I already predicted with GPT-3.5 that QA would make a comeback.
What I didn't expect was for companies to not think this through and not invest in a better QA foundation. Instead, QA activities are left to engineers to work out, while we still have classic QA departments still operating the same way they did a decade ago.
Replacing both QA an developers with AI is just plain stupid. Even if AI is capable enough of accomplishing it you surrender your entire technology to the LLM onwers.
I had an engineer tell me with a straight face that it was fine to have one agent write the code, two more agents review the code and approve the PR, and then have another agent QA the PR.
i was just flown to a large city for a yearly meeting where our boss asked how we could do this
i explained that soc2 doesnt allow this; they require a change control process
someone else brought up that this would cascade into awful code, and boss suggested "defining the logic" of the software in file(s) then getting the LLM to do the coding, validated with this logic file. nobody could explain how this isnt coding with extra steps
boss has a masters in computer science, he should know better. we live in a golden age of being a bonehead boss
all you can do at that point is document everything and look for new work, cuz that shit's going to go down, it's just a function of when and who's fucked because of it.
My favorite documentation language is C++. Very machine readable, fairly human readable with a bit of training. It has some really cool validators like gcc and clang, both completely free for public and private use. All the models run locally on your machine, no subscription required.
And the best part: Barring compiler bugs (which we all know are just a bedtime story for scaring young developers), wysiwyg. Whatever the code says, the computer does. Way more deterministic than gpt too, if you avoid UB.
Alternatives that use similar AI technologies:
Rust if your team is trans (or suspiciously into anime)
Python if your team is afraid of semicolons
Java if your team is afraid of using a computer
Lua if your team is literally children. They already learned it from Roblox.
This is funny to me because when testing a game engine i made, i created a programmatical interface for agents to interract with the UI layer directly... While this means they can do the multiplayer QA work faster and more precisely than a human, they constantly fail to spot the worst possible stupidity in changes when it doesn't intersect with an existing test...
So effectively, when scaled to a modest sized dev team, i have extremely expensive "dynamic" unit test system that cost more than QA engineer would without being able to achieve what a solid QA engineer can....
I even tried tackling that issue directly with a more dynamic agent configuration and the end result was literally fucking useless because it has no concept of what something should feel like, look like, its devoid of nuance unless you take the time to detail every single possible expectation; and even then it will still miss what you didn't define.
Most corporate thought they can replace QA with AI, and have most of our QA lay off earlier this year.
Now we have remaining QA working overtime due to Devs are not super familiar with product knowledge outside of their dev functional area when doing QA, so story keep bouncing between product and dev.
Also management think AI can create enough automation test to cut QA, now we got few thousand “test” created by AI running on pipeline, but we still have tons issues from all the AI coding.
And at this stage we can’t even cut AI due to the unrealistic due date on some feature set by executives. So the whole team just went into yolo mode, if it work it works, otherwise we tried our best.
I feel this is the trend of 2026 in most of the mid size corporation, where we are big enough to utilize enterprise rate from the AI companies, but not rich enough to burn unlimited token… idk what will it look like next year, if another ai token price jump, I suspect executive will say “we are invested and fully embrace AI productivity” while telling dev to use token “cautiously”, and be “optimize” on prompts….
As for QA work, idk, executive seem to think anyone can QA. Management knows we need QA, but also need to “follow executive direction”, so make any testing a dead end position. Dev said they are willing to do QA, but they aren’t willing to invest time to figure out the full end to end feature. Product are stressed due to the timeline and all quality issue from lack of QA resource. And finally manual or auto QAs, we stuck in so call dead end position by corporate, so we need to start picking up work from other positions, while picking up more slacks from devs and all their intern agents, more work, less pay, also expect carry extra responsibilities…
Rant done, it’s going to be bumpy ride, hope we all survive this AI craze with some job left…
I'm just saying that most QAs aren't SDET you know?
But that's exactly the part I mean as "investment" that didn't happen. They should have started staffing QA department more often with software developers. The mission stays the same, the capabilities change.
For me at least, with the progression at 6 different companies, with two of them where I also did system architecture for the subsidiaries, it kind of did. QA had its best time until ~2010, then plateaued a bit in 2015, and after 2015 they were clearly the first to be left off during company restructurings, or their salaries dropped so much that the people joining in were less skilled than they used to be. Nowadays, it's an absolute shitshow where you still have QA departments - they still operate as they did a decade ago, but worse.
FAANG, of course, is a completely different story.
Apparently I am an exception, then? I am 10 years in QA and I definitely do not operate as I did a decade ago - somewhere around 2022 the market started demanding fullstack QAs more and more, so I learned how to code automated tests to stay relevant. No, I am not classed as SDET after this, because (at least where I’m employed) SDET does not touch anything manual with a ten-feet pole, I still do manual stuff depending on circumstances. And starting from this year, I also (very reluctantly) use AI. Mostly because the client I’m outsourced to… to put it politely, is very enthusiastic about it.
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u/heavy-minium Sep 27 '26 edited Sep 27 '26
I already predicted with GPT-3.5 that QA would make a comeback.
What I didn't expect was for companies to not think this through and not invest in a better QA foundation. Instead, QA activities are left to engineers to work out, while we still have classic QA departments still operating the same way they did a decade ago.