Software Testing Unleashed - QA, DevEx & Quality Engineering

Why Quality Engineers Fail at Business Thinking - Marta Firlej

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How to prove your testing work in money - before the next budget cut hits

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"That's the goal of every company. Every company, government and country make money." - Marta Firlej

In this episode, I talk with Marta Firlej about a topic most testers avoid: money. Marta explains why understanding how your company actually makes money is crucial for QA professionals, and walks through the real costs behind salaries, automation projects, and test activities that stakeholders care about. She shares a practical calculation method to assess whether test automation is worth the investment, and challenges us to translate testing value into business numbers.

Marta Firlej is inventor and organizer of the testing conference test:fest in Wrocław Poland. Proud member of the Polish and European testing community by being an organizer of various events, sharing knowledge and experience as a speaker, and participating as an attendee.

Currently working as a Head of FS Testing Practice at Capgemini in Poland. Throughout her career, she worked on different positions always having quality in heart for different industries such as finance, healthcare, edutech, etc. Her favorite part is working with people.

Highlights:

  • Testers who cannot explain what a failed release costs in money will lose budget arguments, because managers treat testing as an abstract cost, not a risk mitigation tool.
  • Automation return on investment depends on maintenance costs and longevity: automating a product that may be cut or heavily revised in the near term produces negative value.
  • The real cost of an employee to a company is roughly double the gross salary, once employer taxes, benefits, bench time, and overhead are included.
  • Testers own the responsibility to produce quality reports and communicate risk proactively, because clients will not ask for information they do not know they need.
  • Understanding how a company earns money, who the key stakeholders are, and what decisions they make is a precondition for translating test results into business value.

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      Software Testing Unleashed - QA, DevEx & Quality EngineeringBy Richard Seidl | Software Development & Testing Expert