Comprehensive QA Framework for Sales Engagement Platform
The platform offers intuitive tools for content management, interactive presentations, email tracking, and analytics. Techstack was engaged to improve the entire quality assurance process by implementing a new testing approach for microservices being developed from scratch, with a focus on shifting testing left within the SDLC and establishing comprehensive automated testing at all application levels.
Industry:
Digital Transformation, Sales, Marketing & Support Intelligence
Services:
QA as a Service
Location:
United States
Challenge
The partner faced several key challenges in their quality assurance processes:
1. Shift-left implementation: Move testing earlier in the Software Development Life Cycle, ensuring testing is integrated at every development stage.
2. Comprehensive automation: Establish automated testing across all application levels (unit, integration, API, UI) while following the testing pyramid concept.
3. Efficiency improvement: Minimize manual efforts, reduce defect leakage, and ensure faster feedback loops throughout the development process.
4. Quality assurance scalability: Guarantee that testing frameworks remain scalable, maintainable, and reliable while ensuring new microservices meet high-quality standards in alignment with modern development practices.
Solution
Techstack developed a comprehensive microservices testing framework that addressed all key challenges while ensuring quality at every stage of development:
Multi-environment testing structure: Implemented a structured approach with distinct testing environments (local, branch/ephemeral, integration, staging, production) to run appropriate tests according to testing levels.
Testing pyramid implementation: Designed a testing system where 70–80% of tests run at lower levels (unit and integration), providing fast feedback on microservice quality before building higher environments.
Microservice-specific testing strategy: Established that each service is responsible for checking its own functionality through its own tests, avoiding verification of features in other services.
Shift-left methodology: We introduced two key practices that ensured testing and requirement validation started as early as possible:
Cross-functional requirement reviews: Before development begins, a developer, QA specialist, and product representative review upcoming tickets together. They clarify requirements, define acceptance criteria, and identify potential risks early, reducing defects that would otherwise appear later in the process.
Full-cycle team ownership: A single cross-functional team handles the entire development lifecycle—requirements analysis, backend and frontend development, testing, automation, and support. This setup ensures continuous knowledge flow, faster decision-making, and seamless integration of testing from day one.
Code quality gates: Implemented strict quality standards including ≥70% unit tests coverage, automated code style checks, and SonarQube validation to ensure code produced conforms to accepted standards.
Clear test ownership: Defined test placement and responsibility structure across development and QA teams for each test type (unit, integration, API, and UI).
CI/CD integration: Configured Git pre-push hooks and CI server checks to run all tests automatically, ensuring all quality gates are passed before code can be merged.
Technologies Used
The testing framework utilized modern programming languages for backend and frontend test automation, alongside specialized UI testing tools for end-to-end validation. Cloud infrastructure enabled the multi-environment testing strategy, supporting ephemeral environments and scalable test execution across all testing levels.
The workflow
The workflow emphasized early testing through extensive unit and integration checks, while API and UI tests ran on ephemeral and higher environments. Each microservice had dedicated Unit, Contract, Integration, API, and UI test suites to ensure full coverage across all testing levels.
Local environment testing
Engineers run unit and integration tests locally before pushing code, covering 70–80% of all tests for immediate feedback.
Branch (ephemeral) environment
After code push, automated tests verify functionality in isolation.
Integration environment:
Tests validate microservice functionality when integrated with other services.
Staging environment
Final validation occurs in a production-like environment before release.
Production testing
Monitoring and validation in the live environment.
About the team
The QA team was structured by areas of responsibility, including unit/integration testing, API testing, UI testing, and management. Knowledge sharing was emphasized, with experience being seamlessly shared across teams through regular syncs, demos, presentations, and workshops. Both development and QA teams collaborated closely, with clear ownership of different testing types—development managing unit tests, joint ownership of integration tests, and QA managing API and UI testing.
Impact
The implementation of Techstack's comprehensive QA approach delivered significant business value:
Accelerated time-to-market: Early detection and resolution of defects minimized rework and delays.
Improved customer experience: High-quality microservices led to more reliable and seamless user experiences.
Cost efficiency: Automated testing reduced manual effort, lowered testing costs, and decreased production issues.
Scalability and maintainability: The testing framework was designed to scale with system growth while remaining maintainable.
Enhanced team productivity: Streamlined workflows and clearly defined responsibilities improved team efficiency.
Risk mitigation: Early identification of risks and defects reduced production incidents.
Increased confidence: Rigorous testing and quality gates ensured microservices met business requirements and industry standards.
Technical achievements included establishing a comprehensive microservices testing framework, achieving extensive test automation with ≥70% codebase coverage, setting up ephemeral test environments, implementing standardized code quality gates, optimizing test execution, and fully integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines—collectively improving software quality and aligning the testing framework with modern microservices architecture practices.
