What I thought I knew about the status of testing

What I thought I knew about testing has changed with added perspectives and experience. Let us dig through some misconceptions, mine and others, and what lessons I've learned.

The year 2010, after ten years of coding, I was more than ready to step into my new shiny career as Test Lead. In my mind this was a smart career move, where I would be able to influence more, be involved in the decisions earlier, and have a million new opportunities to grow my career. To my big surprise, I quickly realised that other people, outside of my little box, saw testing as the complete opposite. Although I have been blessed with working with some amazing teams and organisations, over the years I have come to meet many misconceptions of testing, like “Testers are failed Developers” and “Your salary increase will drop as a tester” . I will share how I have approached them and how I have worked to change the view of skilled testing, one team at a time. And mine as well, though I only realised it once I took a break and reflected on it. Weaved into this will also be how my developer background has helped (or not) with credibility, how my naive view of testing as a status role helped me through some rough patches, how working in a startup made me accept “Good Enough”, and how writing a book made me realise how much my own belief system has shifted over the years.