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MS Dashboard (@Demo) - v121.2.1

QA 2.0: As Companies Kill QA, a New Role Is Rising — The Quality Architect
Across the tech industry, a quiet shift is underway. Quality Assurance (QA) roles are vanishing from organisations’ charts. QA engineers are being let go. Entire QA teams are absorbed into engineering or dissolved altogether. Job titles like “QA Analyst” or “Software Tester” are fading from LinkedIn, replaced by automation buzzwords and developer-centric language. Why? Because modern development culture has convinced companies that developers can and should own testing. And to be fair, they’re not wrong. But they’re making a critical mistake: They’re confusing testing with quality. As QA disappears, quality becomes everyone’s problem . But when developers are responsible for testing, who actually owns quality? Who builds the strategy, manages risk, and sees the bigger picture? Testing Is a Task, Quality Is a Culture. Too often, QA is equated with just manual testing, clicking through UIs, or verifying bug fixes. But that view is outdated and reductive. QA is about risk management, user empathy, system thinking, and feedback loops. Testing is only one piece of a much bigger puzzle. Some argue that we shouldn’t need specialised roles at all, “we’re all engineers,” they say. And while collaboration is essential, roles exist to bring focus and depth. A product manager focuses on vision. A developer focuses on building. A QA engineer focuses on how it all holds up under pressure and how it feels for the user. Different hats, same mission. However, let’s be clear: developers should write tests. Unit tests, integration tests, API contracts, these are part of the job. Automation is no longer optional. But tests alone don’t ensure good software. They ensure code does what it’s told, not whether it does what the user expects. This is where QA was never just about testing. QA engineers think in systems, not just functions. They ask, what’s the risk here? They look at user behavior, not just code branches. They build confidence, not just coverage. When QA disappears, these invisible layers of quality often disappear too. And suddenly, bugs get to production, not because no one tested, but because no one thought like a Quality Architect . What Happens When Developers Own Testing? The mistake companies make isn’t giving developers more testing responsibility, it’s believing that removing QA means removing the need for quality thinking. Shifting testing to developers can improve speed and accountability. But it creates new challenges: 1. Bias Toward the Happy Path: Developers often test what they built, not how it breaks. 2. Tunnel Vision: Without QA’s holistic lens, edge cases and system-level failures slip through. 3. Loss of Exploratory Testing: Automation can’t fully replace human curiosity. Real users do unexpected things. So should QAs. 4. No Time for Strategy: Developers are under pressure to ship. Writing and maintaining tests is just one of many priorities. Quality strategy rarely gets the focus it needs. So, the question becomes: If everyone owns testing, who owns quality ? Enter: The Quality Architect Teams sometimes fall into the trap of chasing 100% test coverage or automating everything. But real QA understands: “Not everything that can be tested should be tested. Not everything that can be automated should be automated.” It’s about value over volume. Tools like Cypress, Playwright, and Jest are amazing, but only when used with a clear strategy and purpose. Dropbox famously emphasized this with a focus on writing valuable and maintainable tests instead of just expanding test counts. As traditional QA roles fade from company organisations’ charts, a new hybrid is emerging, not a QA, not a tester, not a developer, but someone who understands both worlds and can bridge the gap between code and confidence. Let’s call them the Quality Architect . This isn’t someone who just clicks buttons or writes test cases, but it’s someone who engineers trust at scale, by designing systems, not just scripts. The Quality Architect's responsibilities will be: 🎯 Quality Strategy & Architecture Define and evolve a cross-stack quality strategy, from unit to UI, e2e, to production monitoring. Manage risk-based testing approaches: focus on impact, not just coverage. Design the test automation architecture: automation layers, repository structures, environments, pipelines. Guide teams in maintaining the right balance of automation (what to test, what not, why, and how). Drive test scalability, maintainability, and performance across projects and services. 🧠 Cross-Functional Collaboration Partner with Product, Design, and Engineering to identify risks early, before a single line of code is written. Embed quality thinking in planning, backlog refinement, and design discussions. Bridge communication gaps across roles to ensure user experience, functionality, and reliability are aligned. 