A quality mindset sits at the heart of a quality culture: software quality does not come from working through test cases but from a practice the whole team lives. Three things carry it: testing fundamentals, test automation and the human mindset. Good testers know techniques such as equivalence partitioning and boundary value analysis, can judge AI-generated output and talk actively with everyone involved in the project.
Key Takeaways
- With a quality mindset, good testers no longer need to operationalize quality because they simply live it. They can’t even say how much they test, because testing has become second nature.
- Testing fundamentals remain indispensable: anyone using AI-generated test cases still needs the professional judgment to tell whether the result is actually any good.
- Software quality is a people business. Trust in test results comes from people who put their name on a test report, not from automated systems.
- The podcast Software Testing grew out of a blog series on the future of testing. Two contributors preferred a video call to writing a text, and that sparked the idea for the interview format.
- Testers often end up as the hub of project knowledge. Other roles come to them to learn how their own application works, because testers, with all their questions, are connected across the whole project.
Quality Culture: A Quality Mindset Beats a Task List
Quality has the most impact when a team lives it rather than ticks it off. Richard Seidl describes a difference that decides whether testing works on a project: a team that writes test cases, maintains scripts and loads test data works on a different level from a team with a quality mindset, where quality is simply part of the job.
You can spot that mindset with a simple check. Ask team members who have truly embedded quality how much they test, and they often can’t tell you. For them, testing is no longer a separate step. It is part of what they do anyway.
The way there runs through people, not methods. Richard learned this when he joined a project as a consultant and proposed methods. The response: “You’re not going to tell me anything.” That experience led him to coaching, to needs, values and beliefs. A tester is more than someone who executes test cases. A tester is a person who wants to be met where they are.
Why Good Testers Need to Be Communicative
Testing is a communicative job, not a hideout for the introverted nerd. Testers walk through the project with a list of questions, need information from everyone and inevitably get on people’s nerves.
That is exactly what creates a position many people underestimate. Testers and test managers are often extremely well connected, keep track of the whole project and become its single source of truth. Colleagues come to them to find out how something works.
The role takes more than technical skill. Someone who is socially anxious will struggle here, because the job means going out and asking. In return, the field is open to career changers: people with an artistic or other academic background end up in testing and make the discipline richer.
The Three Pillars: Fundamentals, Automation, Mindset
Good testing rests on three pillars: solid testing fundamentals, test automation and a quality mindset in the team. None of them replaces the others.
You still can’t do without the fundamentals, and AI makes them matter even more. If you know equivalence partitioning and what boundary values are, you can judge whether the test cases an AI spits out are any good. Without that foundation, you have nothing to measure against.
The fundamentals don’t belong to testers alone. Developers, product owners and UX designers should also know what gets tested at which test level, because quality is everyone’s job. There is a lot of untapped potential here: teams complete a Foundation Level course and still don’t apply what they learned. There is a gap between knowing and doing.
A certificate doesn’t make anyone a good tester. What it does give you is a foundation, shared terminology and methods. Experience and the human side are what turn that into good testers. The two complement each other.
Test Quality Is a People Business
Above all, testing creates trust, and trust is tied to people. Nobody trusts a machine to test properly yet.
“It’s about creating trust. You want someone who is there as a human being and says: I’m writing this test report, I’m running the tests, I can assess this, and then I’ll put my name to it.”
(Richard Seidl)
AI is more likely to raise the tester’s standing than lower it. Evaluating results, communicating and taking responsibility under your own name remain human work. From a quality perspective, taking people out of the loop is a bad idea.
How the Human Factor Is Moving Back to the Front
People are regaining weight right now. Crises reach us in real time and wear many of us down. At the same time, appreciation for the direct and personal is growing, much like after the pandemic, when meeting up, talking and sharing a beer suddenly felt valuable again.
Projects show the same swing of the pendulum. Despite more and more automation, the question of how the team is actually doing and how it can communicate better is coming back. Out of the bubble where your own opinion is the only right one, back into a conversation that leaves room for other views.
The worry about whether AI will replace testers isn’t specific to testing. It is the bigger question of how we deal with technology. And in some places, organizations are rediscovering how much people actually matter.
