Testμ 2023: Highlights From Day 3

As TestMu Conference 2023 ended, we’re excited about all the learning and motivation it brought. We learned new things from the beginning to the end and felt connected with others.Throughout this edition, we discussed various aspects of testing, such as the role of AI in enhancing the process and how automation is improving its effectiveness. Experts showed us the way. These talks have left a happy impression and inspired us for the future.

We’re ready to carry its lessons and inspiration as we conclude this exceptional day. The connections we’ve made and the insights we’ve gained will shape the path ahead, allowing us to shape the future of testing.

Let’s see some highlights from Day 3 of the TestMu Conference 2023.

Welcome Note: Day 3 by Chandini Chopra

With a heartfelt welcome, Chandini Chopra greeted all the speakers and attendees, igniting the excitement as we were on the verge of commencing the grand finale of TestMu 2023.

Think of TestMu 2023 as a spotlight on new ideas, teamwork, and significant changes in how we test things. We’ve seen and heard some incredible things during this event that will change how we look at testing.

It’s also important to emphasize that TestMu is a warm and inclusive gathering. No matter what your background, gender, ethnicity, or experience is, you’re an integral part of this community and the conference. It’s our goal to create an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing ideas, learning, and growing. The diversity of voices that shape the future of testing makes the event so special.

Some eminent speakers like Anne-Marie and Shivani delivered keynotes at the TestMu conference this year. And thanks to our amazing program committee, we have included first-time speakers in our event. Equal opportunity is at the heart of LambdaTest, and the TestMu conference is not an exception, where age and experience are not barriers. If you have something to share that shapes the future of testing, TestMu is your home!

As we kicked off day 3, everyone was encouraged to prepare for an even more interesting lineup of talks, sessions, and discussions. This featured more exciting topics and esteemed speakers, including Shivani Gaba, our keynote speaker, and the brain behind Beyonnex. She spilled the beans on “A Tester’s Journey In The World Of Machine Learning.” Later, we had a panel of big shots – from Apexon, LTIMindtree, Accenture Solutions, Cigniti Technologies, and Deloitte. They shared their insights on “Managing Testing Landscapes, Frameworks, and Tools for an Enterprise.”

The contests, certification marathons, and #LambdaTestYourApps challenges were compelling opportunities to showcase your abilities and gain prominence in this dynamic community.

A Tester’s Journey in The World of Machine Learning by Shivani Gaba

Machine Learning (ML) has become the epicenter of software in today’s era. Tremendous efforts are put into developing ML-based systems. But what about ensuring the quality of such applications? What role can testers play in this context?

Usually, testing takes a backseat here, and testers struggle to find the role and contributions they could make. The perception remains that “It’s machine learning, it cannot be tested”. But is this the case? If not, how can we break this myth? How can testers make their space in the ML world?

Shivani explored answers to such questions and many more by sharing her experience of testing ML-based applications without any prior experience. She reflected on her motivation, challenges, learnings, and techniques to test such systems.

Key Takeaways: The key takeaways from the session included recognizing the significance of testing machine learning applications and understanding their foundational elements. Learning recommended testing practices for machine learning systems and discovering ways testers can make a meaningful impact in such projects.

About the Speaker: Shivani is currently Engineering Manager at Beyonnex in Germany. Holding rich experience in the testing domain, with hands-on experience in all layers of software testing ranging from UI(frontend), API and backend, functional, non-functional, and machine learning (ML) mobile testing, ML remains her all-time favorite. As a certified scrum master, working in an agile manner is always her approach. She has worked with multiple international teams and brings forward the idea of the whole team contributing to quality.

Proudly Presenting: Testing as a Service by Mesut Durukal

This session delved into the development of testing as a service, focusing on centralizing test frameworks to address challenges in software testing. It discussed the varied approaches among teams, the inefficiencies caused by duplication, and the necessity for standardized solutions. The talk outlined the journey to implement a centralized test framework, highlighting the importance of requirements, enhancing test reusability, improving troubleshooting processes, and elevating overall quality.

