Shift Left, Not Off a Cliff: Making Early Testing Actually Work

“Shift left” has become a mantra in modern software delivery—but in practice, it’s often just a fancy way of saying “give developers more testing responsibilities with less support.” The result? Bloated pipelines, brittle tests, frustrated engineers, and bugs that still sneak through.

In this talk, we’ll unpack why early testing initiatives so often fail to deliver real value, and what it actually takes to make them work at scale. We’ll explore the pitfalls of prematurely complex test suites, the myth of perfect unit test coverage, and the hidden costs of bad feedback loops. More importantly, we’ll show how to build a pragmatic, developer-friendly testing strategy that shifts quality left without falling off a cliff.

Expect practical tips on test pyramid design, test impact analysis, developer tooling, and how to align QA, dev, and platform teams around meaningful quality goals.

Key Takeaways:

Why most shift-left efforts fail (and how to avoid it)
How to design early-stage tests that catch issues without slowing teams down
Balancing test depth with speed and reliability
Building shared ownership of quality without overwhelming developers