How to thrive as a non-technical testing professional

As a person with no technical education or background, I have worried many times that I don’t have a future in the testing industry. First, the common talk was that projects are going to be agile, then all testing is going to be automated and testers need to be able to do other development tasks as well. Test managers are no longer needed and everyone in testing just has to start developing automated tests. Then came DevOps and the talks about testers needing to become technical just sped up.

Yet my experience is that test leads and even test managers are still needed. I have been able to help my projects without technical skills and have made a huge impact on many projects and organizations in the field of testing and quality. Based on my experience we need people with a more business-oriented mindset to work together with people who have a more technical mindset.

In my talk, I will explain how my success as a test lead and testing professional has a foundation on
• Strong business understanding coming from experience working ” on the other side of the table” meaning as a key user and other roles in business
• Leadership skills
• Ability to build a big picture and on understanding what is important for the end-users and plan testing activities on that foundation
• Curiosity for learning new things
• Passion for quality