The more things change, the more they stay the same.
During my 20 years in testing I've experienced many changes. Waterfall, Agile, and DevOps. Scripted, exploratory, and automated testing. Shifting left, shifting right, and sticking a CI/CD pipeline in between. Testers in a separate team, testers in the same team, and quality engineers near the team. And of course, now there's GenAI. But I can't help but think: the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The job has always been about effectively uncovering information about the quality of the software your organization is building. And there has always been a lot of confusion in organisations on how to organize testing. That has forced testers to mold themselves to fit into whatever spaces organisations have reserved for them. Unfortunately this has lead to quite some dysfunctional approaches to testing, with the testers often being among the worst victims.
So join me as I share stories from my 20 years in testing. Stories that show how things kept changing, while the core of testing stayed the same. I'll distinguish activities and roles that are a result of organisational dysfunction and ones that have lasting value. Because that's the only way to future-proof your career: building skills that align with that core of testing, not (just) with the dysfunctions.