Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2025. Read them in this 17th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Lauren Harold is the COO at Rainforest QA
For startups and teams of all sizes, E2E
testing is both critical to maintaining product quality, and one of the most
painful processes in CI/CD. Slowdowns in the QA process can hinder the ability
for companies to ship fast and stay competitive. Rainforest QA's The State of
Software Test Automation in the Age of AI report revealed how new tools and
technologies like genAI and no-code are helping teams of all sizes improve
operations as teams and product complexity scale. Here are predictions for how
the evolution of QA will shape devops in the next year:
QA as we
know it is over. The role of QA is changing as no-code and
genAI tools grow in popularity. With more intuitive tooling, testing suites
will more and more be managed by hybrid testing teams of product and
developers, rather than dedicated specialists. Already around 80% of teams keep
developers involved in managing their automated test suites. This is largely
testament to how many developers continue to prioritize code quality regardless
of where they sit in the org; new technologies will accelerate this trend. The
role of the QA engineer will evolve into more of a strategy architect who
focuses on coverage and metrics, rather than hands-on maintenance.
AI still
won't fulfill its promise. Everyone is enthusiastic about
implementing genAI into their testing workflows - 81% of teams already do. But,
most teams using open-source testing frameworks still aren't seeing the clear
productivity gains they hoped for, spending more time on test maintenance than
those not using AI. There's no reason to step back from AI, but we need to
manage expectations effectively and remain patient while the technology matures
and implementations evolve. The AI revolution for testing in open source may
indeed come, but it's not happening in 2025.
Open-source
testing will peak: Teams relying on open source software
spend more time creating and maintaining tests, and struggle to keep their test
suites up to date. As I mentioned above, testing impacts nearly everyone - and
so do the bottlenecks. The data do
show that newer tooling like no-code can solve these painpoints, with no more
digging around in test code.
42% of mid-sized teams (11-30 developers)
using open-source spend more than 20 hours weekly on test creation and
maintenance, compared to just 10% of teams using no-code tools. 75% of large
teams (>50 developers) using open-source spend more than 20 hours weekly,
versus 50% of no-code teams.
For a startup trying to stay ahead, these
are hours and effort that simply can't be wasted. With startups struggling to
maintain velocity using open source testing frameworks, even with the rise in
genAI, we'll see a significant migration to integrated testing platforms that
combine no-code simplicity with AI assistance.
Testing
budgets will go down - but that's not a bad thing. The
migration away from open source to more intuitive, automated no-code and genAI
tools will shift how engineering leaders think about allocating resources.
In-house QA can quickly get costly (salaries for experienced QA engineers start
around 100K in the US). Alternatives like outsourcing may seem appealing, but
are rife with service-quality and communication issues. They'll hire fewer QA
engineers, and free up budget to finance other headcount that's more critical
to helping their company stay competitive, like full stack, front-end, and
security.
As we move into 2025, there's no doubt
the rise of no-code tools and maturing AI capabilities will fundamentally
reshape how teams approach testing. The focus will shift from building large
teams that maintain complex test suites to strategic testing coverage. In turn,
teams will be able to ship faster and maintain the quality they strive for. For
teams of all sizes, the E2E testing evolution promises to remove one of the
most persistent bottlenecks in modern software development.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lauren Harold is the COO at
Rainforest QA, the AI-accelerated, no-code platform for automated end-to-end
testing. In her role, Lauren oversees all day to day operations, tapping into
her deep expertise in building and scaling customer-oriented service organizations.
Before joining Rainforest, Lauren held leadership positions at iContact,
focused on driving client retention and satisfaction. Lauren is also a member
of The Alliance of Women in Tech Leadership. Lauren holds a Bachelor's degree
in Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied Communication from the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.