Glossary
QA vs QC
Quality Assurance (QA) is the set of practices that prevent defects — process, standards, review. Quality Control (QC) is checking the finished product for defects. QA is proactive; QC is inspection.
The two terms get used interchangeably in casual conversation, but they describe different activities.
Quality Assurance (QA) is process-focused and preventive: code review standards, coding guidelines, requirements review, choosing the right test strategy, CI gates. Its goal is to stop defects from being created in the first place.
Quality Control (QC) is product-focused and inspective: running tests against the finished software and finding the defects that made it through. Testing — manual or automated — is a QC activity.
Why the distinction matters
A team that only does QC (testing) and no QA (process) will always be finding the same kinds of bugs, because nothing upstream changed to prevent them. A team that treats "QA" as a job title for the people who click through the app has, ironically, reduced QA to QC.
In practice
Most "QA engineers" actually do both: they influence process (QA) and they test the product (QC), plus increasingly own test strategy and tooling. If you're using autonomous testing to cover the QC layer more cheaply, that time is exactly what should go back into the QA side — process, risk analysis, and prevention.
See also
See how this plays out in practice — start a free run or read the autonomous testing guide.