Today I attended my first test design review with the group I am in. What a welcome change this was! At Microsoft (at least in my group), there is about a 1-1 mapping of Development Engineers to Test Engineers. As specs are completed designs are started for both the implementation of the software as well as for how that software will be tested. Both teams get together to review each others designs to ensure that things are aligned. Seems simple and the way that it should be done.

It's amazing to me because this is the first software job I've been in where I didn't have to go beg, grovel and fight for resources to help test the software that our teams were building. Management at my past employers always saw test as a one of those things that was a buffer in the schedule and it was always staffed in a way that reflected that. Here there are very senior engineers working in test and some really smart people at that.