Software testing isn’t dying—it’s evolving. In many industries outside of Finance, Healthcare, or Defense, there’s a growing tolerance for minor bug escapes. Not because quality is being ignored, but because modern engineering practices are mitigating risk more effectively than ever.

With the rise of observability, bugs can often be detected and resolved before users even notice. Practices like shift-left testing, dogfooding, feature flags with gradual rollouts, and strong internal metrics like DORA and Operational Excellence (OpEx) have transformed how we think about quality.

This shift has opened up new opportunities for Software Development Engineers in Test (SDETs). Rather than being viewed as the gatekeepers of testing, SDETs are becoming enablers of engineering velocity and confidence.

So what should SDETs focus on now?

1. Own Quality as a Holistic Practice

Modern software quality goes beyond just functional correctness. SDETs should expand their focus to include:

  • Performance and scalability: Work closely with DevOps to ensure systems can handle real-world load.
  • Security: Contribute to secure development practices with static and dynamic analysis.
  • Resilience: Help teams design for failure with chaos engineering and fault injection.
  • Accessibility: Automate accessibility checks and advocate for inclusive design.

Being a quality engineer means thinking about the system as a whole.

2. Embrace Observability and Monitoring

As more defects are identified in production, SDETs need to be comfortable with telemetry. That means:

  • Understanding logs, traces, and metrics with tools like Grafana, Prometheus, and Datadog.
  • Designing test strategies that include production feedback loops.
  • Collaborating with SREs to define alert thresholds and error budgets.

Testing doesn’t stop at release. Observability ensures we continue learning.

3. Champion Testability and Engineering Excellence

Testability starts with architecture. SDETs should advocate for:

  • Modular, testable code with clear interfaces.
  • Dependency injection, mocking, and contract testing.
  • Involvement in early design reviews to spot risks before they become problems.

Help teams build software that is easier to test, debug, and maintain.

4. Build Tools, Not Just Tests

SDETs should invest in building infrastructure that helps the entire team test better:

  • Test frameworks, flake detection, and parallel execution tooling.
  • Dashboards, CI/CD integrations, and test health bots.
  • Developer-focused utilities that reduce friction and increase test speed.

If testing is slow or painful, make it better. Automation is your superpower.

5. Drive a Culture of Quality

Testing isn’t a phase—it’s a mindset. SDETs should lead by example:

  • Run quality workshops and champion engineering best practices.
  • Help implement canary releases and promote feature flag hygiene.
  • Lead postmortems with a focus on what can be learned and improved.

Create a shared responsibility model for quality across the organization.

6. Quantify and Communicate Impact

Today’s organizations are data-driven. SDETs should:

  • Track key quality metrics like time to detect, time to remediate, and defect rates.
  • Align testing efforts with business goals, like reducing incident frequency or increasing release velocity.
  • Partner with leadership to highlight how quality engineering accelerates delivery.

Visibility builds trust and reinforces the value of your work.

Final Thoughts

SDETs are no longer just writing tests—they are building confidence. They’re making quality scalable, observable, and embedded in the culture of software development.

As software delivery continues to evolve, SDETs have the opportunity to lead the change—not just adapt to it.

The future of testing is not about doing less. It’s about doing it smarter, earlier, and together.