The 4 QA KPIs Every Engineering Team Should Track

The most valuable quality metrics are often the ones nobody wants to talk about. They reveal uncomfortable truths about your development process.

After years of experimenting with dozens of quality metrics, I've narrowed down the four KPIs that actually move the needle for engineering teams. And they're probably not what you think. 📊

First, defect escape rate – the percentage of bugs found in production vs. testing. This single metric reveals more about your QA effectiveness than test counts ever could. It forces honest conversations about coverage gaps.

Second, flakiness index – the percentage of tests that fail intermittently. High flakiness destroys trust in your automation and wastes valuable debugging time.

Third, mean time to detect (MTTD) – how quickly issues are found after they're introduced. This measures your feedback loop efficiency far better than test execution time.

Fourth, regression coverage index – how much of your critical functionality is protected by automated checks. Notice I didn't say code coverage, which can be gamed. 🎯

Which of these metrics does your team track? Are there others you find more valuable? Share your experience in the comments!

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