In today’s fast-changing digital world, software testing has become a crucial part of the software development life cycle (SDLC), in which the product’s quality, functionality, and performance are assured. Over the years, there have been various software testers who have made substantial contributions to the trends in the software industry through their expertise, online presence and advocacy for best practices. 

This blog will quickly introduce you to the current top 10 software testing influencers, so you can get inspirational insights and industry-related tips to enhance your daily testing journey. 
 

This list is in random order. 

Top 10 Software Testing Influencers

1. David Burns

@AutomatedTester | LinkedIn | Blog

Currently the chairperson of the W3C Browser Testing and Tools Working Group, David Burns is an expert in the software testing industry, particularly web testing and automated testing, with a solid background as a programmer, product manager, and tech leader in various projects in open-source testing tools and frameworks in BrowserStack, Mozilla, etc. 

One of his most noticeable achievements is his involvement as a core member in the Selenium Open Source Project, which is now a widely-used framework for automating web browsers. 

What’s more, utilizing his expertise, he has been continuously contributing to the community as an active speaker in many workshops, conferences and also as an author by publishing books about Selenium like the Selenium 1.0 Testing Tools: Beginners Guide and the Selenium 2 Testing Tools: Beginners Guide. 

2. Angie Jones

@techgirl1908 | LinkedIn | Blog

With approximately 113K followers on Twitter and 30K followers on LinkedIn,  Angie Jones is widely known as the Global Vice President of Developer Relations at TBD, an open-source platform focusing on decentralized technologies. 
 

Having an extensive knowledge of automation testing techniques and strategies, she is an international conference speaker and an award-winning teacher who provides multiple free learning resources and courses on her website. 
 

In the software industry, Angie gains great respect and reputation for her innovative and out-of-the-box mindset that has helped her earn an incredible number of patented inventions (25) in diverse fields, including software development processes, the metaverse, collaborative software, and so on. 

3. Daniel Knott

@dnlkntt | LinkedIn | Blog | Youtube 

Daniel Knott is a software testing expert with over 15 years of experience in companies like IBM, Accenture, XING, and currently MaibornWolff, which are from many different industries. He has comprehensive knowledge of both manual and automated testing in multiple areas, including mobile, web, and desktop applications, etc.
 

Having spoken at some of the largest testers’ conferences such as Agile Testing Days, Daniel proactively engages with the testers’ community by sharing his profound expertise not only about testing methodologies but also about project management and team leadership. As a blogger, YouTuber, and most notably the author of the book “Hands-On Mobile App Testing”, he has contributed extensively to the software testing industry with valuable insights in the last 10 years. 
 

Check out one of his most recent videos about Katalon - A seamless automation testing tool. 

4. Alan Richardson

@eviltester | LinkedIn | Blog 

Alan Richardson, with his expertise in Agile testing and development, works as an independent consultant, programmer, and test manager on a variety of projects with big clients like Spotify, Asos, and so on. 
 

Thanks to his nearly 25-year experience in the industry with different industries ranging from media, gaming to banking, he has been significantly contributing to the testing industry by creating around ten training courses and six books on software testing topics, such as Automating and Testing a REST API book, Dear Evil Tester book, etc. 
 

With over 10K followers on LinkedIn, Alan has been consistently sharing valuable insights and considerably affecting many other testers in the community. 

5. Kristel Kruustuk

@kristelkruustuk | LinkedIn | Blog

Kristel Kruustuk is the co-founder and board director of Testlio, a software testing platform that has gained a considerable reputation with global clients like Amazon, Fox, Microsoft, American Express, and so on. 
 

Widely recognized for her dedication and passion for innovation in quality assurance, she has continuously shared her unique insights through numerous interviews and important industry conferences, one of which was the Nordic Business Forum in 2022 with around 7K participants.  
 

As an inspiring female leader in the software industry, Kristel has also become an investor in many startup companies founded by women, remarkably extending her influence in promoting female leadership and diversity in the software ecosystem.

6. Joe Colantonio

@joecolantonio | LinkedIn | Youtube 

Joe Colantonio is the founder of TestGuild, which is a podcast, blog, and online conference solution that offers accessible education on software engineering and automation testing to help companies succeed in automating their software testing process.
 

Having roughly 20 years of hands-on experience in developing and conducting multiple automation and performance testing projects, he is a well-known influencer in the testers’ community with over 200K subscribers on his personal Youtube channel and many other platforms, sharing thorough knowledge and helpful tips about automation testing.
 

Recently, he also created a very interesting video talking about the role of AI in the software testing industry, which has been such a hot topic in the last few months. Check it out here. 

7. Jonathon Wright 

@Jonathon_Wright | LinkedIn 

Jonathon Wright is a famous TEDx speaker and consultant in the software industry with more than 25 years of commercial experience in many globally well-known companies like Keysight, Hitachi, Deutsche Bank, etc. 
 

Besides speaking at multiple international conferences, he has also created lots of online training courses and workshops, as well as numerous books and articles, showing his expertise in test automation, continuous integration, and DevOps practices. 
 

Currently the CTO of Eggplant, an AI-powered software testing firm, he is known as a distinguished technology expert for his outstanding ability to bridge the gap between theoretical and practical implementations in software testing. 

8. Jonathan Lipps 

@jlipps | LinkedIn | Blog

Jonathan Lipps is an influential expert in web development, with expertise ranging from front-end, back-end to system administration. He has been the founder of multiple software companies and worked as a director at Sauce Labs and Headspin. Among the various projects that Jonathan has led, the most notable is Appium, an open-source automation framework for mobile applications that is now widely popular in the software testing industry and broadly utilized for testing mobile apps.
 

With this key contribution to efficient mobile app testing for QA professionals and developers, Jonathan has been invited to many global conferences, where he presents his personal views on automated web and mobile application testing.

9. Alan Page   

@alanpage | LinkedIn | Blog

Alan Page, who has more than 10K followers on both his Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, is an industry influencer with 25 years of experience in software development and testing. 
 

Specializing in Agile development, CI/CD strategy, and developer infrastructure, Alan has published many profound books, including “How We Test Software at Microsoft”, “The A Word”, and so on. 
 

As a key member of Microsoft for almost 22 years with many crucial products like Windows and Xbox, he likes sharing his key insights and helpful learnings across his social media, blog, and conferences, considerably contributing to the advancement of the software testers’ community. 
 

10. Dominik Dary  

@dominikdary | LinkedIn | Blog

Having worked at worldwide famous companies in technology like Salesforce and Adobe, Dominik Dary is an acknowledged expert in test automation and quality engineering, especially for cloud-based systems. He has a special passion for tackling complex issues that combine both human and technical factors to satisfy customer needs with the highest quality products. 
 

Dominik has attended many notable conferences around the world to share his expertise in testing strategies, including the Test Automation Meetup 2017 in Vienna. Expanding his impact in the testing community, he even published multiple research articles about test automation, such as functional GUI testing with the FEST framework, mobile test automation with Selendroid, etc. 
 

Contributions and Impact to software testing industry

Software testing influencers have had a substantial influence on the industry, introducing many common trends like automation testing, Agile methodologies, and so on. Indeed, their valuable insights have created a crucial change in software testing best practices and encouraged QA teams to quickly adopt different updated strategies for more reliable and higher quality software products. 
 

Conclusion

Software testing and development is a fast-paced industry that requires constant innovation to catch up with customers' needs. To succeed in this dynamic environment, it is now crucial to actively engage with the above influencers, who have invaluable insights and expertise, in order to stay up to date with the latest market trends.