Testing Is a Social Activity — Not a Solo Act
What I learned as the first (and only) tester in a startup
“Skilled testing is not a solo act, nor a factory line. It’s a social, cognitive process. Quality emerges when testers and teams question deeply, share tacit knowledge, and explore uncertainty together.”
I didn’t read this quote in a book. I lived it.
Let me tell you how.
I was hired as the first test engineer
No prior QA. No scripts. No legacy tools. No test artifacts.
Just a team of engineers who had never worked with a tester before.
Honestly? I was excited. Not because it was smooth, but because it was uncertain. And testing thrives in uncertainty.
There was no structured onboarding.
One 1-hour product walkthrough.
But here’s the kicker: the team was curious and collaborative.
They didn’t see me as a bottleneck. They saw me as someone who could help them understand the product better. And I saw them the same way.
I didn’t wait for clarity. I went looking for it.
I started asking questions.
I poked around in the product.
I observed how things worked.
I noticed how features were shipped.
And I noticed something else:
🔥 Almost every release needed a hotfix.
Because something, somewhere, broke.
Not because devs were careless. But because no one was really testing. They were mostly checking. Verifying that features met basic requirements. Edge cases? Interaction risks? Behavior under strain? Those were rarely explored.
So I tried something different.
I didn’t bring in a process.
I didn’t make a test plan document.
I didn’t pitch automation tools.
Instead, I made testing visible.
I shared what I found, in Slack, in meetings, in 1:1s.
I involved myself early, even without being invited.
I asked about goals, not just features.
I mapped out customer complaints to real problems.
I prioritized based on risk, not a checklist.
When the next feature release came, I was ready.
The release went out.
No hotfixes.
That was a first.
Not because I’m a magician.
But because we talked, questioned, and learned together.
Some issues I raised were fixed.
Some were negotiated.
Some were deferred.
But the key thing? They were seen. Understood. Discussed.
That’s what good testing does.
💡 What I learned
This wasn’t about me being “the only QA.”
This was about what happens when you test socially.
Testing is not a service.
It’s not a script.
It’s not a gate.
It’s a conversation.
A skilled tester doesn't wait for instructions.
They ask better questions.
They notice things others miss.
They think like a user, but talk like a teammate.
Testing is a team sport.
And the real magic happens not when testers follow a script, but when they work in sync with others, learning and thinking together.
🧠 A simple analogy I use:
If A and B each work hard, we get:
A² + B²
But if A and B collaborate, we get:
(A + B)² = A² + B² + 2AB
That 2AB? That’s the human factor. The insight. The tacit knowledge.
It’s what emerges when people test together, not just test alone.
Final thought
If you’re the only tester, don’t try to “do everything.”
Instead, bring everyone into the act of testing.
Ask questions. Share discoveries. Make invisible things visible.
You don’t need to be a gatekeeper.
Just be a skilled investigator in a room full of builders.
If you found this helpful, stay connected with Life of QA for more real-world testing experiences, tips, and lessons from the journey!