QA — Quality Assurance
Definition: The discipline of validating that software behaves as designed before users see it. Skipping QA does not save time — it moves the cost of bugs from engineering to support, sales, and brand.
Example
Cutting the QA pass to ship faster cost us three enterprise renewals — the math never works.
When you'll hear it
QA shows up most often in engineering planning, architecture reviews, and sprint retrospectives. When someone uses it, they're usually referring to quality assurance — and they expect the room to already know what that means.
FAQs
What does QA stand for?
QA stands for Quality Assurance.
What does QA mean in technology and engineering?
The discipline of validating that software behaves as designed before users see it. Skipping QA does not save time — it moves the cost of bugs from engineering to support, sales, and brand.
Where will I hear QA used at work?
QA comes up most often in engineering planning, architecture reviews, and sprint retrospectives. It's used as shorthand for quality assurance, so people assume you already know the term.