QA Best Practices for CTOs and Engineering Leads

One of the most impactful changes I've seen in quality happens when you implement one specific process: a 30-minute QA-Dev sync meeting for each feature before coding begins to discuss the implementation and testing strategy. When I first bring this up with a client, I get predictable objections: Developers don’t want to "waste" their time. Leadership doesn’t want to "lose" development time. Testing is necessary anyway, so why discuss it? Our QA doesn’t couldn't possibly understand code. The reality is that the impact of effective testing can be remarkably hard for an organization to see. When it goes smoothly, nothing happens — no fires to put out, no production issues. As a result, meetings like this can be difficult for leadership to measure or justify with a clear metric. What confuses me personally is why most engineering leaders say they understand the testing pyramid, yet they often break it in two, essentially creating two separate pyramids. Instead, you should have a collaborative session where QA and Dev discuss the entire testing pyramid — from unit tests to integration and end-to-end tests — to ensure comprehensive and efficient coverage. Talking through what constitutes effective unit and integration tests dramatically affects manual and end-to-end testing. Additionally, I'm continually impressed by how a QA who doesn’t "understand" full-stack development can still call out issues like missing validations, test cases, and edge cases in a method. QA/Devs should also evaluate whether any refactoring is needed, identify potential impacts on existing functionality, and clarify ambiguous requirements early. The outcome is a clear test plan, agreement on automated and manual checks, and a shared understanding that reduces late-stage bugs and improves overall product quality. #quality #testing #software

⚠️ Unpopular Opinion  — QA didn’t just get “bigger.” It got different. When London moved from candlelit street lamps to electricity light, no one asked lamplighters to “light candles faster.” The job transformed: new tools, new safety rules, new skills. Many became switch operators, line techs, and maintainers of a totally new system. That’s QA today with coding copilots and “vibe coding.” Speed is up; stability isn’t automatic. Stop measuring QA by candle metrics. Start hiring for electricity skills: Spec-as-data, not doc-as-PDF: encode business rules into executable checks that evolve with prompts and codegen. AI-aware test design: evaluate AI-generated logic for intent alignment, drift, and guardrails—not just syntax. Oracles from telemetry: assert truth using real user behavior, contracts, and prod signals. Continuous risk modeling: pair release velocity with runtime checks, chaos experiments, and policy-as-code. Prompt & model validation loops: red-team prompts, fuzz inputs, and track data lineage for auditability. If you lead engineering: don’t ask QA to “do old work faster.” Fund re-skilling: - Build model + prompt test harnesses. - Wire contract tests into CI/CD and feature flags. - Add reliability SLOs that include AI behavior, not only API latency. - Treat trust as a product KPI. Bottom line: AI made devs faster; it made quality a systems job. If you’re still counting bugs, you’re counting candles in a city of LEDs. #QualityEngineering #GenAI #AIGovernance #AIDrivenTesting #DevOps #MLOps #ShiftLeft #SoftwareEngineering #Leadership #TrustEngineering

🚨 “It worked on my machine!” … until it didn’t. Every engineer has lived this nightmare. That’s why real quality starts long before a release. 💡 Are you serious about “quality”? As an engineering lead, I’ve learned that quality is not a checklist - it is a mindset you bring to every stage of development. Here’s what great developers focus on: 1️⃣ Requirement clarity - Know what you are building and why. 2️⃣ Strong design principles - Good software and code design go a long way. 3️⃣ Test thinking early - Map positive and negative cases before writing code. 4️⃣ Code for the future - Scalable, readable, maintainable. 5️⃣ Unit tests - Your first safety net for critical logic. 6️⃣ Integration tests - Catch those sneaky edge cases. These have saved my team from major outages. 7️⃣ Manual testing - Nothing beats a human eye. 8️⃣ Team testing - A fresh perspective always finds what you missed. And yet… 🔁 Murphy’s Law still applies: Anything that can break, will break. That’s why quality is not a phase at the end - it is a culture from day one. As engineering leaders, our job is to build teams that own quality - where every developer feels responsible for shipping code that lasts. Just last week, my team chose a long-term solution over a quick fix, and the payoff will outlive any sprint deadline. How do you bake quality into your development process? Comment below 👇 #EngineeringLeadership #CodeQuality #SoftwareEngineering #DevEx #QualityCulture

