QA vs QE

Định nghĩa

• QA — Quality Assurance — focus on PROCESS + RESULT.
• QE — Quality Engineering — focus on BUILDING quality in, technical depth.

Shift in modern tech

• 2000s: QA = manual testing.
• 2010s: QA + Automation.
• 2020s: QE = engineer who specialize in quality, write code, build platform.

QE responsibilities

• Test framework architecture.
• CI/CD integration.
• Test data platform.
• Synthetic monitoring platform.
• Chaos engineering tooling.
• Quality metrics platform.

Skills QE need

• Strong coding (1-2 production languages).
• System design.
• Cloud (AWS/GCP).
• DevOps tools (Docker, K8s, Terraform).
• Observability (Prometheus, Grafana).
• Statistics (interpret metric).

QE vs SDET

Largely synonymous, slight emphasis:

• SDET = Software Dev in Test (Microsoft origin).
• QE = Quality Engineer (broader scope, modern).
• Day-to-day similar.

Org structure modern

• 1 QE lead per product team.
• QE team central (5-10 people) build platform serve product team.
• Product team QE embedded full-time.

Career path

QE → Staff QE → Principal QE → Distinguished Engineer (Quality). Compensation parity với dev engineer (no longer "QA underpaid").

VN context

QE role growing fast 2020+ in Tiki, Shopee VN, FPT product groups, Vinhomes / Sun Vehicle. Salary 50-100M/month for senior QE.

Transition

• Manual QA → QE: code skills, 1-2 năm investment.
• Dev → QE: domain shift (less feature dev, more infra).