Understanding Role Division and Differences in IT: Development, Testing, and Operations

Technology organizations are driven by three "horses": organization, technology, and process. The author previously wrote two articles on recruitment channels and improving hiring conversion rates, which can be consulted for a broader view.

Moving from the "organization" perspective, this piece shifts focus to the "technology" and "process" aspects. It discusses how traditional development roles have expanded into three major technical roles—development, testing, and operations—and how hybrid roles such as "test development" and "dev‑ops" have emerged, sometimes leading toward the concept of a full‑stack engineer.

Testing development is defined as a role that combines development and testing skills to reduce communication overhead and improve engineering quality. In the author's team (Qtest), three distinct test‑development roles are described, each created with specific goals and differences.

The article lists the core competencies a testing professional should master:

Solid testing fundamentals and mindset: business knowledge, test case design, efficiency awareness.

Good development foundation: proficiency in at least one programming or scripting language, familiarity with middleware, databases, operating systems, basic system architecture, and common automation frameworks.

Project management awareness: risk control, quality management, schedule management, and a balanced view of cost, efficiency, and quality.

Team collaboration and rapid learning abilities.

Strong communication and expression skills: patience with repetitive tasks, effective interaction with other roles, problem‑solving, and process‑driving capabilities.

The author notes that many interview processes overemphasize development fundamentals, but stresses that technology should serve business, and both are essential for company growth.

In the concluding section, the author reflects on recent trends toward AI‑driven development, suggesting that while testing roles will not disappear, the demand for combined soft, hard, and business skills will increase, prompting test‑development professionals to consider their future commitment to the testing field.

Qtest is the professional testing team under 360, pioneering platform‑based testing efficiency.