Indian testing companies, however, are facing a host of challenges including lack of adequate talent and specialized certification programmes in testing to get youngsters into the profession. The estimated number of testers required in India is projected to be around 18,000 in the coming year, according to a Gartner report.

The key challenge the testing companies face revolves around the talent gap, the need for deep domain expertise, complexity of applications and regulations that prevent off-shore access to applications due to data privacy or security reasons, according to G Sumitra, vice-president (testing practice), Cognizant.
“Organizations, such as ours, have found innovative ways of dealing with these challenges. In absence of specialized testing courses in universities, we recruit raw talent and then put them through training on a testing-specific curriculum. Business analysts are recruited from the industry to provide the domain expertise that helps effective testing. We have also signed the data privacy Act and set up secure connectivity to access regulated applications. Whenever that is not possible, the testing is carried out onsite,” she points out.

Things, however, are looking up for this sector. Stating that software testing has emerged itself as a highly-attractive profession, she says. Cognizant’s testing practice, for instance has seen a 10 fold growth from about 500 career testers to over 7,000 testers in about 36 months. “This rapid growth highlights the importance of the quality of workforce,” says Sumitra.
Makarand Teje, chief operating officer and president, App Labs Technologies, concurs that the demand for testers has grown enormously with testing gaining widespread acceptance the world over in the last three to four years.

Shubendu Banerjee,vice president of Intelligroup, puts the issue in perspective, saying, “Quality assurance (QA) is not the glamour job of the software world yet. Rather than developing new applications, QA engineers test products built by others. With quality a watch-word through the highly-competitive industry, companies do not have the luxury of releasing software that hasn’t undergone substantial testing. With importance building on quality and related return on investment (ROI) considerations, quality assurance jobs in India are going in popularity.”