Key Takeaways:

• Requirements of a test automation framework
• Ways to improve the reusability of tests
• Ways to improve troubleshooting in test executions
• Various quality aspects of a test automation framework
• Solutions against flakiness and maintenance.

About the Speaker:

Mesut has 13+ years of experience in Industrial Automation, IoT platforms, SaaS/PaaS and Cloud Services, the Defense Industry, Autonomous Mobile Robots, and Embedded and Software applications. Along with proficiency in CMMI and Scrum & PMP experiences, he has taken various roles as (Quality Owner, Hiring Manager, and Chapter Lead) in multinational projects. He has expertise in test automation and integration to CI/CD platforms supporting continuous testing. Besides, he has been facilitating test processes and building the test strategy and lifecycle of the projects. He is a frequent international speaker, the Best Presentation award winner, and a member of various program committees.

Use Testing to Develop Better Software Faster by Marit van Dijk

Testing doesn’t always get the attention it deserves in software development. Many developers claim to be bad at it or are just not interested. (These may or may not be related.)
As developers, our job is to deliver working software. With the shift to CI/CD and the move to the cloud, the need to have the right feedback at the right time only increases. There are many ways that testing can help us with that. Testing can help us verify our solution and prevent us from breaking things. It can also help us design our software, find flaws in our architecture, and develop better solutions. In this talk, Marit highlighted how testing can help you develop better software faster.

Key Takeaways

• Getting the right feedback at the right time
• What to test, when to test and how
• What makes good (automated) tests

About the Speaker
Marit van Dijk is a Developer Advocate at JetBrains. She is a software developer with 20 years of experience in different roles and companies. She loves building awesome software with amazing people and has contributed to open-source projects like Cucumber and various other projects. She enjoys learning new things and sharing knowledge on programming, test automation, Cucumber/BDD, and software engineering. Marit speaks at international conferences, in webinars, and on podcasts, occasionally writes blog posts, and contributed to the book “97 Things Every Java Programmer Should Know” (O’Reilly Media).

Panel Discussion: Managing Testing Landscapes, Frameworks, and Tools for an Enterprise

With digital transformation for enterprises comes an acceleration of applications, tools, and technologies. We have varied approaches for testing different COTS applications, cloud-native applications, and mobile applications. Enterprises are now looking at strategies to simplify and streamline their testing landscape. Our panel of industry leaders has been advising customers across industries and geographies to define their QE/Testing strategies. They shared strategies for harmonizing testing efforts, optimizing toolsets, and scaling frameworks.

This session helped attendees learn how to manage testing in their enterprise environment to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and increase quality.

About the Panelists:

Adrian O’Leary, Head of Quality Engineering and Intelligent Automation at Apexon, brings a wealth of experience from Coforge, Comcast, and Cognizant. His passion for quality has led him to advocate for embedding quality in every development aspect.

Hemalatha, a visionary leader at LTIMindtree, oversees Automation, Performance Engineering and practice, and alliances. Having incubated 16+ Next Gen Engineering and QA services at Infosys, she’s a global expert in multi-functional testing strategies.

Mohan Bachchu, a leader in Accenture’s Cloud First group, champions application and infrastructure automation. With 24 years of experience, his solutions-driven approach addresses customer challenges using cutting-edge technology trends.

Raghuram Krovvidy, Chief Delivery Officer at Cigniti Technologies, brings over 25 years of Digital Engineering and Quality Assurance expertise. His leadership has empowered Fortune 500 companies, and his captivating speaking engagements have left an impact.

Rajesh Kannan, Head of Quality Engineering and Testing Services at Deloitte India, is known for his strategic leadership and deep experience in Test Consulting and Digital Assurance.

How to get away with {{QA}} Manager’s Failures by Dmytro Lukianchuk

How often do you make mistakes in your day-to-day work? Were there any failures that affected not only you but also the whole team that you lead? Have you ever wondered how to turn any failures into opportunities? During the presentation, Dmytro shared his top 10 personal and professional failures as a young QA team lead.

