Should QA exist?

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Existence and Ownership of QA

  • Broad agreement that “quality assurance” as a function must exist; disagreement is about who does it and how it’s organized.
  • Some argue engineers should own quality end‑to‑end; dedicated QA encourages “throw it over the wall” behavior and slows release.
  • Others say quality is a system involving engineering, product, design, and operations; dedicated QA are specialists in that system, not a crutch for bad engineering.

Value of Skilled QA vs Bad QA

  • Many anecdotes of excellent QA finding subtle, high‑impact bugs, cross‑feature interactions, and timing issues that devs never considered.
  • QA often become the deepest experts on the product and its real behavior, helping product, support, and design.
  • Strong view that most QA in the wild are undertrained “button pushers,” repackaging dev tests and adding bureaucracy; this fuels skepticism about the role.
  • Poor org design (e.g., remote offshore teams running dev‑written scripts) turns QA into expensive red tape that finds little.

Automation, Testing Strategies, and AI

  • Debate over the “testing pyramid”: some claim it’s outdated; advocate a “testing hourglass” with many unit tests and many UI/API tests, fewer mid‑level integrations.
  • Others emphasize test cost along a “would you run it” axis: fast deterministic tests at bottom, flaky/slow/expensive ones at top.
  • Conflicting views on unit tests: some see them as cheap, high value; others see them as expensive, low value compared to smoke/E2E tests.
  • AI is seen both as:
    • A way to cheaply generate automated tests and supercharge good QA.
    • A reason QA becomes more important, since coding is automated and human verification/oversight dominates.

Human Testing, Exploratory Work, and Product Knowledge

  • Exploratory and adversarial testing (breaking flows, odd timing, network failures, multi‑device behavior) is widely cited as where good QA shine and automation struggles.
  • Humans are needed to validate UX, “does this make sense,” and real‑world usage patterns, not just specification conformance.

Organizational Structure and Incentives

  • Arguments for independence: QA analogous to audit/red team; shouldn’t be beholden to the same managers and incentives as builders.
  • Counterpoint: siloed QA, long queues, and lack of collaboration are destructive; embedded test engineers or SDETs within teams work better.
  • QA is often underpaid, first outsourced or cut, and used as a dumping ground for glue work, which degrades quality of practitioners and outcomes.

Domains and Risk Levels

  • High‑risk and regulated domains (medical devices, aerospace, enterprise contracts, compliance frameworks) are described as requiring robust QA and formal test evidence.
  • Consumer/social products often accept weaker QA in favor of speed and growth; “does it have users” can trump correctness.