When it comes to dedicating resources in a startup, bootstrapped or funded, there are always key areas that get the bulk of your attention: development, sales, and marketing. The big three departments are vital, because they actually lead the initial growth and expansion of the company. Yet, one department is often overlooked, but is absolutely vital to long-term scalability and SaaS in particular: QA.
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Quality Assurance matters to a team of any size, as it offers a rare chance to step back and review code and design before it actually reaches a customer’s hands. In day-to-day operations, this can mean simply uncovering an awkward user experience, but when release dates loom, QA offers a critical means of rigorously testing code and platform before users are impacted. Developers, even experts, rarely have the time to extensively review code and test product before it is pushed to production, leaving plenty of gaps for unexpected behaviors. Like Customer Success, this is your chance to work through potential issues and conflicts before they happen, saving the company money and bolstering a positive reputation.
CommercialTribe invested heavily in its QA team for exactly this reason. Building a robust, globally scalable, and enterprise-oriented SaaS platform means having constant, multi-variable testing. There is simply no other way to guarantee that the platform will be ready for an enterprise concurrent userbase, be capable of supporting every country, or even deliver video on extremely tight time margins. Through automatic tests and custom, constantly updated scripting and test programs, our QA team ensures that the customer’s experience is exactly as designed.
Investing in QA as a startup can be expensive, most of all because it does not immediately grow the company. Yet, like a solid frame to a house, QA provides the support that simply must be in the product and team in order to drive toward success. A strong QA team will fundamentally alter your product trajectory, cutting away at downtime, reducing negative experiences, and optimizing the entire platform as it grows in new, and often unexpected, ways. Market leaders invest in QA for a reason.
Joining a QA team offers an exciting mix between development and programming and business-facing releases, where your efforts can prevent customer churn or revolutionize a feature. As a leader between pure code and on-the-ground sales, you get the opportunity to guide product and market-facing thought, while supporting the efforts of every team. We often see former developers thrive in QA, bringing together a strong understanding of code operations and product design.
The best thing about QA? No Javascipt mastery is required!
CommercialTribe is hiring talented members of the Denver community for its growing QA team! Find out more and apply here.