💬 Coaching & Culture Leadership Teach the “why” behind quality practices, not just how to test, but why testing matters. Mentor developers on testing strategies and how to shift quality left in their workflows. Champion a shared quality mindset, helping teams see QA as a strategic partner, not just a phase. Normalise practices like exploratory testing, UX testing, and risk-based prioritisation. 🤖 Tooling & AI Enablement Lead evaluation and adoption of AI-driven testing tools (e.g. for test generation, flake detection, analysis). Define governance for AI-generated code/tests, ensuring output is trustworthy, traceable, and maintainable. Optimise test environments and data to support intelligent, stable automation. 📊 Metrics, Observability & Feedback Loops Track key quality metrics: defect escape rates, test reliability, coverage quality, cycle time, etc. Build dashboards and visualisations for quality health and risk visibility. Integrate feedback loops from production (e.g. logs, crashes, support tickets) into future test strategies. 🔍 Connect the dots between bugs, user experience, business impact, and long-term maintainability. 🧩 Quality Architecture Enablement Define test repository structures, automation types (unit, API, E2E), and ownership models. Create frameworks and tools that enable developers to test effectively , without slowing them down. Provide scalable patterns for CI/CD integration, parallel execution, and test data management. In short, the QA Architect isn’t here to write every test, they’re here to design the system that makes quality possible at scale. They are: 🧠 Strategic partners 🧑‍🏫 Educators 🧪 Systems thinkers 💬 Quality advocates 🤖 AI enablers 🔍 Guardians of user trust It’s a role grounded in experience, empathy, and engineering judgment, and it’s exactly what QA engineers are primed to evolve into. But here’s the truth: shifting testing to developers doesn’t mean killing QA, it means we need to redefine it. And more than that, we need to educate teams. Because we’re all rowing in the same direction: To deliver better products, to iterate faster and to reduce risk, not just react to it. We can’t get there by treating QA as a checkbox or an afterthought. We get there by building cross-functional quality ownership, with Quality Architects at the centre, guiding the strategy, raising the bar, and making sure quality scales with the codebase. This means that the QA role is evolving. The core skills, critical thinking, curiosity, and systems mindset, are more relevant than ever. What’s needed is a shift in identity. Conclusion QA 2.0 will be about elevating quality as a discipline and transforming QA engineers into leaders, strategists, and architects . Because the future of quality doesn’t belong to any one role, it belongs to those bold enough to own it. Quality is everyone’s responsibility, yes, but someone still needs to build the architecture that makes quality scalable, sustainable, and real. That’s where the Quality Architect steps in: not to guard the gates, but to guide the journey. Yes, developers should test. But more importantly, everyone should care about quality . Let’s start seeing it as the glue that binds vision to execution, code to confidence, and teams to users . As testing continues to shift left, let’s make sure quality doesn’t fall through the cracks . And QA engineers? They’re not being pushed out, they’re being called up to lead, to shape strategy, to be the voice of the user in a room full of commits. But the teams need to be open to hearing these voices. So if your job title is disappearing, don’t panic, evolve. Become the Quality Architect. Because quality still matters and someone needs to own it. Read more: https://medium.com/@marinacruzjordao/qa-2-0-as-companies-kill-qa-a-new-role-is-rising-the-quality-architect-044d43cda2a8
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Key QA Metrics: How to Calculate, Implement, and Use Them Effectively
The other day I was chatting with a tester I know and we had this dialog: After this dialog, I thought about how the metrics-related processes were set up in some of my projects: In one of them, only the developer was notified about critical bugs on the prod, who had to fix the bug urgently. As a result the bug is fixed, but the tester will not even be aware of this bug. This process makes it impossible to collect metrics related to bugs In another project, not all tasks are tested by the tester. For example, some trivial changes may be rolled out in the release even without notifying the tester, although in fact these changes may cause some regression bugs And on another project, where all tasks and bugs go through the tester — there are no metrics at all, because there was no sense in them specifically for that product. And that’s okay Each project is a separate story. Metrics can be a tool that aligns processes and helps the team, but they are definitely not universal or even always needed. In this article, I want to talk about some good metrics, namely how to calculate, implement and use them in the future. Let’s go! 1. Test Coverage of Requirements What is this metric? This metric will reflect how much of the requirements are covered by tests and helps to assess test completeness and minimize the risk of missing critical bugs. How is it calculated? Read more: https://medium.com/@yuliashaifele/key-qa-metrics-how-to-calculate-implement-and-use-them-effectively-6d5ab4517e40
