I am a QA/tester/test automation professional and not a software engineer. I see companies like Google & Microsoft have very few testers i.e. almost as good as zero. Google has very few Test Engineers who are are likely just great software engineers who happen to focus on testing & testing infrastructure. Microsoft has a few “QA” whose job is to test hardware like Xbox and videogames where automation is not very easy. Google seems to be doing fine & working exceptionally production bug free, but Microsoft is a mixed bag. Overall, their products seem good without the need for QA roles. There are other companies like Salesforce where they have no QA per my friend who is a senior software engineer there. This trend seems to have caught on in some smaller companies (like mine) who are slowly getting rid of their QA teams.
However, I do see many companies like Amazon, Oracle etc. which still have QA. But some of these companies are trying to move away from QA teams gradually. My guess is that they keep QA around because its hard to find great software engineers/SWEs who can also test well. As time passes, SWEs will learn more testing & get used to it thereby reducing or eliminating the need for separate QA roles. Do we really need QA roles in the long run ? I am beginning to think we don’t.
PS – It could take 10 years or less, or more. 10 is just a random guess.
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