Software Testing Unleashed - QA, DevEx & Quality Engineering

Old Testing vs. New Testing - Tibor Csöndes

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"Those testers will take our job who are using AI from those who don't use AI." - Tibor Csöndes

In this episode, I talk with Tibor Csöndes about how testing grew up and where it goes next. We recorded live at HUSTEF in Budapest, a conference he helped shape. Tibor shares telco roots where automation was normal. Tools change, thinking stays. He sees AI as a third wave after CATG and model based testing. Helpful, not a job thief. Use it, or the testers who do will take your seat. ISTQB gave us a common language across industries. Learn the basics, automation, AI, and the human stuff like clear messages and critical thinking.

Tibor Csöndes is a highly skilled Hungarian engineer and manager specializing in telecommunication and software testing. He's a veteran at Ericsson Hungary Ltd., R&D, having started his career there in 1997.

He currently works as a Line Manager (since 2009), handling people management and leading various engineering teams in areas like Component Development and MTAS&CSCF. Before his managerial role, he was a Test Architect and Senior Specialist, contributing to the TTCN-3 standardization within ETSI.

Tibor holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME). He remains active in academia as an Honorary Associate Professor at BME, where he supervises students and researches using optimization methods to solve complex testing problems. He's a prominent figure in the industry as the President of the Hungarian Testing Board (ISTQB member board) since 2018. Critically, he is the Head of Organization for the well-known HUSTEF conference, a major identified event in the European software testing community.

Highlights:

  • Testers who use AI will replace those who do not, but AI itself will not replace testers, because testing theory, architecture decisions, and infrastructure thinking still require human expertise.
  • The tester role has always demanded learning new tools every decade, from computer-aided test generation to model-based testing to AI, so the ability to learn matters more than mastery of any single tool.
  • Communication skill is a core tester competency because delivering bad news about a defect requires framing it as a quality finding, not a personal failure or an attack on the team.
  • A common vocabulary, not any single certification path, is the primary value ISTQB brought to software testing by aligning testers from different industries around shared terms and concepts.
  • Critical thinking is the one skill AI cannot supply to a tester, and it remains the foundation on which every tool, technique, and automation approach depends.
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    Software Testing Unleashed - QA, DevEx & Quality EngineeringBy Richard Seidl | Software Development & Testing Expert