[Kabacaru]

Manual testing is basically a 0 skill job. Can you click around this website and tell me when you see a bug. This is the most common form of QA but adds very little value that can't be added with more reliability using automation.

Given this QA can still bring value. The two roles that they really add value in are a Test developer specialist writing non-flaky automated tests, and a BA type role where they have conversations that expand a product owner's idea into an implementable feature.

Given that neither of these roles require manual testing, if a QA team has over specialised on manual testing, there's little value in keeping it.

[philk10]

I might be biased ( ex-dev with 20 years experience from Assembler to C to .Net etc ) but GOOD manual testing requires a lot of skill. If it didn't then I wouldn't have switched from dev to test. I work in a shop where they had devs doing all the testing, tons of automation but they still found that a good exploratory tester added value. But from your comment it may well be that you've never worked with someone like me - maybe when you do you'll think different

[gsnedders]

I think a lot depends on specific definitions: a manual test suite, where you have a list of tests with clear steps and a clear expectation, is definitely near-zero skill to execute. Actual exploratory testing, on the other hand, is skilled: especially if they're expected to write up tests (automated or not) that test code paths that haven't previously been tested.