Chris Armstrong
I connect people, signals and decisions to help teams build better software
I am a context informed quality engineering leader who cares deeply about how teams work together to build better software.
At my best, I connect people, teams and processes so that we work better and make better together. That often means translating between roles, making problems visible, and helping teams move from confusion or separation toward shared understanding and action.
I work across quality engineering, development, product and delivery, bringing these perspectives together, shaping practices and ways of working that support collaboration, confidence and flow. My focus is not just on what teams do, but how and why they do it. I am particularly interested in how decisions get made, what signals people pay attention to, and how those signals turn into action.
I actively challenge siloes and disengagement, and work to remove them when they are clearly getting in the way. When I care about something and can see the value, I will push, challenge and help move things forward. That might be through facilitation, intervention, or simply asking the questions that have not yet been asked.
In practice, this has meant helping teams move from separation to inclusion by introducing ensembling as a way of working, bringing people together across roles and across the organisation to build shared understanding and collective ownership of quality.
My approach is grounded in empiricism, curiosity and pragmatism. I focus on making work visible, reducing unnecessary friction, and helping teams make informed decisions rather than reactive ones. Quality, for me, is about building confidence in what we are doing and why.
Alongside my delivery work, I am actively involved in the wider testing and quality community through Testing Peers, an organically grown community that grew into a podcast and conference, built around connection, challenge and shared learning.
This blog reflects my thinking as it evolves. It is not a set of instructions, but a collection of observations, ideas and experiences shaped by the work itself.
Chris Armstrong 