I’ve been working on my TestBash UK 2023 talk and one of the slides touches upon how I identify as a tester and the tag line on this site.
I find bugs.
This may be an interesting topic to explore because not only have I barely entered any bugs so far this year (largely because I’ve barely done any actual testing) but also I’ve seen a number of people trying to talk around how testing is more than finding bugs.
And it is.
In the previous few years I’ve been entering plenty bugs but also helping prevent many more by contributing to planning and refinement. As part of shift left we are helping to identify and resolve bugs before a line of code is written. Sure, there may be no stats or metrics for this but the work is important and I’m proud of my efforts there. Nowadays I focus the majority of my time here.
However we still need to test an implemented user story or feature. Exploratory testing and alike helps us identify the issues that we didn’t, or couldn’t, think of during planning. Those unknown unknowns. We also need to account for the minor niggles, extreme edge cases and also just good old fashioned mistakes.
I still love the puzzle solving and challenge of trying to find a bug or getting reproduction. That hunger for finding bugs is still strong within me and I’m simply spreading my net. I’m learning how to catch new types of bugs through my security testing and by asking questions & challenging requirements.
Finding bugs is part of who I am. Its in my soul and now it is in my skin!
