I am a QA analyst. I have been testing for a little over 2 years now and I recently (~ 4 months ago) started a job at a small company with less than 20 employees. I work alongside another senior QA analyst who was the only analyst for 10 years.
Early on I have begun to notice I receive little to no feedback. I had one sit down status meeting with my boss who couldn't give me specific criticisms or advice pertaining to my position. I work closely with the director who is generally open and communicates okay regarding my work. The senior QA analyst is somewhat distant and perhaps even "hands off" with me. I have overheard them say that I was a very self reliant and independent which is a good thing.
What worries me is that I am not included in any high level development meetings. As a QA in my old position, I was very involved in almost all aspects of development, where I was asked to provide my opinion and suggestion often. In my new position, I am not asked to join any project status meetings and usually only get introduced to a project after devs are onto another. I don't necessarily think that this is specific to me as I do not see my QA counterpart invited to these meetings as well.
It can be quite isolating when I feel so out of the loop on current and new projects. It feels almost as if quality is an afterthought at my job and it makes me feel very undervalued to the point where I hold back feedback regarding features because I feel as if it doesn't matter.
I am very excited and eager to become a better analyst and want to succeed in making my company's projects better, however I feel almost invisible some days. I also know that devs want the feedback as well.
I guess my question is what can I do as a new QA to place more emphasis on quality and show my boss that QA should and needs to be included in important design and development meetings?
When I first on-boarded I openly suggested that we be involved very early on in the process, however my boss's opinion was that he didn't see the need. How can he ever see the need if he doesn't know the difference? And if they refuse to let us in earlier or recognize our importance is it worth sticking around?