Testing: What It’s Really Good For (Beyond Just Catching Bugs)

Write heaps of tests but still not sure you’re testing the right things? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, staff engineer Rahul Ballal joins the crew to dig into what testing is actually for, how it’s evolved from C++ and waterfall days to modern CI/CD, and why your users should never suffer because of your bugs. From testing pyramids, diamonds and honeycombs to TDD, BDD, black‑box, visual regression and property‑based testing, they unpack how to pick the right tests for your context, focus on the core business logic, and keep your feedback loops fast — whether you’re shipping web apps, data platforms or safety‑critical systems. In this episode, we explore: • How testing has changed from armies of manual QA to automation, feature flags, synthetic checks and “testing in production” • When to lean on unit, integration, end‑to‑end and black‑box tests – and how to aim them at the most important behaviour in your system • How TDD and BDD really work in practice, and why fast feedback plus confidence to change code are the real superpowers of a great test suite If you’re a software engineer, tester or tech lead trying to balance speed, safety and sanity in your testing strategy, this episode is for you. 🔔 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode