“What do feelings have to do with quality assurance?”
This question emerged from a question on LinkedIn I posted this week, asking QA engineers what feels worse: finding a critical bug right before release, or being known as the person who always blocks releases.
While the post generated significant engagement, what truly caught my attention were the comments dismissing the relevance of feelings in our profession. One responder even called it a “bad question,” asserting that emotions have no place in a QA engineer’s work.
Let’s unpack why this perspective misses a major aspect of our role.
The Human Element in Quality
As Gerald Weinberg noted, most technical problems are, at their core, people problems. In my twenty years of quality engineering, I’ve found this to be consistently true. When we pretend emotions don’t exist in our technical landscape, we’re not being professional – we’re being wilfully blind to a critical aspect of our work.
Consider these scenarios:
– Delivering feedback about code that isn’t working as expected
– Highlighting issues in a CI/CD pipeline that everyone’s been working around
– Pointing out that a design doesn’t meet accessibility standards
– Questioning whether a feature truly addresses user needs
Each of these situations isn’t just about technical correctness, it’s about human interactions, pride in work, and professional identity.
The Psychology of Quality Leadership
What sets exceptional quality engineers apart isn’t their technical acumen but their understanding of human psychology. They know that finding issues is only half the job. The real skill lies in how we communicate these findings and guide teams toward solutions.
This becomes even more crucial as organisations move toward more frequent delivery cycles. The transition from traditional QA roles to quality coaches requires more than just technical expertise; it demands emotional intelligence and leadership skills.
The Evolution from Tester to Quality Coach
The shift from being “the person who blocks releases” to becoming a trusted quality advisor involves a fundamental change in how we view our role:
| Traditional QA Mindset | Quality Coach Approach |
| Finding bugs | Preventing issues |
| Blocking releases | Enabling safe delivery |
| Owning quality | Building quality mindset |
| Testing after development | Guiding during development |
| Being a gatekeeper | Being a trusted advisor |
Moving Forward
The reality is that emotions will always be part of our work because we work with humans, not machines. The key isn’t to suppress these feelings but to understand them, acknowledge them, and use that understanding to become more effective quality leaders.
When we embrace both the technical and emotional aspects of our role, we can:
– Build stronger relationships within our teams
– Foster environments where quality is everyone’s responsibility
– Enable faster, safer delivery cycles
– Create lasting positive change in our organisations
The Path Ahead
For many QA engineers, this transition from traditional tester to quality coach can feel daunting. It requires us to develop new skills and, yes, to be comfortable working with emotions – both our own and others’.
But here’s the truth: the most impactful quality engineers I’ve known weren’t just technical experts. They were people who understood that quality improvement is as much about leading and influencing as it is about testing and automation.
The future of quality engineering lies not in being the person who says “no,” but in being the trusted advisor who helps teams say “yes” safely and confidently. And that journey begins with acknowledging that feelings don’t make us less professional – they make us more effective.