After 30 years in QA leadership, I’m going to say what most won’t: Most companies don’t deserve great QA engineers. Because they don’t know what to do with them. They hire smart QA talent… Then reduce them to human checklists. “Run the tests.” “Log the bugs.” “Stay in your lane.” Meanwhile… AI is writing code. Systems are getting more complex. Risk is increasing. And your QA team? Still stuck executing test cases from 2015. Let me be blunt: 👉 If your QA team isn’t being trained on AI testing tools right now, you are actively making them obsolete. And they know it. The best QA engineers today aren’t just testers. They are: • Risk engineers • System thinkers • Automation architects • And now — AI validators They should be testing: • AI hallucinations • Model drift • Bias and ethical failure • Data pipelines • System-level behavior in production But instead… You’ve got them clicking through regression suites. That’s not just inefficient. It’s irresponsible. And here’s what happens next: Your best people leave. Not because of money. Because of stagnation. They either: • Move into engineering roles • Join companies that treat QA like real engineering • Or leave organizations that refuse to evolve And the ones who stay? They’re not your top performers. Let that sink in. This is not a QA problem. This is a leadership failure. If you’re still treating QA like a phase instead of a discipline… You’re not building quality. You’re building risk. The companies that will win in the AI era are already doing this: • Training QA teams on AI validation • Embedding QA into architecture decisions • Measuring risk, not just defects • Building engineers — not test executors Because quality is no longer about catching bugs. It’s about controlling uncertainty. And AI just multiplied that uncertainty. So here’s the question: Are you building a QA team… Or are you building a team that will walk out the door in the next 12 months? Because people don’t quit QA. They quit companies that refuse to evolve. #HotTake #QualityEngineering #AITesting #AI #SoftwareTesting #QA #EngineeringLeadership #TechLeadership #DevSecOps #Automation #SDET #FutureOfWork #DigitalTransformation #SoftwareQuality #AIEngineering #Leadership #Innovation #ShiftLeft #TestAutomation #MachineLearning

Engineering Leaders: Are Your Testing Practices Holding Your Team Back? As leaders, we have immense power to shape how software is built, tested, and delivered—but misconceptions about testing and quality are everywhere. These myths can hurt your team's ability to ship reliable software. Here are truths technical leader needs to know: 1️⃣ Manual vs. Automated Testing is a False Dichotomy Testing isn’t a battle between manual and automated—it’s about using the right tools for the right job. A chef isn’t an “automated chef” because they use a food processor; they’re just efficient. Testers deserve the same perspective. Even better, let's do away with talking about testing in these terms. Testing is testing - no matter what tools we use to execute it. 2️⃣ Automation Isn’t a Silver Bullet Over-automating leads to bloated test suites and wasted effort. Not every test should be automated. Balance is key—automation is a tool, not the answer to everything. 3️⃣ Stop Chasing the Wrong Metrics Focus on meaningful metrics. I often use Change Failure Rate and Bugs Found in Production to guide decisions that truly improve quality. There are others. 4️⃣ Testers Are Innovators, Not Button Pushers Testers aren’t here to just “run tests.” They’re investigators, advocates for the user, and vital to delivering value. Give them tools, respect, and early involvement to unleash their impact. 5️⃣ Quality Starts with Leadership Testing doesn’t create quality; it uncovers where issues might be hiding. Leaders must foster a quality-first culture by aligning teams, prioritizing quality discussions, and celebrating prevention over firefighting. 🔍 What’s Your Role in Driving Quality? Have you challenged these testing misconceptions in your organization? How do you foster a culture of quality? 👇 I have expanded on these points in a blog post. Link in comments. #SoftwareQuality #Leadership #EngineeringExcellence #TestingMatters