Stress-Test Your Strategy Instead of Managing Documents
A test strategy gets better when you put it under pressure. The approach that works best in practice: challenge a team’s existing strategy in a workshop and find out where it’s stuck and what isn’t working.
The result is tangible. After one day, the team has concrete levers it can actually pull, in development or wherever things are jammed. That beats any full-time test management engagement that only administers.
Personal support runs alongside. Mentoring a tester or test manager over a period of time means finding out where they personally struggle and where they get stuck. The work on the person and the work on the strategy go hand in hand.
What Richard Would Tell His Younger Self
His most important advice: have the courage to ask questions sooner. Asking actively, in the project and in your own environment, is a core testing skill.
Early in his career, Richard hid behind the test manager and had questions answered through him instead of talking to people himself. Today he would go in more proactively. If it’s unclear what something means, you ask instead of sitting it out.
As a self-taught tester, he had to learn a lot on his own, from programming to test methods. At first he didn’t even know that testing existed as a role. That is a job for the discipline, too: making it visible that this profession exists.
Why One Podcast Became Two
The wish to spread knowledge widely in the community led to a weekly interview format instead of elaborate solo episodes. The idea grew out of two video conversations that were more fun than expected, and in April 2023 it became the first episode, titled “Quality as an Attitude.” More than 150 episodes have been published since.
The second podcast solved a feedback problem. English episodes in the German feed split the audience: some listeners wanted more international voices, others felt stalled on their drive because they couldn’t follow. The solution was a spin-off that collects the English episodes on Thursdays, while the German podcast comes out on Tuesdays.
The guests differ by language, too. In German-speaking countries, a conversation usually centers on one clear aspect, such as BDD, DevOps or acceptance testing. International guests tend to want to share their life lessons, which are harder to pin to a single topic.
Episodes that go beyond pure testing land well. Taking topics such as mental health, impostor syndrome or stoicism into the context of the industry brings a fresh angle and positive feedback from the community.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can you tell if a team has truly internalized quality?
A simple test can help: Ask the team members how much they test. Those who have truly embedded quality often can’t answer this question because testing is no longer a separate step in the process; it’s part of their daily work. Teams that write test cases, maintain scripts, and import test data, on the other hand, operate at the level of a to-do list.
Do career changers without a technical background have a chance in software testing?
Yes. Testing is a communicative activity, not a job where you can hide away. Testers walk through the project with a list of questions, need information from others, and inevitably get on people’s nerves in the process. That’s exactly why someone who is socially anxious struggles here, while people with artistic or other academic backgrounds enrich the discipline.
Do AI-generated test cases render methodological knowledge such as equivalence partitioning obsolete?
No, on the contrary. Only those who are familiar with equivalence partitioning and understand what boundary values are can evaluate whether the test cases generated by AI are any good. Without this foundation, there’s no yardstick for assessment. Professional judgment remains the prerequisite for making meaningful use of AI results.
What is the real value of a testing certification?
A certification doesn’t make anyone a good tester, but it does provide a foundation of common terminology and methods. Only experience and human context turn people into good testers. It’s not an either/or situation; the two are complementary. The bigger gap lies between knowledge and practice anyway: Teams complete a Foundation-level course and still fail to apply what they’ve learned.
Will AI replace the role of the tester?
AI actually increases the tester’s value, not decreases it. Evaluating results, communicating, and taking personal responsibility remain human tasks. Above all, testing builds trust, and trust is tied to human interaction: No one yet trusts a machine to test thoroughly. Removing the human element is not a good idea from a quality perspective.
How can you improve an existing test strategy?
The most effective approach is to challenge the existing strategy in a workshop and identify where it’s falling short and what isn’t working. After one day, concrete areas for improvement are identified where the team can actually make a difference. This yields better results than a full-time test management role that merely administers the strategy.
What skill do newcomers to testing most often underestimate?
Asking questions proactively. Having the confidence to ask questions early on, both within the project and in your own environment, is a core competency in testing. At the beginning of his career, Richard Seidl hid behind the test manager and had questions clarified through him instead of talking to people himself. When it’s unclear what something means, you ask instead of waiting it out.
