Into the Unknown Boundary Value Analysis and Equivalent Class Partitioning have been automated, so where does that leave "manual" testers? Must we retrain as automation engineers, or is there another way?

Testing has changed, and some people think that the only option for Testers in an Agile team is to learn to write automated checks or change discipline... But I don't believe that is true.

My thoughts in response to Nicola Sedgwick's excellent closing keynote "Let it Go" from ATD 2020, I will discuss key skills which testers will can develop and activities I see as central to our role as quality advocates within a modern development team. A lot of people who have been in the industry for a long time will divide testers into "Manual" or "automation" - and the "manual" testers are largely just shepherding new tickets across a board, running non-automated scripts and doing some undefined and often misunderstood "exploratory testing." I have worked with testers who are unsure what skills to work on if they want to stay in Testing but are not comfortable writing automated checks as their main job activity, when a lot of hiring managers and recruiters are increasingly only advertising automation roles. I will speak about my journey and the skills and activities I encourage testers in my team and other teams within my organisation to develop which are valuable in teams with mature automation suites but are not directly writing code.