Quality Sense Podcast

Simon Prior is a co-host of the Testing Peers podcast (https://testingpeers.com/) as well as an advocate for bridging the gap between academia and industry. Having been a university professor myself, I found we had quite a lot in common! Simon Prior is a senior test manager at Easy Jet, with many years of experience in testing and management. Not only that, but he helps run a meetup group, Ministry of Testing Buckinghamshire and started the hashtag, #MakeATester to increase awareness outside the testing bubble about careers in our field.

In this episode, we discussed how to form more people in STEM with the skills needed to become great testers and how to make our profession more well known to those who have yet to graduate from university!

Ashley Hunsberger started as a manual tester at Blackboard 16 years ago and today, she’s the Director of DevOps Engineering, creating their Developer and Agile Advocacy program. She focuses on the ways they can advance the work their teams are doing, as well as the way in which they do it.

Listen to this fascinating conversation about how she managed to evolve her career and all of her eye-opening, real world insights on leadership that apply for anyone.

Key highlights:

- The need for innovation, experimentation, and learning in a DevOps and agile culture and methods to promote them within your team

- Our challenges in adopting OKRs and lessons learned

- Developing psychological safety in the workplace and why its essential for leading through change

- How testers can safely innovate by testing out a series of hypotheses

- The benefits of practicing reflection to improve your ability to cope with change and find a way to do the work you love

Relevant links and a transcript of this episode can be found here: https://abstracta.us/blog/podcast/leading-agile-transformation-ashley-hunsberger/

Today’s guest is an inspiration for any test engineer out there who wants to drive their organization’s quality engineering and shift-left testing practices, working in a way that devs and testers can best collaborate. Get to know Andrey Momot, a QA Lead at WalkMe, the company that pioneered the Digital Adoption Platform to simplify user experiences by combining insights, engagement, guidance and automation capabilities. In our conversation, Andrey shares his keys to success in a team where developers are in charge of manual testing and the QA lead owns the overall test and automation strategy.

Episode highlights:

- Collaborating with developers when you are the team’s sole QA

- How to sell the idea to developers to manually test their own code

- The test automation solution that WalkMe has success with

- What Andrey calls the “holy trinity of quality” and how teams can achieve it

Find relevant links and a transcript of the episode here: https://abstracta.us/blog/podcast/andrey-momot-software-quality-holy-trinity/

My guest today, Sumit Agarwal, has over 20 years of professional experience in the technology field. Today he is the Lead Cloud Architect at a global fintech company, with experience in performance testing, DevOps and agile methodologies. Listen to today’s episode where we discuss the origin of DevOps, testing and dealing with legacy code, making the necessary culture shifts to successfully implement modern software delivery practices and more!

For relevant links and a transcription of this episode: https://abstracta.us/blog/podcast/devops-and-testing/

A self-proclaimed "stage mom" and "recovering social worker" Tristan fell into test automation and community management a few years ago by taking a new role at Sauce Labs and hasn't looked back. In our conversation, we talked about the meaning of community, how testers can take more advantage of their network, overcoming imposter syndrome, and much more.

Episode Highlights:

- Tristan's story of falling into software testing after his career in social work and how he brings his non-profit skills to the B2B world

- Why all the hype around communities and how professionals can enhance their careers by getting involved with them

- Why Testim bets on developing community and its potential to amplify value for all

- Tristan's top 5 recommended reads for software testers

Episode transcript and relevant links: https://abstracta.us/blog/podcast/tristan-lombard-building-community/

In this episode I had a conversation with Erika Chestnut, Head of QA at Calendly. She started her career as a developer, but after complaining about quality a few times too many, she found herself learning more about software testing. Today she is a Quality Coach, mentor, consultant, and a keynote speaker.

Listen to the episode to learn about how test automation plays a role in Calendly’s test strategy, and as with every guest, her advice for testers on good habits, recommended reads, and more.

Episode Highlights:

- How Erika first learned about testing and why she is passionate about it

- Building a solid foundation for automation

- Pros and cons of having the developers at Calendly drive test automation

- How they align the developer’s test automation efforts with non-automated testing driven by the testers in order to cover what’s important at the different layers and to avoid duplicate tests

- Involving DevOps and Customer Experience to perform stakeholder testing

Check out relevant links and the transcript of the show here: https://abstracta.us/blog/podcast/erika-chestnut-calendly-test-automation/

Are you looking for a new job or want to become a more hirable tester? Today I invited my first guest from the team at Abstracta, Stephanie Gordiola. You may recognize her on LinkedIn as the one who spreads the word of new opportunities to work at Abstracta!

"Steph" is a psychologist and English teacher who has been on our team for two years, recruiting, interviewing, and helping to hire software testers from all over, with different levels of experience and areas of expertise. Among other things, she’s helped us to hire 52 testers and counting.

Listen to today's episode if you want an inside look into our software testing recruiting and hiring processes.

Highlights:

- What testers should keep in mind when going through the recruitment process

- The importance of soft skills and how recruiters can assess them

- Allowing for authenticity and how it enriches a company's diversity

- Ways to increase the chances of hiring someone who is a great fit

- Things you should do every day to get better at a foreign language

Go here for the episode transcript and relevant links: https://abstracta.us/blog/podcast/recruiting-software-testers/

Have you thought about making the switch to a commercial test automation framework? In this episode of Quality Sense, Katya Aronov shares how she managed to lead an organizational effort at her company, Trax, to involve devs in their quality processes, using Testim to create useful, stable, and reliable test automation.

Episode Highlights:

- What is needed to create useful automation that benefits the whole team

- How can you be sure to make the best decision when choosing a tool?

- Why open source tools are not as free as we think

- How testers and devs can best collaborate, advocating a culture of quality

Check out the episode transcript and relevant links:

Season three is here and we start it off with a brand new topic and featured guest, a rising speaker and blogger in the testing community, Laveena Ramchandani. Seven years ago she fell into testing, working in different industries from oil and gas to finance to consumer goods. Today she is exploring a new area: data science model testing.

Currently, 80% of UK businesses are looking to hire a data scientist or seek data consultancy. So, someone needs to go in and validate those models! Listen to the episode to learn how to she's testing a data science model, the testing process her team follows, advice for anyone getting started in this area, and more!

Episode Highlights

- What is a data science model and benefits it can bring for a business

- Risks when testing data science models to be aware of

- How she plans her testing activities

-Skills needed to be a tester in a data science project and advice

Check the transcript of the episode here and relevant links: https://abstracta.us/blog/podcast/testing-a-data-science-model/

Today, I want to do something different. I gave a talk at this year's Agile Testing Days called “How to Keep Testers Motivated.” This is a very important topic for me because I manage the operations of a company with more than 100 testers. So, the high motivation of those working with us is a key factor for success. Success for the company, for the different teams and success for the people working with us.

Listen to this bonus episode that finishes up season two of Quality Sense if you want to hear some tips (and mistakes to avoid) when it comes to successfully leading software testers!

For the transcript of this episode, visit: https://abstracta.us/blog/culture/how-to-keep-software-testers-motivated/