QA role in SOA projects

The traditional roles and responsibilities are being redefined and expanded in the context of SOA projects. We can
observe a new project life cycle model and the roles associated with various life cycle stages in an SOA project.
We can identify a set of common life cycle stages of a SOA project, such as SOA feasibility study, service oriented
analysis, service oriented design, service development, service testing, service deployment etc.. In his book, SOA
governance, Thomas Erl describes organizational roles which are associated with one or more of those SOA project
life cycle stages. Thomas Erl specifically defines SOA Quality Assurance Specialist role who is primarily involved in
the testing stage of a SOA project. He also states the importance of possessing expertise in both business domain
and technology.
While agreeing with Thomas, I would expect much more contribution than mere testing of solutions from SOA QA
specialist in a SOA project.
SOA life cycle governance

SOA governance specialist is primarily responsible for the execution of governance process in a SOA project.
However, as defined by Ian Sommerville in his book on Software engineering, quality assurance is an umbrella
activity which spreads through out the projects from inception to delivery. Therefore, ideally, the SOA QA specialist
should be able to play the governance specialist role.
Service oriented test analysis

SOA QA specialist should actively be involved in all service analysis, design phases and gather data about possible
failures of the solutions, testing requirements, security requirements etc.. Also, the QA specialist should identify
consumer applications in advance, the nature of the production environment and be prepared with simulating
complex application integrations.
Service testing at the early stages of the project

As I explained in Quality The key to successful SOA presentation, early testing will be most important aspect of SOA
testing effort. SOA QA role should use mock services to simulate the services which are not implemented yet or not
available for testing instead of waiting till they are ready for testing.
Test automation

Test automation is a must-have condition for SOA projects due to the likelihood of frequent requirement changes and
rapid release cycles. It will be always important to have a comprehensive automation plan which will be driven by
everyone involved in project, not limited to testers.

Since SOA has gone from nice-to-have to have-to-have, we would expect a greater involvement of QA

Job Objective : To obtain SOA Tester position that fully utilizes my experience and abilities.

Skills
Huge working experience in SOA testing
In depth knowledge of web service testing
Familiarity with GUI and API test automation using HP Quick Test Pro
Proficient with SDLC
Ability to handle multi tasks
Ability to work independently


Job Experience

Contributed to the entire software development life cycle.
Assisted in implementation of QA standards.
Understood SOA Reference Architecture.
Reported and documented defects found during test execution.
Provided test services for support activities.
Created and implemented test plans and test scripts.