7 posts
AI drafts test cases, code and bug summaries in seconds, which moves a tester's value from producing artifacts to judging them. Review AI output like a junior's work, refuse unverifiable claims, and show your judgment through a portfolio, outcome-based CV bullets and a yearly career check.
QA managers lose arguments with activity counts and pleas of overload. Refuse anti-metrics like bugs per tester, lead every report with a judgment, and price last quarter's escapes against the cost of prevention. At Head of QA, the organisation itself is the product.
After Senior, testers often take the only step their company shows them and burn out as player-coaches, or stall as invisible SDETs. Lead and Staff are both promotions: one produces a team that works, the other a problem that stays solved. Try one of each, then choose.
A senior QA engineer who tests everything equally leaves the risky areas thin. Score each area by impact times likelihood, test the top deepest, tell the PM in writing what gets only a smoke pass, and make every production escape leave a regression test behind.
Testers moving into automation usually stall by learning in the wrong order, not because coding is hard. Learn the language your suite uses, automate three flows from your own product, make your first PR a small test for a bug you found, and own an area by month six.
New testers who count executed cases and test only the ticket get tuned out. The first 90 days have three jobs: learn the product and people, contribute real tests and one automation PR, then own one thing. Name the technique behind each case and report where a bug lives.
QA job titles mean different things at different companies, so measuring yourself by title aims you at the wrong rung. The QA career path is five levels plus an individual-contributor track; place yourself by the scope you own and the output you produce.
