There is no morning after pill for poor QA and Release Management

Let’s unpack the CrowdStrike debacle. I called it last week, and turns out I was spot on—it was a QA (Quality Assurance) problem. CrowdStrike’s own incident report confirms it. The fix they need? Better processes, better QA. This whole mess serves as a massive wake-up call for any organization that’s gutted their QA teams in the name of budget cuts and trendy jargon.

Look, we’ve all heard the buzzwords—“shift left,” “developer-led QA,” and other Silicon Valley claptrap. In theory, it sounds fantastic.

Developers taking on QA and deployments? Innovation and efficiency, right?

Wrong.

What’s actually happening is developers are drowning in tasks, and QA—the unsung hero of any successful software deployment—gets neglected.

QA isn’t just a checklist item; it’s a mindset

It requires a certain type of person who actually enjoys breaking things in new and creative ways, someone who delights in the monotonous grind of smoke tests. Let’s be real: developers aren’t those people. They’re buried under a mountain of feature requests and customizations for marquee clients. Without a dedicated QA team, the quality of the product is almost guaranteed to take a hit.

If your organization has trimmed the fat from QA, think again

Imagine standing in front of a major client—say, Delta Airlines—who has rolled out your software to thousands of users. Then, you ship an update as flawed as CrowdStrike’s. Now, you’ve not only got to deal with the fallout but might also end up sending out millions of dollars in apology vouchers and have your CEO eat crow in a public apology.

QA should be a first-class citizen

Why go through that? QA should be a first-class citizen. Too many companies treat it as an afterthought, but that mindset has to change. Integrate QA into your workflow. Allocate the time. Especially if you’re dealing with enterprise clients. After all, Delta’s probably having a hard time justifying their vendor choice right about now, thanks to CrowdStrike’s oversight. Everyone needs a mitigation strategy for vendor slip-ups, but more importantly, vendors need robust QA to prevent such mishaps in the first place.

So, let’s make QA the priority it deserves to be. Code quality matters. The idea that you can just dump everything on the devs and call it “shifting left” is absolute nonsense. Recognize the value of QA. Make it happen.