What is quality engineering? Complete guide to software quality engineering
How to build quality into software from day one
Taylor Bruneaux
Analyst
We’ve spent years watching engineering teams struggle with the same problem: they catch bugs instead of preventing them from occurring. Most leaders believe that hiring more QA engineers will resolve their quality issues. However, quality assurance—testing software after it has been built—is fundamentally reactive.
Quality engineering takes a different approach. Instead of catching defects, quality engineers build systems that prevent them. It’s the difference between having a safety net and designing a bridge that won’t collapse.
This shift from reactive testing to proactive quality engineering is about fundamentally changing how teams think about software quality.
In this complete guide to quality engineering, we’ll show you what quality engineering means, how it differs from traditional QA, and most importantly, how to measure and build quality into your software from the ground up.
What is quality engineering?
Quality engineering is the practice of building software quality into every stage of development, from initial design through production monitoring.
Unlike traditional quality assurance, which tests finished features, quality engineering embeds quality practices throughout the entire software development lifecycle.
Key characteristics of quality engineering:
- Prevention-focused rather than detection-focused
- Integrated throughout the development process
- Cross-functional team responsibility
- Automated testing and continuous validation
- Data-driven quality decisions
Software quality engineering focuses on prevention rather than detection. Quality engineers collaborate with developers, product managers, and SREs to ensure that quality is everyone’s responsibility, not just the testing team’s.
The discipline emerged as teams began deploying software multiple times per day. Traditional QA couldn’t keep pace. Quality engineering provides the automation, processes, and cultural practices needed for high-velocity software delivery.
Quality engineering vs quality assurance: what’s the difference?
The distinction matters more than you might think:
Quality assurance (QA):
- Tests software after development is complete
- Focuses on finding bugs in finished features
- Relies heavily on manual testing
- Operates as a separate phase or team
- Reactive approach to quality issues
Quality engineering (QE):
- Integrates quality practices throughout development
- Prevents defects through better design and automation
- Emphasizes automated testing and continuous validation
- Cross-functional responsibility across all team members
- Proactive approach to system reliability
Key insight: Teams can reduce their defect escape rate by 60% after transitioning from traditional QA to quality engineering practices. Quality engineers catch issues before they become problems.
What do quality engineers do?
Quality engineers wear multiple hats, but their core responsibilities center on building reliable systems:
Test automation and CI/CD integration
Quality engineers design and maintain automated test suites that run continuously. They integrate these tests into CI/CD pipelines, ensuring every code change is validated before deployment. This includes unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end testing frameworks.
Defining quality standards and metrics
They work with stakeholders to establish what quality means for their specific context. This involves setting up monitoring for key software quality metrics like defect density, system uptime, and performance benchmarks.
Scalability and performance testing
Quality engineers validate that systems can handle expected load and gracefully degrade under stress. They design performance tests that mirror real-world usage patterns and identify bottlenecks before they affect users. This work often overlaps with performance engineering practices.
Quality metrics collection and reporting
Quality engineers make quality visible across the organization through dashboards and reports. They track trends in code quality, system reliability, and user satisfaction to guide improvement efforts.
Cross-team collaboration
Perhaps most importantly, quality engineers bridge the gap between development, operations, and product teams. They ensure quality considerations are part of every technical decision. This collaborative approach is essential for improving developer experience and overall team effectiveness.
How to measure software quality effectively
Measuring software quality requires looking beyond bug counts. Effective measurement spans multiple dimensions. Understanding how to measure code quality and overall software quality is essential for quality engineering success:
Code quality metrics
- Code coverage: Percentage of code exercised by automated tests
- Cyclomatic complexity: Measure of code complexity and maintainability
- Code churn: Frequency of changes to the same code sections
- Technical debt ratio: Time needed to fix quality issues vs. time to add new features
System reliability metrics
- Uptime and availability: Percentage of time systems are operational
- Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF): Average time between system failures
- Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR): Average time to restore service after failure
- Error rates: Frequency of system errors across critical user flows
These metrics align closely with DORA metrics, which track deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate, and recovery time.
