The Future of Test Engineering: AI + Expertise

When CAD (computer-aided design) software emerged, many drafting engineers thought there would be less demand for their profession. However, some clever engineers leveraged this new technology to create innovations that wouldn’t have been possible without CAD software. They performed at a higher level and produced more sophisticated outputs. Additionally, productivity increased, quality improved, and expectations rose across the field.??

Today, AI presents a similar opportunity in the test lab where productivity improvements will allow engineers to focus on higher-value work. But this transformation won’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen by itself. Despite all the hype around new tools, successful AI adoption heavily relies on people.?

Always Expert-Led?

Regardless of how intelligent and intuitive AI becomes, test engineers with domain expertise and real-world experience will remain essential to ensure quality and performance. Keeping humans in the loop is critical to capture nuances and prevent issues such as overfitting, hallucinations, and bias, where human instincts and reasoning are indispensable.?

Opportunities to Elevate Engineering Expertise?

As test engineers use AI to take over tactical tasks, they will have the opportunity to shift their time to more advanced problem-solving, strategic analysis, and keeping pace with emerging technologies.??

• Use of AI Tools: Just as drafters mastered CAD software, test engineers must become proficient in various AI solutions. Understanding AI's capabilities will be essential to maximizing its potential functionality while also recognizing its limitations and risks.?
• Problem-Solving: With AI test agents performing repetitive tasks or writing test scripts, test engineers’ responsibilities will shift to higher-value work, like refining tests, advanced troubleshooting, and developing more intricate test scenarios.?
• Strategic Analysis: AI can deliver advanced insights, digesting mountains of data from various sources and draw inferences faster than humanly possible. Accessibility to this powerful intelligence provides test engineers with better system-level visibility and root cause analysis, enabling significant improvements in quality and performance.?
• Preparing for Emerging Technologies: New tech presents novel and complex testing challenges. For example, testing AI-embedded devices and understanding the implications of 6G wireless technology present challenges that most of today’s test engineers haven’t faced. AI productivity improvements will free up test engineering resources to research new testing methodologies required to handle the future of testing.??

Test engineers who combine their existing domain expertise with AI tools will accelerate their careers by achieving more in less time than their peers.?

Enabling the Transformation?

Building a bridge that fosters smooth and effective AI adoption while nurturing career growth will be pivotal. Both test engineers and leadership have roles to play in enabling the transformation.???

Leadership?

Organizations have a responsibility to lay the groundwork for success by investing in the right tools, demystifying AI, and aligning resources with the strategy.?

• Invest in Tools: Investing in the right AI-powered tools mitigates the need for specialized data scientists. Well-designed intelligent test solutions should be intuitive and scale with the organization.?
• Demystify AI: Leadership must be transparent about the company’s AI strategy to build employee confidence and encourage upskilling. Train teams on AI’s capabilities and limitations so they can envision the evolution of their roles.?
• Talent Alignment and Upskilling: Align team members' strengths with the AI strategy while supporting their career growth. Some will excel in problem-solving, and others will gravitate toward novel uses of emerging technologies. Proactively upskilling based on individual talents not only advances the AI strategy but also shows commitment to career development.?

?Engineers?

At the same time, test engineers can shape their careers and take an active role in defining the future of the test lab through continuous learning, mastering tools, and building community.???

• Embrace Lifelong Learning: Test engineers should take advantage of every opportunity to learn about evolving technology trends. To stay ahead of the curve, they can seek out resources, join discussion groups, and enroll in online courses.??
• Master AI Tools: Test engineers who infuse domain expertise into their mastery of AI tools will raise the bar in test engineering with significant strides in productivity, quality, and performance.?
• ?Build an AI Community: Test engineers can foster collaboration among colleagues by sharing use cases, encouraging experimentation, and promoting best practices through “lunch and learn” groups or an AI center of excellence.?

Are You Ready??

AI won’t be transformative by itself. People will make AI transformative. Organizations with empowered and engaged employees will achieve results more quickly and be more agile for emerging technologies.