Rethinking Software Testing: How First Principles Thinking Elevates Your Software Quality
"Start at the basics…"
You’ve probably heard this advice before, especially when learning something new or facing a fresh challenge. In software development, we constantly encounter unfamiliar problems. The natural instinct is often to jump straight into finding a solution — only to discover halfway through that we've overlooked something critical.
There’s a framework that can help avoid this trap: First Principle Thinking.
By breaking problems down to their fundamental truths and rebuilding from the ground up, this method helps you avoid conventional pitfalls and develop better solutions. In this blog post, I’ll explain what First Principle Thinking is and how it might even be the reason humans will soon walk on Mars — and, more importantly, how you can apply it to Software Testing.
What Is First Principle Thinking?
At its core, a first principle is a basic assumption that cannot be deduced from anything else.
The term originates from the idea of the first cause, developed by Aristotle. In modern fields like science and engineering, working from first principles means starting with established truths instead of relying on assumptions or analogies.
First Principle Thinking is a problem-solving approach where you:
Break complex issues down into their most basic, indivisible components.
Question all assumptions.
Rebuild solutions based on fundamental truths.
Encourage innovation by escaping conventional wisdom.
Avoid the limits of analogical thinking.
Elon Musk famously used this approach at SpaceX. Faced with the astronomical cost of rockets, he broke the problem down to raw material costs and manufacturing essentials. By questioning the assumptions of the aerospace industry, he drastically reduced launch costs.
While powerful, this approach requires mental effort: it forces you to challenge deep-seated assumptions and demands strong knowledge of the fundamentals in your field. But the payoff can be breakthrough solutions and innovations.
Why Does This Matter for Software Testing?
At first glance, software testing might seem like a purely practical discipline. You write tests, run them, fix the bugs they reveal, and repeat. Industry standards offer plenty of "best practices": aim for high test coverage, use proven frameworks, automate everything you can, and so on.
But here’s the catch: many of these practices are inherited assumptions rather than carefully reasoned choices. Teams often apply testing strategies because that’s what everyone else does. This creates a dangerous pattern:
We inherit solutions without deeply understanding whether they actually solve our problems.
Let me share a real-world example.
A few years ago, a fintech startup I consulted for insisted on achieving 95% unit test coverage across all services. Developers were spending an enormous amount of time writing tests for trivial getters, setters, and boilerplate code. Meanwhile, critical integration points — payment gateways, fraud detection algorithms, user data flows — had little or no testing at all.
When asked why they pursued such high coverage, the CTO said, “Because that’s what good teams do. We read it in a book.”
By stepping back and applying First Principle Thinking, we reframed the situation:
Why do we write tests? To prevent defects that harm users or the business.
Are all code paths equally risky? Clearly not.
Which failures could really damage the product? Integration points, not utility functions.
Within weeks, the team shifted toward risk-based testing — fewer but more meaningful tests — and quality, speed, and morale all improved.
This is why First Principle Thinking matters in testing.
It helps you move beyond rituals and inherited habits, allowing you to craft a testing strategy truly aligned with your product’s unique risks, complexity, and goals.
First Principle Thinking in Testing: A New Approach
So, how can you actually apply this thinking to your testing strategy? Let’s move beyond checklists and explore a more thoughtful process.
Step 1: Reframe the Purpose of Testing
Before writing a single test, ask yourself:
What are we really trying to achieve by testing?
Most teams will answer, “To catch bugs.” That’s true, but it’s not fundamental. The deeper purpose is to build confidence — confidence that the software behaves correctly, that it protects user data, that it won’t cause outages or harm.
Once you understand that testing’s core job is to provide actionable feedback about risk, many inherited practices start to look less essential — or even counterproductive.
Step 2: Identify and Challenge Assumptions
Most testing decisions are based on unspoken assumptions. For example:
“More coverage equals better quality.”
“All teams need end-to-end UI tests.”
“Manual testing is too slow to be valuable.”
But are these universally true? Hardly.
First Principle Thinking urges you to break down each assumption:
What fundamental truth justifies this assumption?
Does that truth apply in our specific context?
In many cases, you’ll find that the answer is no, or at least not entirely. For a real-time trading system, test coverage on performance-critical code might be vital, while UI tests are almost irrelevant. For a mobile app with constant updates, fast exploratory testing might be more valuable than slow automation.
Challenging assumptions doesn’t mean rejecting them blindly — it means re-evaluating their fit for your unique situation.
Step 3: Rebuild Your Testing Strategy from Zero
Now, with a clear understanding of purpose and risk, it’s time to reconstruct your testing approach.
Start by asking:
Where does failure carry the highest cost?
Which parts of the system change frequently?
Where is feedback most valuable and time-sensitive?
From these questions, design a tailored test strategy. You might discover that:
Risky integrations deserve deep testing and monitoring.
Some low-risk code doesn’t need unit tests at all.
End-to-end tests should cover only the highest-value user journeys, not every possible scenario.
Involving developers in writing tests leads to faster, higher-quality feedback loops than relying solely on dedicated QA teams.
By thinking from first principles, you’ll avoid both over-testing and under-testing. You’ll test smart, not hard.
A Final Thought
First Principle Thinking in software testing isn’t just a technique — it’s a mindset. It challenges us to stop imitating industry norms and start truly understanding the unique challenges of our software and users. Yes, it demands effort. It forces teams to question habits, challenge "best practices," and think deeply about purpose and risk. But the reward is significant: testing strategies that are leaner, smarter, and tightly aligned with delivering reliable, valuable software.
This kind of thinking has already transformed industries far beyond software.
When Elon Musk set out to revolutionize space travel, he didn’t accept the assumption that rockets had to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. By breaking the problem down to first principles — asking what materials and processes actually cost — he built SpaceX and dramatically lowered launch expenses. This approach didn't just save money. It made reusable rockets a reality and placed humanity on a credible path to Mars.
What Musk did for aerospace, we can do for software development and testing.
By questioning old assumptions and rebuilding our methods from the ground up, we can create development practices and testing strategies that are not only more efficient, but fundamentally better suited to the complex, fast-changing world of software. We might not launch spacecraft, but we can launch better products, faster, and with greater confidence.
So — if you’ve ever felt your testing efforts were bloated, slow, or misaligned with what truly matters, maybe it’s time to rethink them from scratch.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Have you applied First Principle Thinking in your projects? What breakthroughs or challenges did you encounter? Share your experiences in the comments, and follow me for more ideas about testing, innovation, and thinking differently.