We do not all have the same job

At the first conference I ever attended - or I think it was the first, in any case it was Let’s Test in 2012 -, I asked someone “So what kind of applications do you test?” And the reply was: “One of the onboard computers of a Saab fighter plane.” While at that time I was the test lead for an enterprise service bus.

We do not all have the same job.

In a recent episode of the Quality Remarks podcast hosted by Keith Klain, Paul Holland told the story of an organization where running the test automation took 13 people two weeks. And no, I’m sorry, they didn’t go into any detail about what happened in those two weeks. In my current project our pipeline takes 0 people about 17 minutes to run.

We do not all have the same job.

During the open space of the recent Brewtcon conference, someone hosted a session about writing out all the steps of your test cases. It resulted in a great discussion with some people sharing good arguments why in their context writing out the steps does make sense. I think it’s been 15+ years since I wrote out any test steps, except as executable code, partially because I have been avoiding organizations where writing out test steps would make sense.

We do not all have the same job.

Testing can be many different things. So can testers. How similar really is the work of someone testing the quarterly release delivered by a third party and someone testing their team’s most recent pull request with all the access that implies?

And yet we are all testers and we all go to the same testing conferences. Which means that in any conversation we first have to establish to what degree we share a context. Find the lowest common denominator. And I wonder if that’s the reason that conference programs tend to focus on the basics on the one side, and on adjacent topics (e.g. imposter syndrome) on the other. Both have great value, but where are the more in-depth topics? The ones where someone shows their work in detail?

Maybe I’ve been going to the wrong conferences, because I’m finding that I’m getting the most value from open spaces, peer conferences and the so-called hallway track. Not from the regular program.

Not all testers have the same job. And maybe it’s time we stop pretending.