Testing & technical skills mutually exclusive?

Are testing skills and technical skills mutually exclusive?

IMHO:

1. let me start from: being technical does NOT mean being an automation engineer

2. Technical skills would be: Understanding of how your product’s tech stack works, ability to understand the product’s control flow and code base.

3. Having testing skills does not mean you cannot have technical skills or vice versa

I think the problem stems from when we see technical skills and exploratory testing on two opposite sides

To me they are both very related and compliment each other, one SHOULD fuel the other.. therefore:

1. One cannot test a product very well UNLESS they understand the tech stack

2. One cannot develop a great product UNLESS they understand looking at the product from different perspectives..

This argument of testing vs development skills is not helping anyone – ALL ENGINEERS ON THE TEAM SHOULD KNOW BOTH

Yes some would be better at on thing, and might play a bigger role there, but should have the capability of doing both.

That’s why the very first thing I talk about in #RedefiningSoftwareQuality is #TechnologicalExcellence