How to Onboard QA Engineers to Your Project

Your project is completed and you have a product that is ready to launch. But before that, you realize that you need QA engineers to run some final checks on your project to ensure everything runs smoothly. Or, perhaps you already have a QA team, and now you just need to expand. The challenge is onboarding the newcomers so they can start working effectively as soon as possible. What is the best way to teach new QA engineers the ropes? In this post, we’ll explore the best ways to onboard QA engineers so they can hit the ground running and contribute to your project’s success.

The power of onboarding materials

One of the most effective tools in the onboarding process is having a well-prepared set of onboarding materials. These guides have a major advantage—they are reusable and incredibly valuable for both new and experienced team members. Every QA engineer, including the experienced ones, might occasionally forget a detail or need clarification about a process. Onboarding materials serve as a handy reference, offering quick answers and helping team members stay aligned with the project's workflows. 

Types of onboarding materials

Onboarding new QA engineers can be challenging, as the onboarding materials are mainly created by engineers who actively participate in testing and are juggling their own responsibilities. In most cases a team member won’t be able to assume the role of full-time tutor, guiding new colleagues through every step of the process. To prevent unnecessary multitasking and disruptions, it is recommended to document important everyday processes in clear and accessible material.

Onboarding materials can come in different formats. Think of written guides, annotated screenshots, and how-to videos, as well as interactive knowledge checks. When it comes to learning, everyone has a different process—some people like to read, some like to visualize, some like gamifying the learning process. 

If resources allow, consider using a combination of these formats to make the onboarding process more engaging and effective for your new QA engineer. A little extra effort upfront can save everyone time and ensure a smoother transition into the team.

You may be interested in: Tips for Onboarding Your New QA Partner.

1. User-oriented product documentation

Let's address the elephant in the room. If you onboard QA engineers to a project with high maturity, the product under development/maintenance will most likely contain some sort of technical documentation, like user manuals, guides, or a dictionary with product-specific terminology, to name a few. 

While these resources are valuable, product documentation contains far more information than a new QA engineer would need to get started. This comprehensive material is useful for any new employee to get the gist of the product, however, product documentation is typically designed for reference, not for reading from start to finish. In theory, this approach could work if the information is selected, filtered, or summarized to be more digestible, however, this is rarely the case for product documentation. On top of that, it is important to mention that test environments are often different from production experience, making the user manual partially misleading for new QA engineers. 

The pros of using product documentation for onboarding:

• Requires no additional creation or maintenance effort.
• Highlights the main points and some details of the product under test.
• Helps QA engineers better understand user stories.

The cons:

• Not tailored to QA workflows or processes.
• May not effectively teach QA-specific tasks.
• Many projects lack extensive or well-maintained documentation.

How to address these challenges: To make product documentation more QA-friendly, consider adapting it to include QA workflows, such as functional end-to-end flows and common workarounds. While this will increase creation and maintenance efforts, it can significantly enhance its usefulness for onboarding.

2. Written guides of test processes

Written guides can be considered a form of product documentation, specifically aimed at QA engineers. Unlike user manuals, written guides exemplify the day-to-day workflows and incorporate company-specific tools and practices not accessible to customers.

Adding screenshots to steps in the written guides is recommended, as this will help new engineers visualize the step, and compare the screen on their device with the screenshot in the guide, in real time with minimal effort. 

To ensure consistency with the materials, there should be interconnection between the written guides. One way to do it is to have the team proofread the materials. If multiple people are writing the guides, set a specific structure and styling, and ensure that information is not needlessly duplicated. This way, the documents can interlink with one another, and be easier to read for newcomers.

To differentiate these guides from standard test documentation, consider providing more detailed descriptions. While seasoned QA engineers may skip over granular details for efficiency—since many actions become intuitive with experience—newcomers benefit greatly from the extra context.

Another distinct element in written guides is the inclusion of “workarounds”. These represent temporary solutions (if a part of the system is malfunctioning and will be fixed soon), or solutions to infrequent problems (if generated data is slightly off and the test case is not working as expected). Workarounds can also address any problems that are not part of the feature under the standard test. For example, if the test is buying an item from the online store, the button “Add to cart” does not work on a specific page, but works on another. 

Workarounds can be a separate document from the standard onboarding materials, but newcomers should be made aware that such a document exists.

Tip: Keep the guide's steps in logical order. People tend to read top-to-bottom and may overlook answers written in subsequent sections, leading to unnecessary confusion and reliance on senior team members for clarification. Attention to small details can save time and lessen the confusion.

The pros of using written guides: 

• Similar to test documentation. 
• Ideal for people who prefer detailed reading. 
• Easy to maintain once created. 
• Can prevent loss of important processes, shortcuts, and workarounds.

The cons: 

• Time-consuming to create. 
• Not very engaging and may be monotonous for some.
• Frequently described as a “wall of text”, making newcomers discouraged from reading. 

How to address these challenges: 

To make long text more digestible, include tables and bullet points, or restructure content based on feedback. Add step-by-step images to enhance understanding (though updates may be needed if processes change). Create interlinked documents or pages for better navigation.

3. Video tutorials of processes

Video tutorials are recommended for onboarding if the product changes rarely and/or with minimal margins.

Similar to YouTube tutorials that teach, once a product updates significantly, the tutorial becomes outdated. For example, if you’re teaching a programming language, and the methods are no longer supported, are you ready to maintain the video tutorials over time?

The pros of using video tutorials: 

• Easy to create. Just record the end-to-end flow. 
• Quick to follow. Videos often make it easier to grasp concepts that might be overlooked or assumed “obvious” in written documentation.

