Month: May 2025

I didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming a software tester.

For the better part of a decade, I served as a full-time pastor—preaching, leading worship, sitting at hospital bedsides, officiating funerals, and trying to remind people (and myself) that grace was real and present. I loved much of that work. But ministry, at least in the form I was practicing it, took a toll on me. Over time, I found myself longing for something else—something quieter, something more analytical, something that could still serve people but in a different way.

What I found was testing.

The bridge between these two worlds came in the form of a person: Mike Goempel. Mike was the Director of Software Testing at Fusion Alliance (now New Era Technology) and, more importantly, a friend of my mother-in-law through the Indianapolis Great Banquet community. Our connection started casually—conversations at community gatherings and meals—but at some point Mike began telling me about his work. He spoke of testing not just as a job but as a discipline, a tradition even.

He introduced me to the names that would shape my new world: Jerry Weinberg, Cem Kaner, Michael Bolton, and others who had been thinking deeply about what software testing is, what it can be, and how it intersects with human judgment, systems thinking, and exploration. Mike lit a fire in me that I hadn’t felt in a long time—curiosity. Here was a field where asking good questions, seeing connections others missed, and caring about the experience of end users actually mattered. I was hooked.

Mike didn’t just open the door conceptually. He also gave me a shot professionally. He recommended me for a consulting role at Fusion Alliance—a move I still marvel at. I had no CS degree. No GitHub profile. But I had a brain that liked to make sense of systems and a heart that wanted to serve well.

One of my first clients was Diagnotes, a healthcare communication platform. It was there that I really cut my teeth—learning the rhythms of daily testing work, moving beyond documentation into discovery, and slowly building out automation systems that made sense for the product and the people building it. Jamie, the CTO, and Andrew Kurtz, the lead architect, created a space where I was free to learn and contribute without fear. I owe a lot to those early days of wide-open learning.

In 2022, Diagnotes was acquired by Backline, a subsidiary of DrFirst. I stayed on, this time as part of a dedicated testing team. We built a referral and scheduling system and a complex workflow manager—products that required both discipline and creativity. There, I deepened my appreciation for collaborative testing and cross-functional thinking. I started strategizing with multiple testers, designing coverage strategies, and integrating automation with our development pipelines. It was the first time I really felt like a senior member of a team.

Eventually, as Backline hit the common growing pains of any scaling company, I decided to explore what was next. That search led me to Jump Platforms, a startup working to disrupt the live event ticketing space. Here, I’ve been immersed in lower-level test frameworks, refining my skills in native mobile testing, and building out robust end-to-end automation systems. The complexity is real, and so is the energy. It’s a different kind of ministry—one that asks me to pay close attention, build trust with engineers, and advocate for users I’ll never meet.

I sometimes joke that I went from preaching sermons to writing test cases, from sacraments to CI pipelines. But underneath the change in vocabulary, the calling isn’t so different. In both vocations, I’ve been drawn to the invisible work—making meaning, making things better, connecting people with something reliable and true.

This blog, Testing Tester, is a place where I hope to reflect on that journey and share what I’m learning along the way: not just tips and tools, but the human side of quality—what it means to care about your work, your team, and the systems we’re all part of.

Whether you’re new to testing or 20 years deep, I’m glad you’re here.

—

Beau Brown

Testing in the real world: messy, human, worth it.

Testing in the real world: messy, human, worth it.

When I first started testing, I needed a placeholder name for a test user. I typed in “Testing Tester.” It made me smile—and it stuck.

Now, years later, it feels like the right name for this blog. Because testing doesn’t just apply to the product. It tests the tester, too.

This isn’t a blog about perfection. It’s not a place for bragging about frameworks or pretending we always know what we’re doing. It’s a place for honest reflections—for the messy, human side of quality work.

Testing has a way of shaping you. It asks for patience. For careful attention. For the courage to raise your hand and say, “This isn’t quite right.” The longer I do this work, the more I realize that testing is more than finding bugs. It’s a discipline of seeing clearly, of noticing what others miss, of holding both speed and care in tension.

Here, I’ll be writing about:

• What I’m learning on the job
• Things that break and why they matter
• The tension between human judgment and automated checks
• Life as a tester in a world obsessed with shipping fast
• The philosophy and practice of good work

I don’t have all the answers. But I do have questions—and a deep respect for this craft. If you’ve ever felt like quality work is invisible, or like you’re quietly holding a product together with curiosity and duct tape, you’re not alone.

Welcome to Testing Tester. Let’s see what we find.

— Beau