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> because as we know; SWEs are shit at proper testing Not true. There's nothing magical about testers. They don't have "special" skills or deep voodoo powers.

> because as we know; SWEs are shit at proper testing Not true. There's nothing magical about testers. They don't have "special" skills or deep voodoo powers. The best ones are just smart people who understand people and software. > They should be a good resource for working out how a feature should look and behave You must have weak designers and PMs. Everyone should be welcome in the process, but those people drive that stuff.

tremon 4y ago
There's nothing magical about testers Oh, but there is: they have fault-finding in their job description.
hinkley 4y ago
I have worked with a wider range of QA folk than you have, apparently. The best are magic, the worst are leaches. And I think that’s the problem with QA. Those who don’t like it cherry-pick their examples. The thing to remember is that getting rid of QA upsets a triumvirate power dynamic. If it’s the dev team versus project management, the dev team always loses. If it’s sometimes dev and QA against PM, then you can win those fights. But only if you haven’t removed the QA manager from the org chart. We’ve played ourselves in essentially a union-busting manner. If you’ve always been at loggerheads with the QA team, I can tell you that you’ve been missing out. Looking back, defusing the default animosity between QA and Dev has gotten me more promotions than anything else in my career, and the lack of a QA team has put a substantial damper on my upward mobility. It sucks and I really wish we could go back.
dijit 4y ago
> They don't have "special" skills or deep voodoo powers. Some do, seriously. I'm coloured by video games, but some of the QA people I've seen are magic, without them entire products wouldn't ship at all. There's something to be said for having "break shit and report on how you did it" as a job title, regardless of the other gains you get for having someone who holistically understands the product. Some are even lazy, so work to automate themselves out of working, which makes their impact much wider, even when it's domain specific. It's also the case that the people coming out of QA in gamedev and going into other parts of the company tend to do extremely well compared to people going direct into that area. Our old managing director started in QA, as did the executive producer.
tkiolp4 4y ago
> There's nothing magical about testers Yes, there is: they get to do testing full-time. Engineers spend their best “brain time” designing and writing systems. Testers spend their best brain time, well, testing. That can make a huge difference when it comes to find bugs.
KaiserPro 4y ago
> There's nothing magical about testers There is a spectrum, of course. But, a good QA has a "feeling" for finding where things break, an excellent QA know how to fix it. Just as writing software is a skill, so is QA'ing along with Sysadmining.

tremon 4y ago

There's nothing magical about testers Oh, but there is: they have fault-finding in their job description.

hinkley 4y ago

I have worked with a wider range of QA folk than you have, apparently. The best are magic, the worst are leaches. And I think that’s the problem with QA. Those who don’t like it cherry-pick their examples. The thing to remember is that getting rid of QA upsets a triumvirate power dynamic. If it’s the dev team versus project management, the dev team always loses. If it’s sometimes dev and QA against PM, then you can win those fights. But only if you haven’t removed the QA manager from the org chart. We’ve played ourselves in essentially a union-busting manner. If you’ve always been at loggerheads with the QA team, I can tell you that you’ve been missing out. Looking back, defusing the default animosity between QA and Dev has gotten me more promotions than anything else in my career, and the lack of a QA team has put a substantial damper on my upward mobility. It sucks and I really wish we could go back.

dijit 4y ago

> They don't have "special" skills or deep voodoo powers. Some do, seriously. I'm coloured by video games, but some of the QA people I've seen are magic, without them entire products wouldn't ship at all. There's something to be said for having "break shit and report on how you did it" as a job title, regardless of the other gains you get for having someone who holistically understands the product. Some are even lazy, so work to automate themselves out of working, which makes their impact much wider, even when it's domain specific. It's also the case that the people coming out of QA in gamedev and going into other parts of the company tend to do extremely well compared to people going direct into that area. Our old managing director started in QA, as did the executive producer.

tkiolp4 4y ago

> There's nothing magical about testers Yes, there is: they get to do testing full-time. Engineers spend their best “brain time” designing and writing systems. Testers spend their best brain time, well, testing. That can make a huge difference when it comes to find bugs.

KaiserPro 4y ago

> There's nothing magical about testers There is a spectrum, of course. But, a good QA has a "feeling" for finding where things break, an excellent QA know how to fix it. Just as writing software is a skill, so is QA'ing along with Sysadmining.