Iāve been thinking about this term and Iād be curious to know what you think about it, or what your own definition might be.
Thereās no entry in the MoT Glossary as yet so maybe we can find some to add. Thanks
To get the ball rolling, hereās mine.
A Specialist in software testing is someone with a depth of knowledge, technical skill or even expert level understanding of a testing type. Some well known examples of testing types that have specialists are security, performance, automation, accessibility and more lately AI (both testing AI applications and the ML (machine learning) and LLMs (large language models) that power AI tools).
This is a tricky one because if I look at my team, everyone is a specialist. I havenāt recruited them to be a specialist but they naturally become one in certain situations - both in tech skills and soft skills.
Thereās also a negative aspect of the term, because in order to be a specialist in something, there has to be something youāre not a specialist in or literally an area you just donāt want to do.
So my stab at it would be a specialist is someone who chooses to focus on a set of skills they are passionate about to become a respected mentor and advisor in those skills.
I think āSpecialistā as Tester is someone who goes beyond just finding bugs.
They ensure that every user interaction feels seamless and every feature work as expected.
Itās not just executing test cases, its about spotting bugs before they become problems. A specialisr understands different testing methodologies, knows when to push for quality, and collaborates with developers to build software that isnāt just functional but also reliable and user-friendly.
In the context of software testing, I think of a specialist as someone who is the go-to person for a particular area / topic / technique, etc. A person who is often associated with something specific, because of the level of skill / experience they have in it. A specialist will typically be able to consult on, educate, and train people on the given topic.
For exploraory testing Iād say yes but am not sure about āmanualā because when I see that used it is often referring to exploratory testing (ET) so would need to understand what you think it means or how you see it is different to ET.
I wonder if one would consider the tasks of writing up and documenting test cases and test plans areas of specialization. After all, some folks do that better than others. Also the matter of submitting good bug reports as well.
Personally I wouldnāt as I think every tester should be able to write test cases and good bug reports. I think it is a core skill rather than a specialism.