Key Takeaways:

• Top 10 of my failures
• Don’t trust your team
• Radical Methods are always accepted
• Don’t rely on Your Gut Feelings
• You’re almighty
• You Know What To Do
• Feedback is not that important
• Don’t show your “cars”
• Decide Alone
• Your team is always with you
• Business First

About the Speaker:

Dmytro embarked on his journey as a Quality Assurance (QA) specialist in 2010. Over the years, he has gained extensive expertise in various areas, including Manual QA, Automation, leadership, and management.

Dmytro has actively participated in testing products used by millions of users in more than 100 countries around the world (Payments by Wix) and has been part of building the rock star team that created these products. Moreover, he has played a crucial role in assembling and leading a highly talented team that was instrumental in creating these exceptional products.

Presently, Dmytro is responsible for managing a team comprising ten skilled QAs. He is passionate about people and helping them grow professionally and overall.

Houston, We Have Problems with the Queries by Andres Sacco

In the presented session, attendees witnessed the impact of performance problems in queries on an API from various angles. Some concerns were related to the detrimental usage of join operations, while others highlighted queries written without frameworks.

A concise scenario featuring a microservice executing diverse queries for insertion, updating, or information retrieval from other tables showcased performance problems. This scenario aided participants in learning how to craft tests for the database access layer and incorporate libraries like QuickPerf to analyze and pinpoint performance issues.

Key Takeaways:

Mid-developers or up who have specific knowledge of testing, like unit testing. Having experience with some particular framework is unnecessary because the talk tackles the idea of creating performance tests for the queries.

About the Speaker:

Andres Sacco has been working as a developer since 2007 in different languages, including Java, PHP, NodeJs, Scala, and Kotlin. His background is mainly in Java and the libraries or frameworks associated with this language. In most of the companies he worked for, he researched new technologies to improve the performance, stability, and quality of the applications of each company.

Recently, he published a book on Apress about the last version of Scala. Also, he published a set of theoretical-practical projects about uncommon ways of testing, like architecture tests and chaos engineering. He dictated internal courses to different audiences like developers, business analysts, and commercial people. Also, he participates as a Technical Reviewer on the books of the editorials Manning, Apress, and Packt.

Rainbows & Unicorns: Testing serverless applications in AWS by Anaïs van Asselt

This sentence got Anaïs to follow the rainbow to Choco, a Berlin startup with unicorn status. How is quality assurance different at a startup? Why is test automation in a serverless architecture on AWS not all about rainbows & unicorns? How can we test serverless workflows? How can we learn to test new technologies and maintain quality standards in this fast-paced world? This session answered it all.

Key Takeaways:

• All aspects of a startup company that impact quality and test automation
• The challenges of test automation in a serverless architecture on AWS
• All learnings regarding testing AWS serverless functions, workflows, and applications

About the Speaker:

Anaïs is a test automation engineer, coach, and enthusiast. In 10 years, she gained a lot of perspective at various organizations and (test automation) tooling, both frontend and backend. In pursuit of sustainable test automation, she applies a context-driven approach, Bruce Lee Driven Development, and joins forces with developers. Last year, she started her mission at Choco in Berlin to build a sustainable supply chain and reduce food waste worldwide.

Selenide Appium – Mutated Java Appium Client by Amuthan Sakthivel

Selenide Appium is a free, open-source library built on Appium Java Client that can help write concise, fluent, and readable Appium tests. In his talk, Amuthan covered some of the important features that Selenide Appium provides and how it would reduce script development time.

Key Takeaways:

Learn about the brilliant Selenide Appium Library.

About the Speaker:

Amuthan Sakthivel is passionate about Testing, Java, Open source, and Teaching. He has contributed to open-source projects like Selenide and Selenide-Appium, apart from sharing his knowledge via his YouTube channel. He also writes technical blogs not as often as he makes YouTube videos. Nowadays, he spends most of his time with his 3-month-old daughter!

