testing, smoke and sanity Testing, regression testing, non-functional testing etc.

Development of test cases

In software testing, creating effective test cases is an art. As a tester, you should know the documents needed to create test cases, test scenarios, traceability matrix, and what steps to follow for test case development.

Software Testing Techniques

Testing techniques play a significant role in creating test cases more effectively. These techniques definitely help you to create bug-finding test cases in less time and effort. Techniques include Equivalence Partitioning & Boundary Value Analysis, Decision Table Testing, State Transition Diagram, and Use Case Method.

Test Management & Control

This section is basically for management people who need to take care of the project budget and total time for completing the project. Here, first, know what factors you look at while Estimation and then the estimation techniques available to find both time and money.
The test plan is another important document in software testing. In this document, as a Tester, you should know the test plan's contents and who develops and approves it.

Test Environment for Software Testing is an important consideration while testing any product. If you are a tester, every interviewer asked this question. So be ready with an answer to what scenario you have used while testing and what difficulties you faced in the different testing environments.

Defects

This is the output of the testing activity. Defects, it is an anomalies in observed output in comparison with the expected output. This is the ultimate output Also, try to understand the defect life cycle and what are the testing tools available for different types of testing.

Agile

Nowadays, Agile Testing is on-trend, so prepare this accordingly. Try to find out how Agile methodology differs from normal testing and if can we automate agile methodology. Also, try to understand the scrum Testing  Scaled Agile Framework(SAF).

I am listing some topics which you should know while covering the software testing field.

• Difference between Agile & Scrum
• Difference between Scrum & Kanban
• Different domains of testing
• Testing of web application
• Checklist while doing web application testing
• What are the test cases for Payment Gateway Testing
• Mainframe Testing
• Whitebox Testing
• Static Testing
• Cyclomatic Complexity
• Python Unit Testing Guide
• Performance Testing Basics and Types
• Software Testing Metrics
• How to create Test Strategy Document
• What is Testing as a Service (TaaS)?
• What is Test Maturity Model (TMM)?

Differences not only facilitate differences between two terms, but it also increases your understanding of those terms. In testing, the following are the favorite topics for the interviewer. 

• Defect Severity and defect priority
• Test Plan and Test Strategy
• Static and  Dynamic Testing
• Positive and Negative Testing
• Re-testing and Regression Testing
• Quality Assurance and Quality Control
• Verification and Validation
• Test Harness and Test Framework
• Globalization and Localization Testing
• Test Scenario and Test Condition
• Unit Test and Integration Test

I have tried to cover most of the topics related to software testing. Please comment if you feel I missed any important topic.