Career·13 June 2026 · 8 min read
QA portfolio projects that don't look fake
What separates a portfolio project that gets you an interview from one that screams tutorial-follower.
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Career.
Transitions, interviews, portfolios, and levelling up across manual, automation, SDET, and lead tracks.
Tutorials·13 June 2026 · 8 min read
How to prepare for a QA take-home assignment
What take-home reviewers actually score, and how to spend your limited time on the parts that count.
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Opinions·13 June 2026 · 7 min read
Should QA engineers learn to code? A practical answer
Not yes or no — which coding and for what. Reading code and light scripting help every tester; automation is where the roles are. Coding extends testing, doesn't replace the judgement.
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Career·13 June 2026 · 7 min read
The QA CV mistakes I see again and again
Tool-list-as-skills, duties not achievements, no quantified impact, generic and untailored — and the reframe that fixes them: prove you're good at testing, don't describe the job.
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Career·13 June 2026 · 8 min read
What senior QA interviews really test
Senior interviews assess judgement, prioritisation, and influence — not deeper tool trivia. Prep risk-based reasoning, trade-off thinking, and stories of influencing decisions.
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Career·13 June 2026 · 7 min read
How to talk about bugs you found in interviews (STAR)
Use STAR to keep a bug story focused on your judgement: brief Situation and Task, an Action with reasoning, and a Result with impact — and pick a bug that shows thinking, not luck.
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Deep dives·13 June 2026 · 9 min read
QA career paths: manual, automation, SDET, lead, manager
An honest map of QA's branches — deepening manual, automation, SDET, lead, manager — each rewarding different strengths, none 'up' from the others. Choose by what you like doing.
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QA trends·13 June 2026 · 8 min read
AI's real impact on QA roles (beyond the hype)
A dated June 2026 take: AI is reshaping QA roles, not eliminating them — eating the mechanical middle, raising the value of judgement, and re-pricing which skills pay.
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Career·7 April 2026 · 6 min read
From manual to automation: a practical transition guide
Six months from your first if-statement to your first paid automation contract — if you focus. Here's the path I'd take if I were starting today.
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Career·20 January 2026 · 10 min read
The SDET interview loop, decoded
The SDET interview loop is four rounds in a trench coat: live coding, system design, framework selection, behavioural. Each round tests something different. Here's what each one is actually looking for.
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Career·13 January 2026 · 9 min read
From SDET to QA Lead: the shift no one warns you about
The transition from SDET to QA Lead is brutal in a way the title doesn't telegraph. You stop being measured on what you ship and start being measured on what your team ships.
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