Golly. I have recently come up against this kinda thinking. Hard. It literally knocked me off my feet and had me questioning my value as a tester.... as someone who has a solid THIRTY-plus years career in that space.... I'm not someone who can code, and I've never wanted to be. As per James Bach's response, I would describe myself as a semi-technical tester. I can string together joins in SQL, I can follow the architectural diagrams in our design sessions, but I couldn't write a line of code if I tried. And for me, that's as it should be. Writing code isn't what I bring to the table. I work with a team of incredibly clever devs. That's what THEY do. My strength is in the way I think about things. It's different from developers. It's about joining dots, understanding how things hang together in the bigger scheme of things, AND also in the fine-grained detail. My strength is also in my ability to listen to and trust my intuition - a super-power honed over 30+years that leads me to find 'interesting behaviours' in exploratory testing that would mostly go undetected by people writing lines of code to meet the AC's. And those discoveries aren't always "edge-cases". My strength is in the way I ask the "what if?" questions, the 'so-called-dumb questions' that not only help me understand how all the 'bits' fit together so I can think about the test coverage, but also create a space where EVERYONE feels safe to explore the things they're not certain about..... Psychological safety in a team is a huge contributor to its performance. My own personal strength is also the kindness I bring to the team (most days). We are all trying to do our best. Some days that's harder than others. Some days, that's more frustrating than others. Some days everything hums incredibly well. Other days, not so much. Having sensitivity around where people are 'at' and being mindful of that even when I discover an issue in the code.... Yeah. That's my super-power. So yeah. Testers. What we bring to the table is WAYYYYYYYYY more significant than our technical ability. It's our mind, and our mindset. And for me that's SO much more valuable than any line of code I might be able to write.
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Yesterday, I had the privilege of listening to Dorothy Graham (Dot) as she shared her incredible 50-year journey in automation at AutomationStar’s virtual event. It was such a profound, insightful and captivating talk. As always, Dot’s insights were profound and challenging to the conventional narratives that often surround our field. She spoke passionately about a prevailing belief: the idea that only a “good” tester is one who can code. Dot argued that this perspective is not only misguided but demoralizing. It sidelines testers who excel at the core of their craft—analyzing, questioning, and uncovering value-adding insights—yet may not possess strong coding skills. When we define “good testing” narrowly as just automation, we risk devaluing the diverse skills required to truly assess quality. As Dot wisely put it, a good tester is someone who can think critically and provide meaningful insights about the product. If they can automate, fantastic, but the primary skill of a tester is to test well. This brings me to a related thought from a business perspective. Many companies see automation as a way to reduce costs, assuming that the more we automate, the fewer testers we need. On paper, it’s an appealing strategy, but in practice, it’s often short-sighted. Yes, automation can drive efficiencies and cover repetitive tasks, but it cannot replace the insight, intuition, and creativity of a skilled tester. When we overly focus on automation to save costs, we risk missing out on real, nuanced quality assessments that only a human tester can deliver. In the long run, over-reliance on automation without investing in exploratory and critical testing weakens the product’s quality. It’s a reminder that automation is a tool—not the essence—of testing. As we progress, let’s recognize and respect the full spectrum of testing skills, knowing that a balanced approach to quality will always serve us better in the end. #softwaretesting #softwareengineering #automation #qualitymatters #brijeshsays