QA Isn’t Dead - But It Could Be If We Quit the Fight

The truth is obvious to anyone in QA right now: this is the toughest job market we’ve seen in decades.

Roles are scarce. Requisitions vanish mid-process. Recruiters ghost. Entire teams are laid off under the banner of “AI efficiency.” And when jobs do appear, they attract hundreds - sometimes thousands - of applicants.

No one needs me to sugarcoat it. You already feel the sting.
But here’s what I will say: QA isn’t dead. The fight is still alive. And right now, your job is not to conquer the world; it’s to survive long enough to regroup and fight again.

That might not sound heroic, but survival is the most strategic move you can make in this kind of market.

The Market Forces You’re Up Against

Before we talk about survival, let’s name the battlefield.

• Automation-first cultures: Many companies believe that a leaner QA team plus more automation equals quality. This narrows opportunities for manual testers, even though exploratory and risk-based testing remain irreplaceable.
• AI hype: The headlines scream that “AI will replace testers.” In reality, AI is a tool; but executives are using it as a reason to trim headcount.
• Merged roles: Increasingly, companies expect developers to “own quality” in addition to writing features, shrinking the visible demand for QA specialists.
• Candidate saturation: Every open role is flooded with talent. Strong engineers, leads, and even directors are competing for mid-level roles just to stay employed.

You are not imagining it. The market really is this brutal. And when you add ghosting, rejection without feedback, and endless waiting into the mix; it’s no wonder so many QA professionals are questioning whether to hang it up.

The Personal Battlefield

Beyond the macro trends are the personal battles you face daily:

• You send out twenty resumes and hear nothing.
• You make it to final rounds and get ghosted.
• You’re told you’re “overqualified” for a role you’d crush.
• You watch peers step away from the field entirely.

That’s not just professional rejection. It’s psychological warfare.
Every unanswered application chips away at your sense of worth. Every week without income raises the stakes. Every silence makes you wonder: Am I still relevant? Do I still belong here?

And yet, let me tell you something I’ve learned sitting in this chair as a Director: your relevance is not determined by the whims of a chaotic market. Your relevance is determined by whether you keep showing up.

Survival as Strategy

In the military, survival is not weakness. Sometimes the smartest move a unit can make is to retreat, regroup, and conserve strength for the next strike.

QA professionals today face the same calculus. You don’t need to win every battle right now. You need to stay alive long enough to be in position when the tide turns.

Because the tide will turn. Economic cycles always do. Companies cut too deep, then scramble to hire back. Executives realize automation without human oversight creates brittle systems. The pendulum swings back.

When that happens, the ones who are visible, prepared, and sharpened are the ones who get pulled back into the fight.

What Survival Looks Like

Survival is not passive. It is active, disciplined, and deliberate. Here’s what it looks like in practice:

1. Maintain a Minimum Pulse of Applications

Even when you’re burned out, keep sending a small, steady stream of applications. One or two per week is enough to keep you in motion without draining your sanity. This is about consistency, not volume.

2. Build One Portfolio Artifact Per Month

Write a blog post. Publish a test strategy on GitHub. Share a case study on LinkedIn. Do something that leaves a trail of evidence that you are still in the game. Hiring managers Google candidates. Give them something to find.

3. Stay Visible

You don’t have to be a LinkedIn influencer. But commenting once a day, sharing one article a week, or even just engaging with peers shows you’re present. Silence is interpreted as absence. Presence, even in small doses, signals relevance.

4. Reframe Downtime as Training

If you’re underemployed, treat it as sponsored time to up-skill. Learn Playwright. Pick up API contract testing. Familiarize yourself with AWS basics. You don’t need to master everything; but when you walk into an interview and say, “I used my downtime to sharpen X,” you stand out.

5. Lean on Community

Isolation is poison. QA is often an under-appreciated discipline, and being cut off from peers amplifies the sense of invisibility. Join Slack groups, attend virtual meetups, or pair with a friend to keep each other accountable. Survival is easier when you’re not alone.

From My Desk as a Director

Let me give you the view from the other side of the table.

I see two kinds of QA professionals right now:

1. Those waiting to be saved. They’re frozen by the market, hoping a recruiter or company will swoop in.
2. Those preparing to save themselves. They keep their skills sharp, maintain a visible presence, and treat survival as a discipline.

Guess which group I call back when a role opens.

It’s not about being the “best tester in the world.” It’s about being the one who didn’t disappear when things got hard.

The Directive

So here is the directive, plain and simple:

• Do not quit the fight.
• Do not let silence erase you.
• Do not mistake survival for weakness.

If you are out of work, your job right now is to stay visible, stay sharp, and stay alive in this profession until the tides shift. That is victory enough for this season.

Because QA isn’t dead. And if you refuse to quit, neither are you.

A Call to Arms

There’s a quote worth remembering: “The worst mistake in war is to think survival isn’t victory.”

For QA as an industry, survival is victory. Each quarter we endure, each team that refuses to be erased, each new skill our community adopts; these are the weapons that keep the discipline alive.

QA is not dead.
But if our industry stops showing up, if too many of us abandon the fight, it could be.

So we hold the line.
We sharpen our tools.
We stay visible and we fight.

Because when the market swings back - and it always does - QA will not just return. It will return stronger, sharper, and more essential than ever.

Do not give up on this profession. The future of quality depends on it.