Not a forum. Not a Slack group. A deliberate space for software testers who are serious about their craft. Built for practitioners who want conversations that go somewhere, not a feed of LinkedIn performance and hot takes.
The Test Chat exists because most online spaces for software testers are optimised for reach, not insight. You get job posts, motivational quotes dressed up as advice, and arguments about whether manual testing is dead. It's tiring.
The Test Chat was built on a different premise: that practitioners who are serious about testing deserve a space where they can talk about the actual hard problems. Context-specific testing strategy. The politics of quality in large organisations. What you do when your manager doesn't understand what you're trying to build. How to have a career in testing that doesn't plateau at senior engineer level.
That's what happens inside this community. Not a forum for noise. A space for people who want to think.
Conversations about real testing problems in real contexts. Not sanitised success stories. Members share what didn't work, what surprised them, and what they'd do differently. The kind of knowledge transfer that usually only happens between people who've worked together.
No thought leadership. No personal branding exercises. No "5 things I learned from failing that I'm now using to succeed spectacularly." Just testers talking to each other honestly about the work.
How to navigate a testing career in organisations that don't always value it. How to make the transition to quality leadership. How to have the conversations with engineering leaders that actually shift how quality is perceived in your organisation.
Members across continents, organisations, and experience levels. The common thread is a commitment to testing as a serious discipline, not a compliance checkbox. That shared premise makes for unusually good conversations.
Direct conversations with testing practitioners and leaders who have something real to say. Not a marketing podcast. Not a panel of consultants agreeing with each other. TesterSpeak is built on the same premise as The Test Chat: that the most useful conversations in this industry happen informally, and the podcast is a way to make those conversations public.
Episodes cover testing strategy, quality leadership, the ethics of AI in testing, career navigation, and the organisational dynamics that make or break quality engineering in practice. Guests are chosen because they've done the work, not because they have large followings.
If you're serious about testing and want a community that takes the craft as seriously as you do, this is where you belong.
Founded by Brijesh Deb. Built on the conviction that practitioners who are serious about testing deserve a genuine space for the kind of conversations that advance the craft.