I was thinking it’d be a good idea to share my list of software testers I know in Australia. Of no coincidence, most of the great people in software testing in Australia write a blog about the craft. I wish everyone who worked in software testing wrote a blog because, as a manager, it sure would make my hiring decisions easier! In case you were wondering, yes, hiring managers do Google.

It’s pretty obvious to me if you’re a tester why you should write a blog. Not only does it showcase your skills, and code, but it allows you to connect to a whole bunch of others who have similar, or different, mindsets, who agree with you, or want to challenge you. Add in the fact that it needn’t cost a cent to set up your blog, only your time, and there’s really no reason not to.

Well here’s my list. Please don’t feel offended if I’ve left you off, it’s probably an oversight on my behalf. Also, this list is presented in no particular order.

Tim Koopmans: Tim lives in Melbourne and works as an open source performance test consultant as Altentee. His blog, once known as 90kts, is now written on Altentee’s blog site.

Jared Quinert: Jared is a software testing consultant who also lives in Melbourne, and is a self described: “Agile-literate contrarian uber-tester“. He has a huge amount of experience which he shares through his blog: Illiteration – Testing times in Software Testing.

Marlena Compton: Marlena lived in the USA until recently when she was hired by Atlassian in Sydney as part of their 32 engineers recruitment drive. I imagine one of the reasons they hired her is how much expert knowledge she shares on her frequently updated blog: Marlena’s Blog: Testing and coding concurrently.

Trish Khoo: Trish works as a test lead in Sydney for Campaign Monitor, a very cool organization who were recently featured on 37Signal’s SVN blog. Her blog, Purple Box Testing, is thought provoking and updated regularly.

Eric Petersen: Eric is a well known agile testing consultant who lives and works in Melbourne. He writes a blog  at Testing Reflections.

Kristan Vingrys: Kristan is one of the most clued on people I have met in Australia when it comes to testing, so it’s no surprise he is Global Test Practice Lead for Thoughtworks. He hasn’t blogged in a while, , but there is some older content on VinkTank.

Dean Cornish: Dean is an agile consultant with Thoughtworks in Melbourne and has a blog, although, like other Thoughtworkers, it hasn’t been updated in over a year. See Testing, Though and Observations.

Nathaniel Ritmeyer: Nat no longer works in Australia, he’s in London, but he has worked in Australia, and writes an excellent blog with lots of great Watir content: Nat on Testing.

Let me know if you feel I have missed anyone out!

Update: 19 July 2010

I knew, I’d miss a couple. Here they are:

Joel Deutscher: Joel is a Performance Test Consultant based in Sydney, Australia. He writes a blog called Headwired: An eye on application performance.

Craig Smith: Craig is a agilist & software developer based here in sunny Brisbane, but writes quite a few posts on his blog about testing and testing meetups. See CDS 43.