Aspects of Working as a Tester in the Banking Sector

A tester is a specialist who checks whether a product is functioning correctly, complexly built systems, helps developers find defects, and sometimes helps fix them, focuses on creating test reports, entering documentation, etc.

The job of a tester in the banking industry is a bit different because there are some industry specifics: coordination between departments, web security issues, and so on. Now let’s see what you need to know and what you shouldn’t do when you get a job in a bank.

Be ready that about 40% of your work time to be spent on the same type of calls and conversations with your colleagues

So, expect that at the beginning of your career path, you will have to do a lot of talking. Jira is not enough to make the entire team understand what they are doing and what they are striving for. You’ll likely have to participate in daily meetings, and grooming sessions (meetings where work is analyzed in detail), and communicate directly with coworkers, clients, and management.

A lot of time will also be spent on communication with the development department: you will have to detect bugs, analyze why they were missed, and understand the nuances of complex software.

Of course, you can have a corporate chat room to communicate. But, firstly, not everything can be discussed in such correspondence. And secondly, if you follow this logic, the number of working chats will be such that the urgent search for the necessary information will one day turn into a real quest.

The remaining 60% – increased documentation requirements, security requirements, and a lot of acronyms

In addition to the basic tasks of web testing services, you may be required to create test documentation, and work with autotests – that is a lot of routine writing: test cases, test plans, etc. Also, do not forget that you need to regularly keep up to date with absolutely ALL the documentation, considering the latest developments and innovations.

Any bank contains a mass of customer names, accounts, and the amount of money in them. Therefore, once you start working, as a new tester you have to undergo security training for a certain period. And all work related to the search for bugs will be thoroughly reviewed by the security department, where your work will be repeated.

Testing services in a bank will require you to learn a huge number of complex terms and acronyms, from simple ones related to the law to complex ones (e.g. specific to banking or intra-corporate slang).

In Summary

QA work in a bank specifically affects the quality of the product: whether a new feature will make it to release, whether customers will be comfortable using the product, and so on. If you are ready to learn all the time and are not afraid of complicated work and frequent bureaucracy, then this job will be up to you!