Innovate QA Seattle | WA - August 22, 2024

Artem Golubev is a co-founder of testRigor AI. He is excited about helping companies to become an order of magnitude more effective in QA and deliver software faster. Artem started his career 25 years ago by building software for logistics companies. Since then, he worked at companies like Microsoft and Salesforce, where he learned about best practices and top technologies in QA. He is now bringing those technologies to other companies to allow them to catch up with the software giants and become more efficient in testing. testRigor AI empowers companies like Netflix, Cisco, BurgerKing, and many more to build test automation faster and spend significantly less time on test maintenance. 

Discover how Generative AI is revolutionizing the landscape with groundbreaking tools and processes that were once unimaginable. Join Artem, a seasoned leader in Engineering and QA, as he delves into the transformative power of Generative AI. He'll explore the critical challenges it addresses, unveil cutting-edge tools now available on the market, and reveal how AI is optimizing SDLC processes in ways previously thought impossible. Artem will also share insights on how AI is redefining the roles of manual testers and QA Automation Engineers, ushering in a new era of innovation.

In this session you’ll learn how to save 95% of your time on test automation by leveraging breakthroughs in Generative AI and move 90%-100% of the work to the product management organization. We’ll cover how to improve SDLC to allow you to move up to 30% faster with up to 90% less bugs in production, and how Generative AI can be helpful to eliminate 98% of the effort on maintaining end-to-end tests. 

Unlock the power of AI to streamline your testing processes! In this interactive workshop, you’ll learn how to leverage cutting-edge AI tools to automate test cases, enhance accuracy, and reduce manual effort. Perfect for QA professionals looking to stay ahead in the rapidly evolving tech landscape. Tech requirements: Laptop is required Prior experience with test automation: not required Audience: QA Automation Engineers, Software Testers, QA Managers.

Jennifer X Zhang is the Director of Accessibility Program and Innovation at RaLytics, a small business owned by veterans and people with disabilities. She focuses on embedding accessibility skills, processes, and governance into RaLytics' offerings with a focus on Human Centered Accessibility so customers can eventually learn to sustainably fish for themselves in the digital accessibility ocean. She was formerly on the central accessibility team at Microsoft running accessible design and has a strong track record of innovation in accessible design and hackathon projects. She won multiple awards for her contributions to eye gaze in Windows and mental health apps. She also received a special stock award from Microsoft for her contributions to accessible and inclusive design. She is passionate about teaching accessibility in approachable ways.

Accessibility testing is a very important and highly skilled area. And yet it is too often relegated to compliance testing at the end of product cycles. This often leaves accessibility testing as a thankless job; the results of which people don’t necessarily want to know. I’ll discuss why that is the case with historical industry context and provide methods for how to shift thinking for sustainable accessibility change management in testing. 

Blake Hill is an award-winning IT leader with extensive experience in quality assurance, agile methodologies, and transformative leadership. Currently serving as the Senior Director of Quality Assurance and Agile Delivery at AccentCare, he has effectively led global teams to streamline processes and improve operational efficiency. Blake's expertise in developing and implementing QA strategies, agile transformations, and cross-functional collaboration has been instrumental in driving quality improvements, fostering a culture of continuous innovation, and enhancing employee engagement. 

Discussion of establishing high-performing agile teams with a slightly unique perspective through the lens of psychology and quality.

Kim Filiatrault began his IT journey in 1985 and quickly made his mark on Alberta Government's technical team. In 1989, he went independent, focusing on generative technologies and test automation, gaining global recognition and speaking at IBM events for his innovations with Visual Age Generator Templates (VAGT). After IBM discontinued its tech in 2006, Kim shifted to Guidewire consulting, excelling in high-risk projects with cutting-edge development and test automation.

Outside of work, Kim enjoys rock crawling with his Jeep Wrangler, a hobby that parallels his career in IT—both require precise decision-making and the ability to adapt, where being unprepared can lead to significant setbacks.

In today’s fast-paced software development environment, traditional test automation often struggles with maintainability, scalability, and coverage. This presentation explores advanced strategies to overcome these challenges, featuring real-world examples and industry insights.