Transitive Testing by Titus Fortner

Anyone who tried to maintain a regression suite of Selenium tests knew how challenging it was—synchronization issues, test data management, adapting to app design, or behavior changes. Unfortunately, a test suite could easily become a burden rather than a benefit.

The initial approach when automating tests was to mimic manual tester actions for site verification. Test automation aims to ensure equivalent code correctness confidence in less time, implying the utilization of automation strengths. Atomic, autonomous tests executable at scale were necessary.

In this session, Titus delved into the code, demonstrating how to leverage an application’s API to efficiently navigate some of the most demanding aspects of UI automation. He showcased how to progress to specific bookmarks in user swiftly flows, significantly reducing testing time and enabling the utilization of single-use test data.

Key Takeaways:

• Streamlining the management of your Test Data
• Leveraging the power of a REST Client to improve the reliability of your tests
• Scaling test solution with improved parallelization

About the Speaker:

Titus Fortner is a core contributor to the Selenium project and the current project lead for Watir (a Ruby test library built on top of Selenium). Titus implemented automated test solutions at multiple companies before joining SauceLabs, and, as a Solutions Architect at Sauce, he worked extensively with clients to improve their code and testing strategies. Titus is currently a Senior Developer Advocate at SauceLabs.

Testing at Scale at Meta by Dmitry Vinnik

The session offered attendees a comprehensive understanding of the strategies and tactics required for successful testing at scale. The insights shared by Titus provided valuable guidance on managing large-scale test suites effectively and ensuring the quality of software systems even in the most demanding and extensive testing environments.

Key Takeaways:

• Showing that testing skills are not limited to specific companies or scales
• Understanding testing at large-scale companies
• Unlocking versatility in testing
• Embracing continuous learning

About the Speaker:

Dmitry Vinnik is an Engineering Manager specializing in AI/ML. He works at Meta, leading a team of engineers developing cutting-edge solutions. With a decade of experience in the tech industry, Dmitry is recognized for his expertise in developer relations, dev tools, programming languages, and open-source technologies. He is a regular speaker at conferences and meetups on various topics related to software development, open source, and engineering leadership.

Delta Awards Winners Announcement

LambdaTest Delta Awards in Testing celebrates, recognizes, and rewards testers & developers who play a critical role in the community and at their workplaces by advocating and providing valuable feedback to improve product quality and user experience. The program seeks to encourage active participation and engagement among testers & developers.

The different categories of Delta Awards included:

Rising Tester of the Year 🏆

Recognizing an exceptional tester with less than three years of experience who has demonstrated outstanding skills, growth, and potential in the field. The winner of this award was:

Kelly Kenyon, Software Tester, Glean. An outstanding Quality Engineer skilled in exploratory, automation, and traditional testing stands out due to her expertise and advocacy efforts. Her recognition as one of the 100 Women in Tech by Agile Testing Zone positions her as a strong candidate for the Rising Tester Award in Quality Engineering.

Best Test Leader of the Year 🏆

Recognizing an experienced QA team leader who has demonstrated exceptional leadership and driven continuous improvement in testing processes. This year, the award was presented to two test leaders:

1. Todd Lemmonds, VP of Quality Assurance, Lereta

Todd is a visionary Agile practitioner dedicated to creating exceptional testing teams by offering unparalleled support, mentorship, and world-class tooling, leading to reduced defect rates and faster feedback cycles.

2. Pricilla Bilavendran, Team Lead, Billenium

Pricilla is an inspiring and dedicated QA professional who actively shares knowledge through tech talks, blogs, and mentorship, motivating fellow testers to upskill and excel in the field.

Best Test Team of the Year 🏆

This award recognized a high-performing testing team that has demonstrated exceptional effort and delivered outstanding results in ensuring software quality. We had two remarkable teams as the winners of this award:

1. Manish Mitra, Wesfarmers’s Team- OneDigital

This team excels in automated testing for event-driven systems. They promote experimentation through mini hacks, share expertise in brown bag sessions, and foster a culture where automation and coaching are prioritized, especially in event-driven systems.

