Meaning
Quality Assurance; the systemic monitoring, testing, and evaluation of software to ensure standards of quality before release.
Three examples from work
Testing handoff
DevThe user profile feature is deployed to staging and ready for QA.
QA EngineerI'll execute our automated regression suite and check edge cases.
Sprint triage
PMDid QA approve the release candidate?
QA LeadYes, all critical test cases passed with zero blockers.
Engineering collaboration
LeadWriting unit tests early makes QA sign-off significantly faster.
DevIt catches obvious logic errors before testers even open the ticket.
Pronounce each letter: 'Q-A'. Can refer to the discipline, the team ('talk to QA'), or the testing phase ('in QA').