Opinions·13 June 2026 · 7 min read
Why mobile bugs escape web-first QA teams
Web-first teams carry assumptions that quietly break on mobile — permissions, offline state, lifecycle, and updates.
mobile-testingopinion
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Strong, dated takes from working QA engineers. Disagree freely; we change our minds in public.
Opinions·13 June 2026 · 7 min read
Why average response time lies
The average response time is the metric most likely to make a slow system look fine. Here is what to watch instead.
performance-testingmetricsopinion
Opinions·13 June 2026 · 7 min read
Should QA engineers learn to code? A practical answer
Not yes or no — which coding and for what. Reading code and light scripting help every tester; automation is where the roles are. Coding extends testing, doesn't replace the judgement.
careerautomationskills
Opinions·13 June 2026 · 8 min read
Accessibility in pull requests: what's realistic?
Automate the mechanical (axe/lint: alt, labels, contrast) and spot-check the obvious in a PR; route keyboard, focus, and screen-reader testing to QA on a real build.
accessibilitya11ypull-requestsprocess
Opinions·13 June 2026 · 8 min read
Real device vs emulator: when each is enough
Not a purity contest — emulators for functional/UI/CI, real devices for performance, sensors, network, and sign-off. Decide per test whether the check needs real hardware.
mobile-testingemulatorreal-devicestrategy
Opinions·13 June 2026 · 8 min read
AI test case generation: where it helps and where it fails
AI covers the expected cases fast and misses the suspicion-driven ones that catch bugs. Division of labour: let it handle breadth of the predictable; you handle the unexpected.
ai-testingtest-casesai-toolsopinion
Opinions·24 April 2026 · 6 min read
You probably don't need a Page Object Model
POM was a Selenium-era solution to a Selenium-era problem. In modern Cypress and Playwright, custom commands and locator helpers cover 90% of what POM was supposed to give you.
patternspage-object-modelcypress
Opinions·6 February 2026 · 7 min read
Stop writing BDD tests you don't actually need
Cucumber and Gherkin make sense when non-technical stakeholders write tests. They don't make sense when engineers write tests for engineers. Here's the pragmatic test: who actually reads your tests?
bddcucumberpatterns
Opinions·3 February 2026 · 7 min read
data-testid isn't a test smell. Brittle tests are.
There's a take going around that data-testid 'couples tests to implementation.' It's exactly backwards — data-testid is the only selector explicitly decoupled from implementation.
cypressplaywrightselectors
Opinions·27 January 2026 · 8 min read
The flaky-test tax no one talks about
Flaky tests don't cost you in CI minutes. They cost you in developer trust. And the compounding interest on lost trust is the most expensive tax in engineering.
flaky-testsci-cdculture
Opinions·8 January 2026 · 9 min read
AI-generated tests are useful — but not for the reason you think
AI writes 80% of a test 80% of the way, and the remaining 20% is exactly the part that makes it a test. Where AI saves time, where it's a trap, and the distinction that separates the two.
aicopilottesting
Opinions·16 December 2025 · 7 min read
Your Lighthouse score isn't an accessibility test
A 100 Lighthouse accessibility score doesn't mean your site is accessible. The score is a smoke alarm — useful, but not a test. Here's what it actually measures, and what you still need to check manually.
accessibilitylighthousea11y
Opinions·12 December 2025 · 8 min read
The test pyramid is a vibe, not a rule
The Cohn test pyramid has been gospel since 2009. It was a useful heuristic for a 2009 monolith Java app. It's been quoted unchanged ever since — and most modern stacks don't fit its shape.
patternstest-pyramidopinionculture
Opinions·27 November 2025 · 8 min read
Test plans nobody reads, and the one-page replacement that works
The 40-page IEEE 829 test plan: written once at kickoff, opened twice during the project, abandoned after release. There's a single-page replacement that teams actually update.
processdocumentationtest-plansculture
Opinions·25 November 2025 · 8 min read
API tests as documentation — and why that's the only test suite anyone reads
Wiki pages about APIs go stale in three months. The API test suite gets opened every single day. Write tests that read like documentation — and stop writing the wiki.
api-testingdocumentationpatterns
Opinions·4 November 2025 · 8 min read
Load tests in CI: the honest version
The pitch: 'run load tests on every PR.' The reality: you'll have flaky thresholds in three days and disabled tests in two weeks. Here's the four-tier strategy that actually survives.
performance-testingci-cdk6opinion
Opinions·21 October 2025 · 9 min read
Manual exploratory testing isn't dead — it's underused
What automation replaced was regression checks — running the same path repeatedly. What it didn't replace, and can't replace, is human intuition trying to break a product.
manual-qaexploratory-testingopinionculture