I’m a Rajinikanth fan. And not just someone who enjoys his movies. I have been his fan since childhood.
So, watching Jailer 2 was special to me for more than one reason.
My first son loved the movie. And this time, I wanted to experience it with my second son, too. So I waited and made this his first movie.
As I sat there watching the movie, I found myself thinking about the man behind decades of entertainment.
Decades in the industry.
Generations of fans.
Countless changes in cinema.
And he’s still here.
That got me thinking about something completely different: Software Testing.
They Expected Him to Lose His Market
For years, people asked questions about Rajinikanth.
Would he retire? Would he lose his market? Would the audience move on to younger actors? Could someone who had been around for so long continue to attract people to theatres?
These questions weren’t entirely unreasonable. The industry was changing. New actors were arriving, filmmaking was evolving, and audience expectations were different.
But look at what happened.
He didn’t simply rely on his past fame or glory.
He has spent decades entertaining generations, embracing new stories, and reinventing himself without losing his signature style. He continued to choose stories, worked with new-generation directors, and explored different ways of connecting with audiences.
And here he is, still drawing audiences and giving fans like me another reason to celebrate.
Legends don’t stay relevant by resisting change. They stay relevant by evolving with it.
Sound Familiar, Software Testers?
I have spent more than 15 years in software testing.
And throughout these years, I have watched our profession change in ways I couldn’t have imagined when I started.
We went from functional testing to Automation to Agile to AI-assisted testing. We embraced new programming languages, frameworks, and approaches. We learned to work in Agile teams, integrate testing into CI/CD pipelines, and think beyond simply finding defects.
And now, we are navigating the AI era. With every major change comes a familiar prediction.
Automation will replace testers.
Developers can test their own code, so why do we need a dedicated testing team?
AI can generate test cases and automation scripts, so perhaps we won’t need testers anymore.
Sound familiar?
It sometimes feels like our profession keeps receiving its own retirement rumours.
And yet, we are still here.
Because nothing has changed, but because everything has.
Change Is Not the Enemy
One thing I find interesting about Rajinikanth’s career is that he hasn’t depended entirely on doing things the way he always did.
He has worked with new-generation directors and taken on stories that bring different perspectives to his filmography.
He has continued to find ways to connect with audiences across generations.
And I think there’s a lesson here for us.
As software testers, we cannot expect yesterday’s skills to carry us through tomorrow.
We need to learn new tools. We need to understand AI. We need to explore new approaches to automation, test design, and quality engineering.
We need to be willing to challenge our own assumptions about how testing should be done.
But here’s something important.
Adapting to change doesn’t mean throwing away everything we learned before it arrived.
When an AI tool generates test cases, we still need to question whether it makes sense.
When an automation framework executes hundreds of tests, we still need to understand what those tests actually protect.
When an AI agent reports that everything passed, we still need to ask whether the right things were tested.
Tools can change how we work. They don’t automatically eliminate the need for judgment, curiosity, and critical thinking.
Our experience is not a limitation we must overcome to embrace AI.
It’s an advantage we can bring to it.
You Can Be Experienced and Still Be a Beginner
There’s another connection I love.
Even after spending decades in the industry, an actor must continue learning. Every director brings a different perspective. Every story presents new challenges. Every generation of audiences brings different expectations.
Software testing is no different.
After more than 15 years in QA, I still find myself learning new things.
I can return to a tool I have never used before, explore an unfamiliar technology, or discover a new approach that makes me rethink something I thought I understood.
Recently, my own journey with Playwright has reminded me how exciting it is to learn something new again.
I may have years of testing experience, but that doesn’t mean I know everything about every tool.
And that’s perfectly fine.
Experience should give us the confidence to explore unfamiliar territory, not the arrogance to believe there’s nothing left to learn.
The goal isn’t to be the person who knows everything. It’s to remain the person who is willing to learn.
Relevance Is Something We Keep Earning
I don’t think we should assume that simply spending 15 or 20 years in a profession automatically makes us valuable.
Years of experience matter, but what we do with those years matters more.
Are we still curious?
Are we willing to learn?
Can we adapt when the industry changes?
Are we helping the next generation understand not just how to use a tool, but how to think critically about the results it produces?
Are we finding better ways to contribute to the teams and products we work with?
These are the questions worth asking.
Rajinikanth’s longevity is a reminder that having a long career doesn’t mean depending on yesterday’s success. It means continuing to find ways to connect with the present.
And perhaps that’s what we need to remember as software testers, too.
We don’t need to compete with every new tool as though it were our enemy.
We need to understand it, learn where it helps, recognise where it falls short, and use our experience to make better decisions.
We don’t have to be threatened by change to take it seriously.
We just have to be willing to evolve.
From One Generation to Another
Sitting in that theatre with my children, one thing felt especially meaningful.
I have loved Rajinikanth since childhood. Now I get to share that with my own kids.
The world has changed. Cinema has changed. Audiences have changed.
And still, something brings us together in the same room.
It made me think about our profession, and about the people who shaped me in it.
The testers who taught me the fundamentals.
The colleagues who challenged my thinking.
The mentors who encouraged me to try something new.
And the next generation of testers who will build on what we have learned and take the profession in directions we haven’t even imagined yet.
Our responsibility isn’t to insist that testing must remain exactly as we knew it.
It’s to help the profession grow while preserving what matters most: our commitment to quality, our willingness to question, and our responsibility to the people who depend on the software we help build.
That’s how knowledge moves from one generation to another.
That’s how a profession stays relevant.
And that’s how we make room for the future without forgetting what brought us here.
Still Here. Still Learning.
The thought this movie left me with goes beyond cinema.
People may predict the end of a profession. They may question whether experienced professionals can keep up. They may assume that a new technology makes everything that came before it irrelevant.
Sometimes, those predictions remind us of something important: we cannot afford to stop evolving.
As a software tester, I don’t know exactly what our profession will look like ten years from now.
But I know I want to be part of discovering it.
I will continue learning new tools. I will explore what AI can do. I will question its limitations. I will share what I learn and help others grow along the way.
Because after more than 15 years in this profession, I haven’t run out of things to learn.
And I haven’t run out of reasons to love testing ❤️
Maybe that’s the real lesson.
You don’t stay relevant by proving that the world doesn’t need to change. You stay relevant by being willing to change with it.
Here’s to the people who keep learning, keep adapting, and keep showing up.
Still relevant.
Still evolving.
Still here.