Software Testing Unleashed - QA, DevEx & Quality Engineering
by Richard Seidl | Software Development & Testing Expert
Mental Skills: Testers Can't Outsource Their Brain to AI - Ard Kramer
About this podcast
Software testing is no longer just a phase—it’s the foundation of modern engineering and your ultimate competitive advantage.
Welcome to Software Testing Unleashed, the weekly podcast for anyone dedicated to building better software, faster. Hosted by Richard Seidl, renowned expert in software development and testing, this show is your backstage pass to the tools, tactics, and trends defining the next era of Quality Engineering.
Whether you are a QA Engineer, SDET, Developer, or Tech Leader, each week we bring you field-tested insights from the brightest minds in the software universe to answer the industry’s toughest questions:
- Smart Automation: When should you automate, and when is it a trap?
- AI & ML in Testing: How do you maintain quality in a world of non-deterministic code?
- The "How Much" Dilemma: How much testing is actually enough for your specific scale?
- Architecture & DevEx: What makes a great integration test and how do you improve developer experience?
From scaling QA strategies in enterprise projects to building your very first test suite, we bridge the gap between complex theory and practical execution. We dive deep into CI/CD, Cloud-native complexity, and the future of manual vs. automated testing.
🚀 Ready to unleash the next level of quality? Hit play, subscribe, and join a global movement of software professionals shipping with confidence.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 77 episodes
- Mental Skills: Testers Can't Outsource Their Brain to AI - Ard Kramer · 19 min · Episode 77Mental skills keep testers thinking when AI offers to do it for them, and Ard Kramer puts it bluntly: you can't outsource your brain. With him I talk about why an idle brain…
- Testing AI Models as Magic Boxes: Why Checks Fail - Michael Bolton · 28 min · Episode 76Testing AI models means testing a magic box: nobody has the source code, and the behavior is neither controlled nor understood. Michael Bolton calls that strongly magical, and…
- Dark Side of Testing: The Failures We Cause Ourselves - Bart Knaack · 19 min · Episode 75Testing is supposed to prevent failures in production, yet sometimes the test itself is what breaks things. Bart Knaack calls this the dark side of testing, and we talk about…
- Quality Hunting: Testing for Information Instead of Bugs - Rik Marselis · 18 min · Episode 74Quality hunting grew out of Rik Marselis's frustration with bug hunting, and I wanted to know how it works when the goal is information about quality. Rik walks me through a…
- On-Site Testing Conferences: Why Networking Needs Presence - Okan Çakmak · 17 min · Episode 73What does it take to turn a risky one-time event into a conference that testers travel across borders for? With Okan Çakmak I talk about how the Istanbul Software Testing…
- You Need a Test Automation Strategy Before AI - Michaël Pilaeten · 23 min · Episode 72What happens when AI ships poor quality faster, and nobody notices because the pipeline stays green? With Michaël Pilaeten I talk about why test automation without a clear…
- Agentic Systems in Testing: Why Humans Stay in the Loop - Nishan Portoyan · 28 min · Episode 71What separates a handful of agents from a real agentic system? With Nishan Portoyan I talk about exactly that line, and why most teams are still on the wrong side of it. We walk…
- AI in Software Testing Raises the Value of Expert Testers - Olivier Denoo · 21 min · Episode 70What happens to quality when anyone can generate code with a prompt but nobody checks whether it actually works? With Olivier Denoo I talk about why that question puts expert…
- Lean Management: Why Problem Analysis Beats Quick Fixes - Nirmala Saneechur · 21 min · Episode 69Why do we rush to fix problems before we actually understand them? With Nirmala Saneechur I talk about Lean management, what it means to deliver quality at the right time rather…
- Performance Monitoring: Set a 70% CPU Alert Before Failure - Rao Dhaligadoo · 17 min · Episode 68Slow systems don't just annoy users, they cost companies real money, and most teams only find out when the phone starts ringing. With Rao Dhaligadoo I talk about what it actually…
- End-to-End Test Automation Without the Maintenance Trap - Lilia Gargouri · 34 min · Episode 67Forty percent of automation time lost to flakiness and maintenance: that is the reality Lilia Gargouri describes. I talked with Lilia about end-to-end test automation at scale…
- API Testing: Agent-Optimized Design Cuts Token Costs - Sebastian Małyska · 35 min · Episode 66With Sebastian Malyska I talk about what sits behind the APIs testers often take for granted. We get into why REST is still on top but not the whole story, how GraphQL and…
- LLMs in Software Testing: Start with Small, Bounded Tasks - Klaudia Dussa-Zieger · 26 min · Episode 65With Klaudia Dussa Zieger I talk about where language models actually deliver in testing and where they fall flat. We get into the concrete details: why a small function like…
- Testing Complex Systems: Ship Small and Learn Fast - Jean Francois Riverin · 21 min · Episode 64With Jean-Francois Riverin I get into a question that bothered him for over 20 years: why are there still bugs in production even when you tested as well as you possibly could?…
- Holistic Engineering: Non-Technical Forces Shape Your Code - Vanessa Formicola · 25 min · Episode 63Why do so many software teams end up with the exact architecture they never intended to build? With Vanessa Formicola I talk about the hidden forces that shape technical…
- Children's Book About Testing That Inspired a Future Tester - Kari Kakkonen · 17 min · Episode 62With Kari Kakkonen I talk about what happens when you explain software testing through a fantasy story for children, where dragons are defects and knights are testers. We get…
- TMMI Level 5: How Mature Teams Stop Bugs Before They Exist - Zsolt Hargitai · 17 min · Episode 61What does it actually take to move from finding defects to preventing them? With Zsolt Hargitai I talk about TMMI, a framework for improving test processes, and why that shift in…
- Learning and Unlearning with AI: Skills That Outlast Tools - Graziela Tonin · 30 min · Episode 60What does it actually mean to unlearn something, and why does that question matter as much as learning new skills right now? With Graziela Tonin I talk about how universities…
- Post-Agile: What Organizations Actually Need Now - Michael Mahlberg · 25 min · Episode 59What happens to the teams and organizations left behind after an agile transformation that didn't deliver what it promised? With Michael Mahlberg I talk about why the word…
- Tester Skills: Communication Decides Whether Bugs Matter - Tara Walton · 35 min · Episode 58What does a tester actually need right now, when AI tools are everywhere and QA teams keep getting cut? With Tara Walton I talk about why communication and the fundamentals of…
