When Quality Work Doesn’t Land (And Other Things I’ve Been Thinking About)
Between school being out, some family travel, and interviews (2 this week for really interesting roles - wish me luck! 🤞), these last few weeks have been something of a blur. Never mind all of the awful things going on across the world and how that adds a constant hum of existential dread to the background of everything.
Anyway. Things are settling down some for me now so here’s a little catch up for y’all ✨
First up: I’ve been published!
Well, kind of 😅 I wrote an article for Ministry of Testing. It explores something uncomfortable: what if the people saying “hiring software testers causes more harm than good” are right? (Just… not in the way they think.)
I got to work with the wonderful team at MoT on this, and the article has already sparked some thoughtful discussion over at the Club forum. Come chime in!
Also: catching up on things I bookmarked weeks ago and finally have the brainspace to dive into.
In the latest Testing Experience magazine:
- Lisa Crispin’s article, Meaningful Metrics, was a great summary of how metrics should (and should not) be used to measure team performance and how DORA metrics fit in to that.
- Tobias Geyer’s article, Software accessibility includes gender diversity, is a clear breakdown of where software often fails trans and non-binary users and offers really practical way for testers to support our fellow humans.
- Stephan Dreher’s article, How I build my own GenAI test data generator, has given me some inspiration for my own vibe-coding experiments.
I’ve also been working my way through the Leading With Quality Conversations series over at Ministry of Testing (Pro membership required). Highlights so far:
- Callum Akehurst-Ryan: Loved this one. The entire time I was having flashbacks to my senior IC days. That part where he just casually lists all of the things that testers need to be good at (23:45)? 💯 I also really liked how he called out that his reporting in to the CTO and having an engineering title (vs a more traditional testing title) make engineers more receptive to his coaching - very real.
- Lisa Crispin: Working on teams that have unicorn magic is the goal (unicorn magic == psychological safety + culture of learning + strong practices)
- Jenny Bramble: Jenny’s energy is infectious! I really felt her call for leadership-level community in QA. It’s one of the things I miss most about working with a large group of really brilliant quality engineers. Being the (often only) senior quality person at the table can be isolating and having like-minded folks to vent to, bounce ideas off of, or gut-check with is everything.
Other internet rabbit holes I’m glad I followed
- This Bluesky post led me to this fascinating public research project (and also to a hypnotic but also depressing YouTube video of a school drop off car line)
- This post from Ethan Mollick on “The Bitter Lesson vs. the Garbage Lesson” has been bouncing around my head for a couple of days now. QA roles have a unique view into "the nuanced roles humans play in complex systems" (like software 💁♀️). If The Bitter Lesson holds true, what does that mean for that nuance and the role of humans in these systems? 🤷♀️