Deborah Sherwood - Scale and beyond: How to grow quality through others

Talk Description

In this episode of Leading With Quality, Rosie Sherry chats with Deborah Sherwood, Head of Quality at Squiz. Deborah has been with Squiz for over 19 years, growing from trainer to quality leader while helping the company transition from monoliths to SaaS.

They explore how Deborah has scaled quality across a growing engineering organisation, moved from hands-on testing to quality coaching, and used her training background to advocate for customers. Deborah shares how she’s embraced “quality is everyone’s responsibility,” how her team stays lean while influencing ten engineering teams, and why puzzle-solving is at the heart of quality work.

You’ll hear about:

• How to “scale yourself” as a quality leader
• Using AI to speed up testing and generate edge case ideas
• Why job titles matter when shaping quality culture
• Transitioning from doing the work to coaching others
• How long-term customer insight can guide product decisions
• Why balancing automation with other quality practices is essential

If you’re curious about growing quality through others, using tools without losing human insight, and keeping customer needs at the centre, this conversation is full of practical lessons and a long-view perspective.

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Rosie Sherry

CEO & Founder at Ministry of Testing

She/Her

I've been working in the software testing and quality engineering space since the year 2000 whilst also combining it with my love for education and community building.

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Deborah Sherwood

Head of Quality

I am passionate about making high-quality products that not only work but are accessible and meet customers' expectations. If it doesn't do what the customer wants, then it's not high quality.