Natural selection in a staff shortage environment

After 4 years the service of quality has increased from 3 people to 25. The whole professional team consists of effective and efficient testers and QA-specialists. Most of them came to the company without any working experience and even without basic knowledge in testing and QA. There are 2 high schools in our city which release programmers but none of them teaches to be a tester. Our city is considered to be one of the development centers in Russia but it has staff shortages as many provincial cities: there are a few specialists, graduates go to the capital. I will share our experience in surviving in such conditions and developing the department successfully. Which methods were used and how the modern model of development was achieved.