Testing:
the confusement is real
Agile Testing Days
16-19 Nov 2026
Joep Schuurkes
staff test engineer
Dutch Electoral Council
@joeposaurus@chaos.social
https://smallsheds.garden
confusement
an ongoing state of confusion
I've been doing things
started in 2006
waterfall, agile, devops, CI/CD pipelines
test engineer, quality engineer, staff/principal test engineer
scrum master, development team lead
scripted testing, exploratory testing, test automation
telecom, finance, tech company, start-up, government
I've been thinking
"Tester" is an overloaded variable (2022)
A good tester is all over the place (2023)
So you want to become a test engineer? (2024)
How essential are your testers? (2025)
We do not all have the same job (2025)
How do I know my testers are doing a good job? (2026)
If developers have autonomy, mastery and purpose,
what do you need testers for? (2026)
Three parts
12 sources of confusement
consequences of the confusement
dealing with the confusement
12 sources of confusement
we don't all have
the same job
In software testing ...
we only see places
that hire testers
no one starts with hiring a tester
some never hire a tester
activities, roles,
and titles
activity: moment in time
role: period of time
title: timeless / permanent
so many different titles
test engineer, QA engineer, agile test engineer
quality engineer, test automation engineer
test analyst, test specialist
automation tester, software engineer in test
test coordinator, test manager, test lead
test architect, quality coach
the context changes
in the age of ...
waterfall, Agile, CI/CD, DevOps, GenAI
are you technical?
everyone in IT is technical
should you be? YES!
non-testers test too
developers, UX designers, business analysts
product owners, project managers, team leads
users
developers don't know
the good ones know dev testing
they don't go to our conferences,
we don't go to theirs
management doesn't know
few have ever been in testing
testers don't know
essential versus
accidental education
testers don't agree
we don't even agree on how we disagree
this list is too long
insert whole list here
the confusement is real
about what good software testing is
consequences of the confusement
most organizations tend to have dysfunctional testing
we're sure we need testing,
because something something quality
dysfunctional testing
managing work over doing work
testing silo
effort with little result
dysfunctional testing requires coping skills
getting good at dysfunctional activities
working around dysfunctions
danger zone
you get very good at something
that shouldn't be done at all
don't build coping skills
at the expense of core skills
dealing with the confusement
I'm not any less confused
torn between my own confusement
and seeing my added value
and I'm in rather functional org right now!
blog post: If developers have autonomy, mastery and purpose,
what do you need testers for?
core testing skills
exploratory testing
technical skills
domain knowledge skills
collaboration skills
self-care
exploratory testing
investigating
evaluating
reporting
blog post: The nine skills of exploratory testing
technical skills
technical testing skills
software engineering skills
you are not going to outprogram
your programmers
domain skills
being able to (inter)act within the domain
collaboration skills
it takes a team
self-care
you
professional community
non-software people
the cynical conclusion
you will always end up in
moderately to highly
dysfunctional organizations
the other conclusion
people working together
is always a messy business
three options
shrink your role
expand your role
go somewhere else
choose your dysfunctions wisely
Be so good at
identifying and filling the gaps
that you are no longer needed.Be so good at it
that you are needed everywhere.- Bas van Opstal