🚨 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬

In many companies, I keep seeing the same good intentions that turn into counterproductive testing practices. Some come directly from job descriptions, others from how teams organize development.
Let’s talk about a few of them 👇

🧩 𝐋𝐞𝐭’𝐬 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐩𝐩
Sounds good. Developers will see and even run the tests, right?
In reality:
– Most devs ignore the test suite unless forced.
– Changes in test infra cause merge conflicts or CI noise.
– The repo becomes messier and harder to manage.

🚀 𝐋𝐞𝐭’𝐬 𝐫𝐮𝐧 𝐔𝐈/𝐀𝐏𝐈 𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐈
Sure, let’s burn the world 🔥
If tests fail due to known unstable features or in-development code - what’s the point?
𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴, 𝘊𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘶𝘯 𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘴 - but I already see how dev forgot to select this and the build failed, and need to run again.

🧑‍💻 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬
Sometimes yes. But often:
– Devs have a product to build, not test infra to babysit.
– Good test design is a skill that needs time and practice.
– This can slow feature delivery and hurt test coverage quality.

🔧 𝐋𝐞𝐭’𝐬 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞
Sure, let’s test a moving target.
Tests become outdated immediately, wasting hours and making test maintenance a nightmare.

💬 𝐎𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 '𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜' 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐈’𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐧:

“Let’s have QA write test cases after release based on what’s already in prod.”
“Why use mocks? Just run everything against real services.”
“We’ll do E2E tests only — it covers everything!” (Hint: no, it doesn’t.)
“We don’t need flaky test handling — just fix the tests.” (Have fun debugging async race conditions.)
“Let’s auto-generate tests with AI — no need for logic anymore!” (until it tests the wrong thing... fast.)

✅ The key takeaway:
Automation is a tool, not a silver bullet. Use it where it brings clarity, stability, and speed. Otherwise, you’re just automating confusion.