The meme's are killing us!
If we as testers fail to evolve alongside the world around us, we risk being replaced, and rightly so. The uncomfortable truth is that we have, in many ways, cornered ourselves. Scroll through LinkedIn and you will find no shortage of cartoons poking fun at the eternal tension between developers and testers. Funny, maybe. To me it represents as a symptom of something worth examining. By positioning ourselves as gatekeepers rather than collaborators, the testing community has gradually drifted to the margins of the development team.
Why do developers consistently outpace us when it comes to adopting new techniques and technologies? The answer lies in foundational work: deliberate research, knowledge building, and the discipline to invest in understanding the craft at its roots.
Testers are not only capable of the same, we are overdue for it. This talk makes the case for a fundamental shift in how we approach our own development as professionals, and offers a starting point for getting there. I will present a couple of examples of foundational work that you can start doing today. Because the alternative, standing still while the industry accelerates, is no longer a neutral choice. It’s an exit.