“Why would I add someone who’s just going to report even more bugs, when I already don’t have the time to deal with the ones we have?”

That was a manager’s response when the idea of strengthening their team with a QA was raised, an idea that had actually emerged from many discussions with the team itself.

It confirmed a common observation: in many organizations, Quality Analysts (sometimes reduced to being called “testers”) are pushed to the end of the chain, limited to validating work that has already been developed.

I’d like to show how this perspective misses the true value of Quality Analysts, and what you lose by reducing them to that role.