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startups

startups

Lessons from building QA and automation in fast-moving startups — lean systems, high-trust teams, and scaling quality without slowing down.

The Startup QA/QE Manifesto: From Zero to Scaled Quality in 3 Years

The Startup QA/QE Manifesto: From Zero to Scaled Quality in 3 Years

When I join or advise a startup, I rarely walk into a clean testing setup. Most of the time, there’s no QA. No test cases. No automation. Just engineers pushing code to production and praying it works. 📚 This Article is Part of the Startup QA Series This post is

The QA/QE Maturity Model for Startups: From Idea to IPO

The QA/QE Maturity Model for Startups: From Idea to IPO

What does Quality look like when you're building fast, scaling hard, and surviving on ramen and round-the-clock deploys? Here’s your definitive QA/QE roadmap — designed for startups at every stage, from scrappy pre-seed prototypes to IPO-ready systems. 📚 This Article is Part of the Startup QA Series This

↖️ Shift Left Testing: The Complete Roadmap (With Tools, Examples & Milestones)

↖️ Shift Left Testing: The Complete Roadmap (With Tools, Examples & Milestones)

What Is Shift Left Testing? Shift left testing is a modern software development practice where testing activities start early and happen often throughout the development lifecycle. It moves testing “left” on the timeline—closer to requirements, design, and early coding—so bugs are caught before they cause costly delays. Think

🧰 The Startup QA Starter Kit: How to Build Confidence Without Breaking the Bank

🧰 The Startup QA Starter Kit: How to Build Confidence Without Breaking the Bank

You just launched a product. You're shipping fast. You're under pressure to prove traction. But every week, bugs are slipping into prod. And your users? They’re starting to notice. 📚 This Article is Part of the Startup QA Series This is the first post in a

🚀 Startup-Built, Enterprise-Ready: My Approach to Scalable Quality Engineering

🚀 Startup-Built, Enterprise-Ready: My Approach to Scalable Quality Engineering

When people hear “startup QA,” they often imagine chaos: * No test coverage * No process * Everything breaking in production And to be fair… they’re not always wrong. Startups are fast, lean, and laser-focused on shipping features. Quality often feels like a luxury. But here’s the thing — I’m a

⚖️ Lean Foundations > Legacy Overhead

⚖️ Lean Foundations > Legacy Overhead

Let’s talk about a painful truth in the software world: Most enterprise QA systems are bloated. What starts as good intention — documenting risk, expanding test coverage, creating structure — often ends in dysfunction. I’ve seen it firsthand: * Dozens of test plans no one reads * Flaky automation suites everyone ignores

Testing Without Trust Breeds False Confidence — And That’s a Leadership Problem

Testing Without Trust Breeds False Confidence — And That’s a Leadership Problem

“Testing without trust just breeds false confidence.” — Mike C. That line stuck with me. In fact it kept me up until 2am. Not just because it captures what’s broken in many test automation setups, but because it exposes a bigger issue: Even teams with thousands of tests can lack