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10 Best Software Testing Tools For QA
Quality Assurance (QA) testing tools are the tools that are used to automate the testing process of software applications. Therefore, QA is designed to make sure that every new software release meets the requirements of the project and provides a good user experience. This article will provide you with a detailed explanation of the 10 Best Software Testing Tools For QA that are used to automate repetitive testing tasks , increase the efficiency of testing, and give accurate test results to the developers. What is a QA Software Testing Tool? QA refers to Quality Assurance in software development . The QA tools are designed to ensure that each of the new software meets the requirements of the projects and it provides a better user experience but some of these tools also consist of a few bugs or some defects in them. These Quality Assurance testing tools help to manage the task management, performance testing, and functional testing of the software. These QA testing tools help the software developers write appropriate test cases and execute these test cases. Why Do We Need QA Automation Testing? In today’s software world, manual testing falls short. That’s where QA automation steps in, revolutionizing testing strategies. It boosts efficiency and speed, catching bugs early and ensuring consistent testing. Automation covers more ground, freeing up resources for complex tasks and eliminating tedious regression testing. It’s essential for CI/CD pipelines, providing instant feedback and maintaining quality. Plus, it enables realistic testing scenarios and fosters collaboration. Automation isn’t replacing manual testing; it’s a powerful ally for delivering top-notch software quickly. 10 Best Software Testing Tools for QA There are many Software testing tools available for QA . Some of the top 10 Software testing tools for QA are mentioned below: Table of Content 10 Best Software Testing Tools for QA 1. QA Wolf 2. Autify 3. Endtest 4. Tricentis Testim 5. Kobiton 6. Test Sigma 7. Test Rigor 8. BugBug 9. Mabl 10. Testing Whiz Read more: https://medium.com/@lognoroy2000/10-best-software-testing-tools-for-qa-e4b305d1021a
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Spot on
Dots illustration by the author. Almost thirty years ago, Steve Jobs gave an interview to Wired where he came up with one of my all-time favourite quotes about creativity: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.” As someone who works in design, this is a concept I’ve thought about a lot over the years, and this is how I visualise it: Imagine a huge wall covered in thousands of dots. Each dot represents a piece of knowledge that you’ve acquired. In your hand you have a ball of string, and you wind the string between the dots to create patterns. Connecting the dots in a new way is creativity . Unfortunately, you find yourself recreating patterns that other people have created before. “ Everything original has already been discovered ”, you think. Perhaps you’re right. With a limited number of dots, after a while, you end up weaving the same old patterns. The answer, then, is to add a new dot. Ideally it is something unexpected that doesn’t fit with the other dots at all. And voila! Suddenly you have the ability to weave a new pattern. Read here: https://medium.com/user-experience-design-1/enhancing-your-design-skills-by-adding-more-dots-afcd9969792d
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How & Why I Use Modern Tech Like its 2004
Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash It’s 2004. I change the batteries in my discman and pop in Nirvana’s cd version of Nevermind on my walk to school. I don’t have a cellphone, so I have no idea what I’m missing. Music listening exists in a silo. No notifications rouse me from the chorus of the song. I’ve heard of MySpace, but I’m a precocious teen and I’m not interested in joining. I laugh with my group of fellow nerdy friends on lunch break as we eat a bag of popcorn in the school stairwell, considering if we should prank call a teacher on the weekend. Later that evening I sit on the couch and flick through the fifty-odd channels on our boxy old television, searching for the best viewing option on a Wednesday night. Murder mysteries, reruns of laugh-track-heavy comedy shows, or the newest episode of American Idol are the main contenders. My mom and I settle on an old episode of Friends before retiring to bed. I set the alarm on my funky round clock before turning out the light. I wonder if we will look back at 2024 a decade from now and think these were simpler times? Or will we recognize that these times were so hectic that we had nowhere to ground our tired minds? Or, more optimistically, will we look back and say, “things are simpler now.” The answer really will depend on all of us, especially when it comes to our use of technologies and relationship to work. Read more: https://medium.com/@ashely.crouch/how-why-i-use-modern-tech-like-its-2004-3a3af5b6a39c
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