Software Quality Assurance online course with internship agreement
The Software Quality Assurance course teaches newcomers to QA how to test software systematically. You will design test cases with equivalence partitioning and boundary values, automate browser checks, test REST APIs in Postman, and run tests in CI/CD pipelines. It also covers performance and security testing and ISO/IEC 25010:2023. You study 100 % online for 180 days, an internship agreement is included, and the price is €200.
- 180 days of access
- 100 % online, at your own pace
- Level: beginner · No prior testing experience required
- Assessment: 10 quizzes (50 questions) and a final project
- Internship agreement included
- Certificate with a verifiable QR code
- Languages: Spanish, English, French
- Price: €200
Who it is for
- Career changers looking for an entry point into a technical role without writing production code
- Aspiring junior testers or junior test engineers preparing for ISTQB CTFL
- Manual testers who want to add automation, API and pipeline skills
- People joining distributed, remote software teams in Europe
What do you need to start?
Prior knowledge
- No prior knowledge of software testing needed
- You do not need to know how to write production code
- Basic everyday computer use
Software and equipment
- A computer with an internet connection
- Postman free tier and Newman (free, open source)
- Free tiers of GitHub Actions or GitLab CI for a practice pipeline
- No software licences are provided
What you'll be able to do
- Distinguish defects from requirement errors using ISTQB CTFL v4.0 vocabulary and the test life cycle
- Design test cases with equivalence partitioning, boundary value analysis and decision tables
- Decide which manual checks to automate using a repeatable-stable-verifiable criterion
- Choose between Selenium WebDriver, Playwright and Cypress for a given team and browser mix
- Build Postman collections with environments and chained requests, and run them with Newman
- Wire automated tests into a CI/CD pipeline as a quality gate, using Docker for consistent environments
- Plan performance tests with k6 or JMeter to check behaviour under peak traffic
- Assess a feature against the nine ISO/IEC 25010:2023 quality characteristics
Skills you will practise
- Test design techniques
- Boundary value analysis
- Playwright, Cypress, Selenium
- Postman and Newman
- GitHub Actions, GitLab CI
- Docker basics
- k6 and JMeter
- SAST, SCA and SBOM
- ISO/IEC 25010:2023
- ISTQB CTFL v4.0
Syllabus
- Testing fundamentals and the STLC (ISTQB CTFL v4.0) — Core vocabulary, the software testing life cycle and the defect-versus-requirement distinction that the CTFL v4.0 syllabus expects.
- Test design techniques — Equivalence partitioning, boundary value analysis and decision tables to choose a small, justified set of test cases for any input field.
- Modern automation: Playwright, Cypress and Selenium — When to automate, how the three tools differ architecturally, stable locators, independent tests and handling elements that are not yet ready.
- API testing: REST with Postman, a first look at GraphQL — Testing endpoints directly with Postman collections, environments and chained requests, then running them from the command line with Newman.
- CI/CD for testers: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Docker basics — Running regression suites automatically on every change and using Docker containers so tests behave the same on every machine.
- Performance testing with k6 and JMeter — Checking whether a system keeps responding correctly and quickly enough when thousands of users arrive at once.
- Shift-left and DevSecOps — Security testing in the pipeline: SAST and SCA scans of dependencies, software supply chain risks and the software bill of materials.
- Working in a distributed QA team — Async standups, bug reports written for colleagues in other time zones and remote Agile ceremonies.
- Software quality standards in practice: ISO/IEC 25010:2023 — Turning the nine quality characteristics into a short checklist you can run on an ordinary feature during a sprint.
- Landing your first QA role in Europe — ISTQB CTFL as the baseline junior postings ask for, and where AI-in-testing qualifications such as CT-GenAI fit.
Internship agreement
An intern with this course could support a QA or development team by designing and running test cases, logging and triaging defects, and maintaining automated browser tests. Other suitable tasks include building Postman collections for APIs, keeping regression suites running in a CI/CD pipeline, or helping with performance and dependency-scan checks before releases.
The internship can run at the same time as the course, within the 180 days of access.
Frequently asked questions
What job does the Software Quality Assurance course prepare me for, and does it include the ISTQB certificate?
The Software Quality Assurance course is aimed at entry-level roles such as junior QA or junior test engineer. It covers the knowledge set by the ISTQB CTFL v4.0 syllabus, which most European junior postings mention. The course does not replace the ISTQB exam: CTFL is awarded by the certification body after you pass its exam. The same applies to CT-GenAI, which also requires CTFL first.
Do I need to know how to code to start a career in software testing?
No. Testing does not require you to write production code. What it does require is a deliberate, systematic way of questioning software, and the course builds this from the first module. Later modules introduce automation with Playwright, Cypress or Selenium. These modules focus on choosing which checks are worth automating, using stable locators and keeping tests independent, rather than on software development.
Which tools and standards does the course cover?
For automation, the course covers Selenium WebDriver, Playwright and Cypress. API testing uses Postman and Newman, with a first look at GraphQL. Pipeline topics include GitHub Actions, GitLab CI and Docker basics. Performance testing uses k6 and JMeter, and security covers SAST, SCA and SBOMs. The standards are ISO/IEC 25010:2023 and the ISTQB CTFL v4.0 syllabus. Postman, Newman and the CI tools all offer free tiers for practice.
What could I work on during the internship, and who finds the company?
You arrange the host company yourself, and the school issues the internship agreement and its annex for the company to sign electronically. Suitable tasks include writing test cases with boundary value analysis, reporting defects clearly to a distributed team, testing REST APIs in Postman, maintaining automated login or regression tests, and checking pipeline quality gates in a QA or development department.
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Content updated: 07/10/2026