Testers often look at automation work as the next career step after manual testing. Automation work has more visibility at the project level, and people who do this work usually also tend to have a little more social status. But Justin Rohrman makes a case for why testers shouldn't be the ones doing automation work.

With increasingly complex and sophisticated technologies being used in testing, quality has to become a smart activity. A smart QA strategy is both about building smart models and making smart choices. We must keep in mind the balance between manual and automated solutions and which are needed to accomplish our goals.

Many people confuse continuous testing with test automation. That makes sense, because you cannot do continuous testing without automated tests. But it is much more. Continuous testing has a higher-level maturity that could require a totally different way of working—but it also gives a faster path to production.