Stop The Tester’s Inferiority Complex: QA and Dev Are Equals | by Vincent Ferreira | Jun, 2026 | MediumSitemapOpen in appSign up<br>Sign in

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Stop The Tester’s Inferiority Complex: QA and Dev Are Equals

Beating it on two fronts: yourself and your team

Vincent Ferreira

9 min read·<br>2 hours ago

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A tester and a developer reviewing testing code together

“You don’t produce anything. You just check what others do.”<br>Many testers have already repeated this sentence to themselves in their heads. Because, yes, testers tend to develop a sense of inferiority compared to developers. There are many reasons for this, which we’ll explore, but none of them are insurmountable.<br>The first thing to understand is that moving from testing to development isn’t an end in itself. A good tester won’t necessarily make a good developer, and vice versa: these are two distinct professions. Two different roles, with different daily routines, facing different problems, but working toward the same goal, delivering a solution that meets specifications and a certain standard of quality.<br>And it is precisely because these two roles are complementary that your value as a tester is genuine. To fight this feeling of inferiority, both in your mind and in your team, you’ll need to work on two fronts: yourself, and the organization of your team. The benefits for the project will follow naturally.<br>And if you do things right, you won’t just catch bugs, you’ll prevent them from existing in the first place.<br>An Inferiority Complex That No Longer Makes Sense<br>There was a time when testing was limited to executing test cases at the end of the development cycle. That was the principle of the waterfall model, and the tester arrived at the end of the chain to validate what had been built. Even though testing standards mention that testers should be involved in every stage of the software development lifecycle, their importance has, unfortunately, always been pushed to the very end.<br>Even in 2026, many people still carry this outdated view, even though the software world moved to Agile or DevOps a long time ago.<br>Agile introduced short development cycles, where teams look for feedback as quickly as possible, both on the code being produced and on the features being built, so they can adjust before mistakes become too expensive. In this context, the tester’s role has been completely reinvented. Testers now have to collaborate much more with everyone involved in the project, while also contributing to continuous delivery by creating automation, one of the key elements of a well-organized agile project.<br>Over time, the profession has become more standardized, its areas of expertise have expanded, and we have gone from the simple manual tester to many different specializations, from the SDET to the QA Engineer, and now to AI testing specialists with new responsibilities.<br>When you step back and look at the wide range of skills a QA professional can develop, it becomes obvious that there is no reason to feel less legitimate than a developer.<br>There is another reason to stop feeling inferior: in 2026, writing code is no longer something only developers can do. A machine can generate a large part of it in just a few seconds, from a simple prompt.<br>But generating code and delivering a high-quality product are two very different things. Code that truly meets users’ needs, covers all the requirements, and follows a high standard of quality requires an understanding that machines do not have. And that understanding is exactly what you, as a tester, bring.<br>The need for testers who understand users, understand business challenges, and can carry a complete vision of product quality has not decreased because of AI. It has become even stronger.<br>An Asymmetry of Visibility, Not of Value<br>The tension between testers and developers is real, but it’s rarely about talent. It’s about visibility. Picture the classic scenario: a company is in a rush, a developer ships something complex fast and gets all the credit. Behind that feature: no docs, no tests, a shaky architecture. A ticking time bomb. Then they move on. The QA stays and inherits the last-minute defects, the bad news, the production incidents they never created.<br>This isn’t about who has the bigger ego. It’s a system that rewards what’s loud and immediate over what’s quiet and preventive. Naming that asymmetry is the first step to fixing it, for the team and for yourself.<br>But there’s a second front, and it’s a harder one: what about your own self-esteem?<br>The goal is solid self-esteem that depends on no one but you, and that keeps impostor syndrome at bay.<br>Own Your Value<br>Everything starts with self-esteem. It is deep work, but it is essential. Start with the basics, the most personal ones, then build up to the skills you bring to your team.<br>Your Personal Strengths<br>Who are you, really? What have you always been good at,...