Hello, I’m Steven.
I’m Director of Technology at CDS, based in Leeds. I’ve spent my career helping teams build software that matters — first as a tester, now leading technology and engineering across a consultancy. I write about technology leadership, engineering strategy, delivery, and helping people grow their careers.
This site also holds the archive of my earlier writing on software testing and agile delivery, published between 2017 and 2021 under the name Testers find a way. More about me
Writing
- Recruiting test consultants
I’ve been recruiting testers for over a decade there for various companies performing various roles and I feel like I’ve become better at it over time. There are many different aspects of a person and their history that come in to play when interviewing applicants.
- Data testing areas of focus
I’ve just recently come off working with a client in the big data space, where we were looking to verify over 9 billions records of data. This was a big undertaking so we had to narrow down the areas of the data that we looked at for verification. It’s worth saying that I wouldn’t usually …
- Musings from a remote pairer
Over the past couple of months I’ve been double a lot of remote pairing for obvious reasons (if you are reading this in the future google “COVID-19”..). I feel like I’ve learnt a lot along the way regarding how to get the most out of remote pairing sessions, both individually and for the pair or …
- Why I don’t value test certification
Certification for testers seems to have been a hot topic for a while and many testers seem unsure whether it’s the right thing to do for their career or not. If you want to work in the USA or India as a software tester then you will almost certainly need an ISTQB qualification. In that …
- The problem with test coverage
“Test coverage is useless” Or… “Test coverage is everything” Two opposing extremes which I’ve heard recently and many times through my career. As with most things, I think the truth lies somewhere in between.