As a software testing professional, would you describe yourself as a generalist or specialist?

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As a software testing professional, would you describe yourself as a generalist or specialist?

  • Generalist
  • Specialist
  • Something else, please comment
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Generalist, in the general systems sense. An understanding of systems and relationships in a broad sense that can be applied to anything new. Building mental modals that draw from general experience, varied heuristic approaches to tackle complex systems quickly and build understanding. How to be stuck in that world between detailed analysis and statistical significance and come to useful conclusions.

In a more common sense, a generalist when it comes to software development, because it applies throughout the lifecycle and requires general understanding of a lot of topics. Knowledge of design, coding, deployment, databases, business, sales, support, software in general, platforms, anything that can affect the value of how we consider, uncover and evaluate risk.

Specialist, in the sense of specific skills of exploration or certain tooling or critical approach or intent. Focus/defocus, branch and backtrack, progressive mismatch, risk analysis, investigation and reporting, automation tools, database diffing, scripting; each could be considered a specialism.

Added together to mean “tester”, that could be seen as a specialism of specialisms. Who else specialises in all those particular specialisms? Only a specialist could be a generalist about all those specialisms.

Mostly I think it’s a matter of perspective, depending on the situation. A tester might be a generalist from the perspective of a “web performance tester”, or a specialist from the perspective of a “person”.

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Both probably. Mostly a generalist, but I do have a specific area of expertise within the general field of testing. :man_shrugging:

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We’re genspecialists :sweat_smile:

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I describe myself as software engineer with a specialization in testing, so I picked “specialist”.

In my experience, when you just meet a person you want to provide enough high-level labels for them to put you somewhere on their map of professions. Yes, software development, and software testing, are extremely complex, nuanced and messy. So is that person discipline. But we hide these internal complexities from each other until they actually become relevant.

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In tech, the term “generalist” gets thrown around a lot, and often without much substance behind it. People add “generalist” to their titles like “QA Generalist” or “Software Testing Generalist” but realistically, it doesn’t add any clarity or value beyond “QA Specialist” or “Software Testing Professional.” In fact these “generalist” labels sometimes sound more like fluff than a real indicator of skill or expertise.

Being a QA Engineer or Software Testing Professional is already about having a broad range of skills across tools, methodologies, and testing strategies, a deep understanding of quality principles. Adding “generalist” as a tag doesn’t enhance that - it just muddles the picture. If you’re serious about quality, your expertise should speak for itself without relying on buzzwords :sweat_smile:

Personally, I’m a QA Engineer, a software testing professional, so I can say that I’m a specialist even after reading the definition of “generalist” I won’t use it to describe myself because it doesn’t make sense, it’s like a principal QA engineer. I don’t even see any point in discussing this matter :sweat_smile:

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I consider myself a mix of both. I am a generalist but also I specialize in different areas. The mix is 80% broad knowledge, 20% specialized focus. I like the term “genspecialists” :smile: @rosie

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My day to day work is testing a very specialised area, but I also try to stay flexible enough to do a deep dive in another area if needed

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I see myself as a technology professional, specialising in quality and testing. Why would someone want me on their team? What do I bring? Specialist knowledge and skills in quality and testing. That doesn’t mean that others don’t also have knowledge and skills in this area, but it might not be their main focus, whereas it is for me.

That being said, there are degrees of specialism. I wouldn’t say that being a quality and testing specialist automatically makes me a specialist in performance testing, for example. One might be a generalist in the field of quality and testing. Or one might have a sub-specialism, such as exploratory testing.

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Generalist software and system developer, with a speciality in quality and testing? :thinking:

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