These podcasts all focus specifically on testing, but it’s important to remember that learning how to test better includes learning about all sorts of technology. So make sure that you’re listening and watching podcasts on broader technology as well. Some of these podcasts are not currently putting out new episodes; however, if they’re listed, they still have a large backlog of previous episodes that are useful.
1. Ministry of Testing
The Ministry of Testing (MOT) podcast has been an ongoing podcast since 2017. It’s hosted by a varying cast, including the Super Testing Bros, Michael Bolton, and Mark Thomas. This is one of the most popular testing podcasts out there. It covers a ton of different topics, including:
Neurodiversity in testing Interviews with a multitude of very different testers Mentoring Office culture Working with other types of testers (like penetration testers)
2. Perfbytes
PerfBytes focuses on ‘Helping IT Professionals to Improve Performance Practices’, and has four flavors PerfBytes, PerfBytes Español (the only Spanish language podcast on this list), News of the Damned, and Ask PerfBytes. As of writing this, PerfBytes has hundreds of episodes, so if you’re looking for a podcast that has plenty of material to binge, this is a major contender. The PerfBytes hosts include:
Leandro Melendez (a.k.a. Señor Performo!) - PerfBytes Español Brian “Emperor” Wilson - Ask PerfBytes James Pulley - News of The Damned Mark TomlinsonPerformance Sherpa - PerfBytes
3. Test Talks / Test Guild
Test Talks has over 300 episodes. IT recently was renamed to the Test Guild Podcast. This podcast is run by Joe Colantonio and covers plenty of topics. The earlier episodes cover a lot of hands-on technology that Joe was using in his day to day work as an automation engineer, and has evolved to cover more research topics. Topics:
Automating testing with specific tools (Selenium, JUnit, etc) Performance testing Security testing
4. Let’s Talk About Test, Baby
This is one of my personal favorite podcasts. Let’s Talk About Test, Baby is a podcast of 101 episodes that follows the learnings, personal lessons, and everyday work of Gem. Gem interviews a ton of guests on her show, so you can get plenty of advice from multiple software testing professionals. The end of most episodes also give a reading list of interesting articles and books for learning more about what they talked about. Gem doesn’t appear to be posting new episodes of the show now, but she’s taken breaks from the show in the past. Let’s hope she’ll be back with new episodes soon!
5. AB Testing
AB Testing podcast is a currently active podcast with over 340 episodes for you to binge-listen. AB Testing is hosted by Alan and Brent where they focus on what they’ve deemed the seven “Modern Testing Principles”: AB Testing They have a guest on almost every other episode, so there are plenty of other viewpoints to listen to, and it keeps the large number of episodes from feeling repetitive. Some of their recent episodes cover:
Devops vs Oredev Project Management Challenges in testing LMS (Learning Management Systems) software Lack of testers vs the Lack of Testing
Go out and listen to a couple of these great podcasts. Remember that it’s important to always keep growing your skills as a tester; thankfully, podcasts are a great way to facilitate that.