The cons: 

• Hard to maintain for large and complex workflows, as re-recordings will be more frequent.
• Hard to navigate. If an engineer needs specific information, it can be difficult to find it within a long video.

How to address these challenges: 

Add comments or annotations to highlight procedures that differ from the video content. However, if these accumulate, updating the video becomes necessary. Focus on creating small, themed videos instead of one long tutorial. Use chapters with timecodes to help users jump directly to the relevant sections.

4. Hands-on experience

This approach requires new QA engineers to test and learn on the go. While this approach does not require any documentation, minimal written instructions could be very beneficial to new engineers, as it reduces verbal questions to senior employees. The instructions can be created in the form of a test plan, individual test cases, or even general directions for exploratory testing. This method can be combined with written guides, allowing newcomers to read the instructions, and apply them step-by-step in real time. 

The pros of using hands-on experience in onboarding:

• The results (e.g. finding a new bug) can be useful for the team. 
• Experienced QA engineers who are onboarding on a new project will only have to learn the nuances of that specific project.

The cons: 

• This “trial by fire” can be too overwhelming for inexperienced employees who are also learning the basics of testing.
• The system may not be available for new employees right away.

5. Knowledge check—quiz

After a new QA engineer has been acquainted with processes, it might prove useful for them to test and reinforce their knowledge with a quiz. Here are a few tips to make a great quiz:

Step into the quiz player’s shoes

When creating questions, imagine answering them. Note any ambiguities that will make you choose the incorrect answer. Play the quiz and ask coworkers to play it with you, to get feedback and improve next iterations.

Add a humor element to the quiz

This could be the absurdity of questions, the absurdity of incorrect answers. The correct processes are more likely to be memorized as an association with something funny.

Make it a challenge

Include some tough questions that you would expect the engineer to fail. Failing a question could be a great teaching moment, reinforcing the lesson behind it. This approach will also help diversify the experience, making it interesting and engaging.

Design a balanced scoring system

Don't make the quiz too competitive. The goal is not to determine who is a better QA, but rather to make the questions and answers stick. Remember, it's meant to be a fun learning experience! 

The pros of using quizzes: 

• They’re easy to maintain, engaging, and more effective in teaching people who are used to gamifying their experience.
• Offer a feeling of instant reward.

The cons: 

• They can be hard to create, and require attention to nuances. 
• May require finding or creating a platform that is tailored to your needs.

You may be interested in: How to Set Up a QA Process for Your Startup from Scratch.

How to create and maintain onboarding materials 

The biggest drawback of onboarding is that it takes additional time and effort. While some types of onboarding materials require less time, it's still an effort to create and maintain them. Think of it as an internal project. From a business standpoint, it is important to balance the cost-effectiveness of current deadlines and the onboarding speed of new employees.

Onboarding materials will be the first resources new QA engineers are given to interact with, so they should be up-to-date and high quality, enabling new hires to learn efficiently.

Planning

To plan effectively, you must ask a few important questions: 

• Who will create the materials - one person or a team? 
• Should material creation and maintenance responsibilities be divided?
• How should tasks be divided and allocated?
• Who will be responsible for maintaining the materials?

Imagine a project without any documented guides on the testing processes, relying only on instructions. Delegating these tasks to an experienced QA engineer would be ideal, as it ensures the materials are practical and well-defined. However, when it comes to high-demand projects, this may be a problem, as every hour counts. On the other hand, assigning a non-QA contributor might result in less relevant content.  

Creating

Once you’ve decided what type of onboarding materials you want to introduce, you must consider a certain level of detail. 

High-level materials with minimal detail are easier to create and maintain, but they could hinder comprehension. Less detailed materials are mostly oriented toward QA engineers who are more familiar with the product. For example, if a test case requires adding a specific picture to an account, experienced QAs will not need instructions on where to go and how to generate the picture. A good practice for new hires is to start the onboarding with more detailed, low-level materials. Once they’ve familiarized themselves with those documents, they can transition to high-level guides and materials.

Tip: Encourage collaboration between QA engineers, and domain experts as soon as possible, to lower risks of re-writing and re-recording the materials. Feedback and discussions help refine the materials and ensure they meet practical needs.

Maintaining

Maintaining onboarding materials can be challenging, particularly if the product is updated frequently. This also means that maintenance costs will grow as the product changes, especially for materials containing screenshots or video recordings, as they require frequent updates.  

Product changes are sometimes beyond the project manager's control. For instance, when testing a component of a product that is influenced by multiple teams, it can be nearly impossible to effectively communicate and coordinate the necessary changes with all of them.

My personal experience as a QA engineer at TestDevLab has shown that newcomers' perspective is hard to predict. They are the main maintainers of the materials, as they are very likely to notice inconsistencies when they stumble upon them in guides. On the other hand, inexperienced testers may overlook certain details and update the materials because they may view it as “obvious”.

Encourage and listen to new employees' feedback, as they provide a fresh look without bias or familiarity. This feedback also applies to every aspect of day-to-day activities, as creating an environment that values feedback can prevent project stagnation and boost the mental well-being of employees. 

If the product under test is changing constantly, it will become hard to maintain materials that include screenshots and video recordings of the processes. QA engineers, and those contributing to the onboarding materials, need to understand the product lifecycle to choose the type of material effectively.

The bottom line

If you’re working on a project with QA engineers, have no approaching deadlines, and the product (or part of the product) under test does not change often, then you should consider investing time and resources in onboarding guides and other supplementary materials. Consider trying a combination of material types to speed up the onboarding process. However, as with every new initiative, there must be a balance between the necessity and the cost. Good luck with your projects!

Are you looking to enhance your QA efforts for a project? Reach out to learn how our QA services can help you reduce development costs, increase team efficiency, and build high-quality products.