What is CI/CD and why is it necessary for a QA engineer?

CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery) is a practice of automating the building, testing, and delivery of software.

For QA engineers, CI/CD is important for several reasons:

• Automated testing: Tests are run automatically with each code change, allowing for quick defect detection.
• Fast feedback: QA receives timely information about the build quality, speeding up the process of bug detection and fixing.
• Increased stability: Automated checks reduce the likelihood of errors reaching the release.
• Simplified regression testing: All tests are run regularly, helping to control the impact of changes.

Example: with each commit to the repository, a pipeline is triggered that builds the application, runs unit and integration tests, and if all succeed — deploys the build to a test environment where QA can perform manual or automated testing.