2. Anne-Marie Charrett, Culture Amp

By fostering skill-building, facilitating workshops, and emphasizing early involvement, they’ve reduced incidents and increased test coverage. With an 80% enablement score, they’ve earned a reputation for credibility, collaboration, and driving holistic quality improvements.

Best Contributor in Open-Source Testing 🏆

To encourage innovators in testing, recognizing an individual who has made significant contributions to the open-source testing community through innovative tools, frameworks, and methodologies. However, there were two receivers of this award for their immense contribution to the testing domain:

1. Sri Harsha, Senior Test Engineer, EPAM Systems, has contributed to OSS projects like Selenium and WebdriverIO and has notably enriched Selenium documentation for the community, boasting expertise from SDLC methodologies to CI/CD practices.
2. Abhinaba Ghosh, Engineering Manager, Postman for his project: axe-playwright, a custom plugin to run accessibility with axe-core, and the innovative cypress-react-selector, a cypress plugin to locate react elements by component.

Best Open-Source Project in Testing 🏆

The award celebrated outstanding contributions to the testing community through open-source projects. These projects have provided valuable tools, frameworks, and resources to help testers and developers improve their testing processes and achieve better-quality software. We had two innovative projects that won this award:

1. Hoppscotch

Hoppscotch focuses on open source for improved privacy, transparency, and innovation in API development. It safeguards sensitive data and offers versatile solutions like Cloud, Self-Hosted, CLI, and Enterprise editions.

2. Appium Test Distribution (ATD)

ATD enables effortless parallel and distributed testing across various devices, including major cloud platforms. It supports simultaneous testing on remote and local devices, simplifying the process for users.

Best Test Tutor of the Year 🏆

Recognizing exceptional educators who have demonstrated outstanding dedication and effectiveness in imparting knowledge, skills, and insights in software testing. The award was presented to:

Raghav Pal: Raghav runs automationstepbystep.com. A seasoned Automation Architect with over a decade of experience leading varied teams of Automation and DevOps Engineers, Raghav set out to simplify Automation and DevOps learning. He imparts skills in Automation Testing, Performance Testing, Web Services, UI Testing, Framework Design, Continuous Integration, and more through his platform and coaching. He is committed to making education more accessible and empowering students worldwide. He also has a YouTube channel by the name of Automation Step-by-Step.

Excellence in Testing 🏆

Recognizing individuals’ contributions to the testing industry and celebrating their career journey have paved the way for countless testers. The award was presented to:

James Bach, CEO and Principal Consultant, Satisfice, Inc.

James is the visionary founder of the Rapid Software Testing Methodology, a sought-after consultant in the software testing business, and a respected lecturer. Throughout his career, he has revolutionized testing methodologies, advocated for exploratory testing, and championed the context-driven testing movement. James’ work has enabled testers worldwide to think critically, adapt testing to different contexts, and maintain high software quality standards.

Wrapping up TestMu 2023

As we bring TestMu 2023 to a close, we would like to thank all of you – attendees for being a part of our incredible journey and making TestMu what it is today. Your presence made the last day of TestMu 2023 one to remember. We hope you all gained new insights, made new friends, and explored more in the testing world. Thanks for joining us on this epic ride, making the last day of this edition amazing!

Shout out to all our 40+ partners who have been a great value-add to this conference with their showcase of cutting-edge tools and technologies. We hope you all had a chance to visit our partners at their booths.

For those who have been with us since the inception of TestMu Conference 2022, your unwavering support has been truly invaluable. Your participation remains pivotal as we close Day 3, navigating the currents of technology and propelling meaningful change.

Let’s continue embracing the testing revolution by securing your spot at the LambdaTest TestMu Conference 2024.

LambdaTest

LambdaTest is a continuous quality testing cloud platform that helps developers and testers ship code faster.

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