Are flaky tests just… inevitable?

I had an interview earlier today.

Sometime during a chat with a possible future boss, a former colleague (now an engineering leader at this same company) walked in to say hi.

We got to talking shop, and flaky automated tests came up. The two QA folks in the room joked that this is universal problem. Of course - everyone has flaky tests. Right?

For the interview part, I did my best to talk through how I’ve tackled them in the past (measuring flake rates, managing triage, improving reliability) but since then I’ve been thinking:

Is this really universal? Or just really common?

If your team has solved for flaky tests I’d love to hear how. What made the difference? Infra? Test design? Culture?

Drop it in the comments. I’m genuinely curious.