In my company we also have dedicated QA teams. I agree with all IcePunkMetal wrote above, getting rid of them is kind of dumb. Like he wrote, they are now rol

In my company we also have dedicated QA teams. I agree with all IcePunkMetal wrote above, getting rid of them is kind of dumb. Like he wrote, they are now rolled up into the dev team instead of being part of the separate "QA division", which is better IMO. But they're still not developers. In my team, they are fully integrated into the decision making process and roadmaps, they are CCd to almost all the team's internal emails, and a format version isn't released without their authorization. Now, there are some problems with being a QA, personal stuff like having a low self-esteem since "you're not smart enough to be a dev", and enmity between devs, PMs and QA due to feelings that QA hold up the teams. As a former QA myself I'm fully aware of them. In our particular team these issues are negligible (well, at least I hope they are). I personally fully respect the QA team and stop whatever I'm doing to help them with whatever they need or ask. I see them as my first line of defense against bugs, especially the kind of UX bugs that are difficult to test for.