More about the testing, less about testers

I’m sure shift-left moved old-school testers task to the developers. Twenty odd years ago, when I started as a tester it was all about the test cases, about coverage and test techniques. We spent loads of time covering basic system functionality, but with shift-left, the test automation pyramid and many other advances the basic tester’s task of juggling trivial system functionality was covered closer to the code. Hence, the basic testing job opportunities declined.

It’s part of my ongoing experience that much “business” testing was better done with actual business representatives than a team of testers. Especially in the context of Software-as-a-service or standard system implementations: SAP ERP, Microsoft Dynamics Finance and Operations, ITIL implementations in ServiceNow and the like. I especially remember a Dynamics implementation for a public data services (yeah, it’s a thing here). The development team was configuration specialists and the “testers” actual public service case workers needing to work in the solution afterwards. My job as a test coordinator was primarily to setup a test case tooling and to follow up that tasks where finalized. Was this about testing – YES! But it was never about the testers. There where no formal test team, only actual case workers who had to juggle their “actual” job in the current system on the side.

Recent years work experience in the consulting and outsourcing business has also given plenty of examples of testing tasks, that for historic reasons was usually a fringe in the larger testing spaces: usability, accessibility, compliance and security. Each of these are fields of their own, but could as easily been a space for a tester. Similarly I have experienced yet again over the past year, that was is required to lead testing activities is part project management skills, leadership and communication – less about documents and status reports.

So here we are, in 2026. Facing yet another technology shift. When the dust settles in a few years or so, there will be even less testing jobs about curating test cases. And there will be less formal testers in the delivery teams, as some of the menial testing tasks will have been substituted out by technology. In my part of the IT world of consulting and outsourcing, the signs are there that the team-embedded tester is more about automation and AI-test work, than classic hands-on system interaction testing.

Still plenty of testing will happen, and plenty of testing needs coordination and alignment.

Plenty of solution and system requirements needs verification and validation.

The sooner we step up and leave the “testers” label – the more we can grow the testing.

These are my experiences and “reading of the room” – Your milage may vary.