Definition: Combined engineering is a team model with no separate testing discipline, where engineers both develop code and take responsibility for testing and quality work. In a TestOps context, engineers also handle production monitoring and data analysis.
So what? Combined engineering can speed up delivery and spread ownership of quality. It can also fail if engineers fall back on writing features alone and quality work is quietly dropped.
Examples: A team where developers write the code, the production monitors and the analysis tools for their features. An organisation removing its separate test team and moving testers into engineering roles.
