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The “organic” evolution of a software tester should follow the organic evolution of an organization’s QA maturity.
A tester can be conveniently imagined as an organism existing within a larger ecosystem (in our case, the organization). An organism does not exist in isolation. Rather, it responds to, adapts to, and evolves along with the environment in which it finds itself.
Similarly, if a QA system matures, with increasingly high levels of automation and integration, the tester must also “mature” accordingly. They must go from being a manual, ad-hoc tester, to an automation tester, to a hybrid tester with a diverse set of skills.
From low QA maturity to high QA maturity
At organizations with low QA maturity, testing is usually seen as a cost center rather than a value-generating activity. In the early days, testers were only involved at the very end of the development cycle.
They have to test every manually in an incredibly tight time frame. As a result, if a bug is found, the devs don’t have enough time to troubleshoot, and chaos inevitably ensues.
Thankfully, Agile arrives. Shift-left testing was invented. Automation testing tools come into play. Manual testers were saved.
But are they actually saved?
Let’s take a look at the QA maturity curve. We recently interviewed 1,400 QA professionals in the State of Software Quality Report 2025 and found that a staggering 26% of them are still operating in the initial area of QA maturity. In these organizations, they have an informal or unstructured testing process, with minimal automation.
24% have more established but still inconsistent processes with basic automation.
25% have more defined processes with moderate automation. 14% of them are in the measured stage with proper result tracking and extensive test automation.
Only 11% reach the maturity level of optimized, where they have continuous improvement deeply embedded into the processes while leveraging cutting-edge automation tools.
And that is happening even within large companies.
We filtered the data, leaving only the big companies. Surprisingly, only 34% of companies with > 1,000 employees have reached advanced maturity.
It is evident that there is still a lot of untapped potential to further improve efficiency in the QA process.
Returning to the organism analogy, if the tester (the organism) can evolve to a certain level, it can start to influence, modify, and shape the environment it is in.
This is when the hybrid tester comes onto stage.
From manual testers to hybrid testers
Hybrid testing is more than just a methodology. It’s a shift in how testing is managed in an AI-driven world. Testers now use AI-powered tools to optimize test creation, execution, and maintenance while applying human judgment to validate AI-generated tests.
Those who do that are called hybrid testers. They are:
- Adaptable
- Proactive learners
- Strategic thinkers
Hybrid testers do get the best of both worlds. Knowing both sides of testing is their competitive edge.
Testing has been, and will always be, a creative art. It takes a certain kind of person to start an application and interact with it in unimaginable ways to find unimaginable bugs. It also takes effort to equip oneself with the technical and domain knowledge to write automation scripts that can speed up the process.
When combining the unique and sometimes cynical outlook of an exploratory tester with the technical know-how of an automation tester, all supported by the generative powers of LLMs, we have a unique breed of testers that can positively the QA maturity levels of the organization.
How hybrid testers can be a catalyst of QA maturity
- Hybrid testers bring a higher level of expertise to the table. Their automation expertise allows them to write automation scripts that integrate seamlessly with CI/CD pipeline to check code quality faster.
- Hybrid testers’ automation capabilities encourage TDD and BDD to ensure code is testable from the start. This creates stronger tester-dev relationships as well as stakeholder relationships, which ultimately translates into better transparency across the entire organization.
- The biggest ROI of automation testing is to be found in regression testing. Google did the same thing. In the early days, manually testing the increasingly complex features delayed release cycles. As Google switched to automated regression testing, their QA activities are done so much faster, which speeds up growth.
- At the same time, the hybrid tester’s exploratory testing skills allow them to always check for the more elusive and “hidden” bugs lurking within the system that can’t be found by automation testing. This ensures high code coverage.
How to build a team of hybrid testers
If you are a QA leader looking to transition your team into hybrid testers, here’s a roadmap:
- Identify skill gaps: Assess your team’s current strengths in manual and automation testing. Identify their current skill level and their expected skill level to grow into.
- Provide hands-on training: Offer them structured learning paths in automation tools (Selenium, Katalon, Cypress) and testing frameworks (TDD, BDD). Encourage them to practice with real-world projects at small scale to hone their skills.
- Encourage a shift-left mindset: Get testers involved earlier in the development cycle. Promote collaboration with developers to ensure testability is built into the code.
- Leverage AI & LLMs: Introduce testers to AI-powered tools that assist in test case generation, log analysis, and test optimization to improve efficiency.
More insights await in the State of Software Quality Report 2025
We interviewed 1,400 QA professionals around the world to arrive at fascinating insights about the industry. This article was written after that survey.
What else you can find in the report:
- The rise of hybrid testers and the skillset required of one
- Job satisfaction of testers
- The rise of AI in testing
- Challenges in scaling QA practices in an organization and how to overcome
- Speed vs. quality in software development
- QA leadership
- Strategic drivers in modern QA
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