36 years is a long time to be in the testing field, but it allows me to see the long-term effects of bad ideas. One such idea is describing a tester as a ""manual tester"" or even to speak of ""manual testing."" For years I thought it was okay, but the toxicity of this way of speaking has become urgent. Excellent testers are now thinking of themselves as backward, or are locked out of senior roles, because they don't code. This is terribly wrong. The testing field is at risk of wasting away.
I code. I call myself a technical tester, or a coding tester. But I have deep respect for skilled testers who don't code, and I am a better tester when I work with them, because they have different biases than mine.
So, I never use the phrase ""manual tester."" I just say tester. And when I want to speak about testing that is not mediated by code, I either say interactive testing or experiential testing. These are more specific terms. I will explain exactly what they mean in my session.