Performance quality indicators
- Response times: How quickly the system responds to user requests
- Throughput: Number of requests the system can handle per second
- Resource utilization: CPU, memory, and storage consumption patterns
- Scalability benchmarks: Performance under increasing load
User experience quality
- Task completion rates: Percentage of users who successfully complete key workflows
- User satisfaction scores: Direct feedback on software usability
- Support ticket volume: Number of quality-related user issues
- Feature adoption rates: How effectively users engage with new functionality
Building an effective quality engineering program
Creating a quality engineering program requires more than hiring quality engineers. It demands cultural and process changes. For teams looking to implement comprehensive practices, resources like Abstracta’s quality engineering guide provide additional frameworks and methodologies.
Start with shift-left testing
Move testing earlier in the development process. Implement unit tests that run on every commit. Add integration tests to your CI pipeline. Catch issues when they’re cheapest to fix.
Implement continuous quality gates
Don’t rely on human judgment for routine quality checks. Set up automated gates that block deployments when quality standards aren’t met. This includes test failures, security vulnerabilities, and performance regressions.
Invest in observability
You can’t improve what you can’t measure. Instrument your applications from day one. Set up logging, metrics, and distributed tracing. Create alerts for user-facing issues, not just system metrics.
Foster quality culture
Make quality everyone’s responsibility. Train developers to write testable code. Help product managers understand the cost of quality debt. Celebrate teams that prevent issues, not just those who fix them. Establishing effective code review checklists can help embed quality practices into daily workflows.
Use the right tools for quality engineering
Modern quality engineering relies on automation and tooling:
- Testing frameworks: Jest, Pytest, JUnit for unit testing
- End-to-end testing: Playwright, Cypress for user workflow validation
- Performance testing: k6, Artillery, JMeter for load testing
- CI/CD platforms: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins for automation
- Observability: Datadog, New Relic, Honeycomb for production monitoring
Common quality engineering challenges
Teams implementing quality engineering face predictable obstacles:
Scattered standards and inconsistent processes
Different teams often follow different quality standards, making it difficult to maintain consistency. Quality engineers need to establish organization-wide standards while allowing for team-specific needs.
Legacy systems and technical debt
Older codebases may lack the testing infrastructure needed for quality engineering. Teams must balance improving existing systems with building new features.
Measuring and demonstrating value
It’s challenging to prove the ROI of prevented bugs or avoided outages. Quality engineers need clear metrics that connect their work to business outcomes.
Changing requirements and complex systems
Modern software systems are increasingly complex, with microservices, cloud infrastructure, and third-party integrations. Quality engineers must adapt their approaches to handle this complexity.
Software quality in different contexts
Quality engineering practices vary based on your development environment:
Cloud-native quality engineering
Cloud environments enable new quality practices like chaos engineering and canary deployments. Quality engineers can leverage cloud-native testing tools and services to validate systems at scale.
On-premises quality engineering
On-premises environments may require more focus on infrastructure management and environment consistency. Quality engineers need to ensure test environments accurately mirror production.
DevOps and quality engineering integration
Quality engineering and DevOps share similar goals around automation and continuous improvement. Quality engineers often work closely with SREs to ensure both development and operational quality. Understanding site reliablity engineering helps clarify how these roles complement each other in modern software delivery.
The future of quality engineering
Quality engineering continues evolving as software development practices advance. AI-powered testing tools are emerging to generate test cases and identify potential issues. Shift-right practices are expanding to include production testing and user behavior analysis.
For teams implementing comprehensive quality programs, methodologies from sources like QE Unit’s 60 practices for quality engineering offer detailed implementation strategies across different organizational contexts.
The most successful teams treat quality engineering as a competitive advantage. They don’t just ship faster—they ship more reliably. They don’t just catch more bugs—they prevent them entirely.
Getting started with quality engineering
Step-by-step implementation approach:
- Assess your current state: Measure your baseline quality metrics
- Start small: Pick one area like unit test automation or CI integration
- Build incrementally: Add quality practices gradually rather than all at once
- Measure progress: Track improvements in your quality metrics over time
- Scale what works: Expand successful practices across more teams and projects
Bottom line: Quality engineering isn’t about perfection—it’s about building better systems through better practices. The teams that embrace this mindset don’t just deliver software faster; they deliver software users can depend on. To track your progress, consider implementing engineering metrics that measure both velocity and quality outcomes.
Quality engineering represents a fundamental shift in how teams think about software quality. Instead of treating quality as a checkpoint, it becomes a core competency that enables faster, more reliable software delivery.