A good test engineer has a ‘test to break’ attitude, an ability to take the point of view of the customer, a strong desire for quality, and an attention to detail.
•    Tact and diplomacy are useful in maintaining a cooperative relationship with developers, and an ability to communicate with both technical (developers) and non-technical (customers, management) people is useful.
•    Previous software development experience can be helpful as it provides a deeper understanding of the software development process, gives the tester an appreciation for the developers’ point of view, and reduce the learning curve in automated test tool programming.
•    Judgement skills are needed to assess high-risk areas of an application on which to focus testing efforts when time is limited.