QA Team Structure and Roles
QA team structure has evolved significantly in recent years — from centralised QA departments that test all software after development to embedded QA practitioners who are integral members of delivery teams. The right structure depends on organisation size, maturity, and product complexity, but trends strongly favour embedded, enabling models over centralised, gating models.
Models of QA Organisation
- Centralised QA team: All testers in a single team that provides testing services to development teams. Enables specialisation and consistent standards. Downside: creates handoff delays, QA as a bottleneck, disconnect from product context.
- Embedded QA: QA practitioners embedded within delivery teams. Strong product context, fast feedback loops, genuine shift-left. Downside: risk of inconsistent standards; requires deliberate communities of practice.
- QA chapter model (Spotify-inspired): QA practitioners embedded in tribes but organised into a QA chapter for knowledge sharing, standards, and professional development
Specialist Roles
- QA Engineer: Test strategy, test automation, exploratory testing, quality advocacy
- SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test): Heavy automation focus — building test frameworks and infrastructure alongside application development
- Performance Engineer: Specialist in load testing, performance profiling, and capacity planning
- Security Test Engineer: Penetration testing, security code review, SAST/DAST tooling