As Director of Product at Mozilla, Jeremiah led the Firefox roadmap across the product lifecycle to guide full-funnel, customer-centric growth. He founded Do The Thing Academy to empower non-traditional founders, and co-authored Model 47: A Startup Storybook, with lessons learned from mentoring 46 startups. He also acted as IC PM on a large AI/ML shopping acquisition with 800M weekly customers, then steered the 80+ person integration team post-close.  During 10+ years at Microsoft, Jeremiah had a variety of roles. One of his favorites there was being architect of the Windows Insider Program, a worldwide community he helped grow from an idea on a whiteboard to 22+ million people from every country in the world (including Antarctica), providing exabytes of feedback to co-create a better Windows for billions of people.  In other roles there, he was aPrincipal PM in the Business Applications Group, Engineering Director of the Airband Initiative (a global effort to bring broadband internet to rural communities), and Director of Windows Developer Marketing.

GOOD NEWS! If you're building a customer-centric AI app, you need to bring old-timey software testing practices into the AI era.  I know! Turns out building AI apps is pretty much like building ANY other app…with a FEW added extras:   

We have to bring customer focus to EVERY step of our building and testing process:          

1. Choosing the data we use to train our AI product         
2. Choosing which humans are in the loop during the training process         
3. Choosing how to fine-tune and ground our models in REAL data         
4. And of course the usual software quality bread-and-butter: red-teaming, deployment, and feedback loops with REAL customers  

In this talk, we'll learn practical testing methods to identify and solve customer problems, focusing on AI systems with Metaprompting and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).

Lee has over 30 years of experience in the Software Quality Assurance and Testing field. He has been involved in the implementation of test automation and performance testing solutions in hundreds of environments across a wide array of industries. Most recently, Lee has been involved with bringing quality practices (with a focus on automation and performance) to DevOps teams. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences including STAREAST, STARWEST, Agile+DevOps East, Agile+DevOps West, QA or the Highway, EuroStar, DevOpsDays, and TestCon Europe 

In the frantic race to automate everything, one critical fact often gets overlooked… that test automation is NOT testing. Many organizations equate a comprehensive automated test suite with an effective software testing function. However, their definition of test automation is often limited to the automated execution of scripted test steps. Even in the best case scenario, this approach can give a false sense of security - especially when executing automated checks is the only “testing” that’s performed in the development cycle. In this session, Lee will discuss why he sees the craft of software testing being swallowed up by test automation. He will help you think beyond just execution of scripted tests and apply automation principles more generally to testing activities to maximize impact and value. You will learn how to look at testing and automation as complementary activities and take back techniques for using a context-driven approach to automation to improve both the effectiveness and efficiency of your software testing.

As a leader in software development, quality test engineering, and operations, I juggle a wide range of responsibilities, from leading diverse technology product teams to mentoring the upcoming generation of software developers. My years of experience in quality test engineering have equipped me to focus on pinpointing glitches and fostering a quality-centric mindset among teams. 

I am a Software Developer in Test with 18 years of self thought work experience, a Mechanical Engineer by degree (B.S. & M.S.), and I have worked in telecommunications (software and hardware / firmware), healthcare, some fintech, and mobile gaming rewards platform. I like to tinker with technology, a bicyclist, and publisher of 2 paper snowflakes books. I am an equal opportunity pet offender, and I currently have 2 cats: Desi & Señor Hugo. 

Introduction to Robot Framework Automation, and rethinking how to approach automation from a more human QA perspective 

Around 11+ years of IT experience and currently associated with Amazon as SDET-II with proficiency in many AWS, DevOps, Amazon Proprietary tools and Services 

In the ever-evolving world of software testing, efficiency and code quality are paramount. CodeWhisperer, an AI-powered code generation tool, offers a revolutionary approach to enhancing test script development. By leveraging advanced machine learning algorithms, CodeWhisperer provides intelligent code suggestions and auto-completion features, streamlining the creation of test scripts. 

