Organizational Hierarchy

Depending on the organization interviewer will ask particular questions. Like, if you are looking for a project manager testing position you will be asked around 20% technical questions and 80% management questions.

There are many small and medium software companies which do not follow this hierarchy and have their own adhoc way of defining positions in the company.

There are basically two teams in a software association. First one is project teams and second is quality teams. Project teams are those who execute the project and quality teams are comprised of testers and SQA (Software Quality Assurance Testers). The quality team looks after the quality part of the project. Director and CTO (chief technical officer) are on the top of the hierarchy of the company. The main role of the director is to handle finances; he is responsible of all activities in the company. The CTO’s main role is to have a bird’s eye view of technical as well as management operations in the project. CTO and project managers to see to higher level day-to-day operation in every project.
The program manager normally does not interact directly with the developers or testers, he only takes daily reports and from project managers and monitors the project.
Software engineers have around 1 to 2 years of experience. Interviewers expect software engineers to be technically at a medium level.
Senior software engineers have around 2 to 4 years of experience. Interviewers expect them to technically be very strong.
Project leads handle the majority of technical aspects of the project and should have around 4 to 8 years of experience.
Project managers are expected to be roughly 40% technically strong and should have experience above 10 years. But they are more interviewed from the aspect of project management, client interaction, people management, proposal preparation, etc. So now judge where you stand, and where you want to go.

Let’s see the bottom of the hierarchy:
Junior tester: Junior testers normally have 1 to 2 years of experience or are entry level. Their main task is executing test procedures prepared by seniors.

Senior tester: Senior testers generally have 2 to 4 years of experience and are expected to know how to prepare test plans. They are also aware of various metrics and testing techniques which help them to communicate project health. But the main expectation from a senior tester is that he should independently prepare test plans based on the requirement documents.

Team lead tester: Team lead testers mainly help and guide the senior testers. They are primarily involved in deciding the testing strategy, what kind of automation tool used, etc. They also act as a bridge between the project manager and the other team members.

Project test manager: The main job of a project test manager is to collect accurate metrics and report them to the project manager. He is also responsible for interacting with SQA to give updates on the quality of the project. They are also involved in the requirement phase.

SQA: If you are starting your career as a tester then you would surely aim to become an SQA leader somewhere down the line. The main job of SQA is to define the quality standard of the organization and to ensure that every project follows the quality process.

See the role of QA & QC