In this episode, we sit down with Rob Spielberger, an adjunct instructor in Temple’s Department of Computer & Information Sciences and a Senior Quality Assurance leader, Project Manager, and Scrum Master with nearly four decades in the software industry.
A Career Built on Quality
Bob’s journey runs from macro-assembler programmer to Scrum Master for cloud performance teams — more than thirty years of it in healthcare IT across SMS, Siemens, and Cerner. After a long corporate career, what keeps him going is teaching: two ever-evolving courses (Software Quality Assurance & Testing, and IT Project Management) and the energy of the students in front of him.
Why Every Developer Is a Tester
Bob pushes back on the idea that quality is a niche off to the side of “real” development. Under an Agile methodology, he tells students, you’ll do as much testing as you do coding — unit and integration tests are your job, and code only counts as done when it’s quality as the end user defines it. Quality assurance, he argues, is a genuine and rewarding career path many students never knew existed.
Loyalty vs. Adaptability
Early on, Bob assumed he’d be a “lifer” at one company. The Siemens layoffs of the mid-2000s were a wake-up call that no one can entrust an entire career to a single employer. His takeaway for students: explore different roles and jobs early, and you’re far more likely to find your professional niche — the work that’s actually satisfying.
A Healthy Skepticism of AI
AI, in Bob’s view, is just one more tool in an ever-expanding toolbox — powerful, but with real limits. His worry is that students trust AI output too readily. The responsibility never leaves you: understand the problem, judge whether the code and test coverage are truly adequate, and put the results in your own words.
His Advice for Students
Lead with integrity. There’s always pressure to ship software faster than it’s ready, and when something isn’t ready for production, have the courage to say so — backed by data, facts, and clear communication. Above all, keep learning and learn to work well with people, because communication is the skill that outlasts every shift in technology.
Reference: Robert J. (Bob) Spielberger | LinkedIn