This talk will explore how CodeWhisperer can significantly accelerate the development of test scripts by reducing the time and effort required for manual coding. Attendees will learn how AI-powered code generation tools can ensure better code quality by suggesting best practices, identifying potential issues, and offering optimized solutions, resulting in more reliable and maintainable test scripts. Moreover, the presentation will highlight how CodeWhisperer can boost developer productivity by automating repetitive coding tasks and providing context-aware suggestions, allowing testers to focus on higher-level tasks and deliver quality test scripts more efficiently. Attendees will also gain insights into the seamless integration of CodeWhisperer with popular IDEs and development environments, making it easy to incorporate into existing test automation frameworks and workflows. Specifically, the talk will demonstrate how CodeWhisperer can be leveraged within IntelliJ to write Selenium 

Rhea Khanna is a distinguished Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft, specializing in AI for life sciences. With over a decade of experience in the tech industry, Rhea has played a pivotal role in the development and launch of key products, focusing on API design and software architecture. She completed her business administration studies at Stanford University Graduate School of Business and is an active speaker, addressing topics related to the societal and ethical impacts of AI. Rhea is also an advocate for early-stage investments, contributing to the tech ecosystem's growth and innovation. 

I’ve been testing software for 25 years. I have a small consulting business and call myself a QA Strategist. Besides testing and role playing I love swimming, food, and my family. We live in the woods in Montana.

QA is often seen as an outsider in the software development sphere. Testers are known for breaking things.  And complaining.   And why that's a good thing. And why it's perceived as a bad thing. And how we can work to embrace our role as a Debbie Downer but also find ways to bring our "chaotic" nature into alignment with the rest of the team's goals and perspective.

An astute professional with 17+ years qualitative experience in Software Engineering, encompassing Automation development and Systems testing roles.

In this presentation, we unveil a paradigm-shifting methodology for GPU load testing, fusing generative AI workloads with Python-Docker orchestration and JMeter integration. Leveraging Nvidia GPUs and the Stable Diffusion model, our approach faithfully replicates real-world scenarios, facilitating comprehensive performance assessment.  We elucidate the technical intricacies of our framework, demonstrating how Docker containers seamlessly manage workload generation and GPU utilization, while Python scripts orchestrate AI model deployment. Integration with JMeter further enhances testing capabilities, enabling holistic evaluation of GPU performance across diverse workloads.  Through rigorous experimentation and validation, we showcase the precision and scalability of our method in optimizing GPU infrastructure for modern computing demands. Join us to explore the transformative potential of generative AI in revolutionizing GPU load testing practices. 

Leading transformative, results-driven quality engineering in a high-performance setting, leveraging 21+ years of experience to improve product quality, drive innovation and accelerate delivery. 

Hiring top-notch Quality Engineers is crucial to ensuring your product's success. This session will provide actionable insights into identifying, attracting, and retaining the best talent in the field of quality engineering. 

Attendees will learn about the key skills and traits to look for, effective interviewing techniques, and strategies for creating an attractive work environment that appeals to high-caliber professionals. Whether you're a hiring manager, team lead, or HR professional, this session will equip you with the tools needed to build a world-class quality engineering team. Join us to discover how to find the perfect candidates who will help elevate your product's quality and drive your company forward. 

Anna Royzman, a prominent figure in the field of software testing and technology leadership, is celebrated for her unwavering commitment to excellence and innovation. As the founder of A Quality Leadership Institute and Test Masters Academy, she implements transformative approaches to elevate quality practices and testing into a strategic and dynamic discipline.

Beyond her role at A Quality Leadership Institute, Anna Royzman serves on prestigious Boards of Directors, where her expertise plays a pivotal role in shaping industry standards.

Renowned as a sought-after speaker at international conferences and seminars—from the USA to the EU, Africa, Australia, and China—Anna expounds on topics such as the adoption of Generative AI techniques in testing, the promotion of quality engineering practices, and the cultivation of testing and quality cultures within organizations. Her indelible contributions continue to inspire professionals to refine their craft, setting new standards for excellence.

This signature workshop, led by Anna Royzman, is the highlight of the conference. There is a saying "Your problem is someone's solution". Experience the power of community of peers to tackle your worst problems. Gain a fresh perspective to a seemingly unsolvable challenge. Help your peers get through their own blocks and obstacles. Anna runs this workshop at every Test Leadership Congress since 2016. The outcomes never fail to amaze everyone who participated. Experience it for yourself.