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Next-Generation Software Testers: Broaden or Specialize! 243 part of a team. It will again also help to appreciatewhat others are doingand assist in lookingat things froma differentperspective. 5 Conclusions With the current state of practice of the IT industry,we are far fromachievingzero defects (if at all in the future).Software testing is and will remainan indispensable part of software development. The required knowledge and skills of the test professional of the (near) future are discussed. In detail, the T-shaped tester was presented and explained. In practice many talk about being a T-shaped tester, but I believein realitywearefar frombeingthere.TheneedforI-shapedtesterswasalso brieflypresented.Therearebasically two options tochoose from: • Broadenyourknowledgeandskillsandbecomeatruetestprofessional(T-shaped tester) • Deepen your knowledge and skills in a specific testing area and become a test specialist (I-shaped) For testers driving their career, it is extremely important to define individual direction of growth and development. Not forgetting the T-shaped concept, base your choice on your own strengths and passion, and take into account your work environment(lifecycle,domain), trends in the industryand thecurrent (andfuture) demands of the job market. In addition, reviewing your career plan on a regular basiswill helpyoustayon top,andget the bestvalueoutof the workyoudo. Acknowledgement An explicit thank-you is to Bob van de Burgt, who reviewed this book contribution in detail and provided valuable feedback. Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation,distributionandreproduction inanymediumorformat, as longasyougiveappropriate credit to the original author(s) and thesource, provide a link to theCreative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation orexceeds the permitteduse, you willneed toobtain permission directly from the copyright holder.