A brief overview of my tips on how to market yourself better as a Software Tester, and a few words about myself followed by tips on how content creation can help you in marketing yourself better, as a software tester.

Takeaways

• Prioritise to put yourself out there with content creation
• Recognise how blogging can help
• Recognise how video tutorial creation can help
• Recognise how podcast creation can help

Mirza Sisic

TESTING CONSULTANT

Mirza has always been a technology geek, helping friends and family with computer-related issues. Started originally in tech support and moved to software testing and has been there since. Worked as a freelance web developer for a while as well. A casual RPG gamer and a Sci-fi fan. When he’s not sharing memes online Mirza is usually learning new things, taking part in the testing community, or writing posts for his blog.

Takeaways

• Rejection is not always a bad thing
• Having career goals helps to overcome the feeling of being stuck
• It is actually not difficult to start riding the horse which you have ridden before. It’s just muscle memory

Maryam Umar

HEAD OF QA

I work in London as Head of QA of an Instant Salesware firm. I started my career 15 years ago as a QA test engineer in the finance and mobile industry. After transitioning to the eCommerce sector, I performed QA in various capacities for online restaurant and travel services. I continue to work in QA as a manager now with special focus on sustainable delivery practices. I pay special attention to team dynamics and ensuring engineers are in roles which give them a sense of purpose. In addition to this, I have been a keen advocate of creating and sustaining diverse teams by speaking at schools and universities to educate students about what a creative space the technology sector can be.

In this session, Lee Marshall, aka 'The Pirate Tester' talks about the book 'Be More Pirate' by Sam Conniff Allende and how it has helped him with his career.

Lee Marshall

PIRATE TESTER

A self-confessed pirate tester, Lee has been testing since 2012. Specialising in testing databases and reports, Lee also blogs, runs the MidsTest Meetup for the West Midlands. Outside of testing he is a husband, father, enjoys cooking and playing computer games.

Srinivas Murthy works as a Principal Consultant for more than 14 years across various industries, domains, cultures and regions. Through these various roles, Srinivas has a strong influence on where the QA community can be taken to within the organisation at a global level and is hoping to share some of this knowledge with people outside the organisation and hopefully help people make an impact. 

In this session, hosted by the great Vernon Richards, Srinivas will be answering questions about Careers, from our attendees live on the Main Stage.

Takeaways

• Confidence about growing in their careers, attending interviews and performance reviews

Srinivas Murthy

PRINCIPAL QUALITY ANALYST

I am working as a Principal consultant at Thoughtworks from the past 14 years prior to which I was at Capgemini and Siemens Apart from helping my clients deliver high quality software, I have also built the QA function within their organisations including recruiting and career progression. I represented GDS to co-create the DDAT QA job family which is now part of UK government departments Within Thoughtworks, I run the QA community in UK and also a Global Community Lead for Thoughtworks QA community worldwide. As part of these roles, I lead conversations on revising and rebuilding the QA job profiles and the recruitment process globally. I also lead the career progression at Thoughtworks globally having recently revised the archetypes and competencies for career pathways. I spend time mentoring QAs at Thoughtworks Over the years I have been a trainer multiple times for Thoughtworks University training over 200 graduates, along with revamping the course material Recently I have also co-created an onboarding guide for new joiners to help them assimilate in Thoughtworks

This session will focus on leveraging public speaking to your benefit. We will cover community meetups, user groups, workshops and conferences.

Takeaways

• Identify the benefit of meetups and user groups
• Identify benefits of conferences & workshops

Mirza Sisic

TESTING CONSULTANT

Mirza has always been a technology geek, helping friends and family with computer-related issues. Started originally in tech support and moved to software testing and has been there since. Worked as a freelance web developer for a while as well. A casual RPG gamer and a Sci-fi fan. When he’s not sharing memes online Mirza is usually learning new things, taking part in the testing community, or writing posts for his blog.

Now we will cover how to use social media to your benefit, to become more visible to the recruiters, build up your online presence and reputation and the social aspect of your GitHub profile.

Takeaways

• Identify benefits of social media, such as LinkedIn
• Identify the social media aspect of GitHub

Mirza Sisic

TESTING CONSULTANT

Mirza has always been a technology geek, helping friends and family with computer-related issues. Started originally in tech support and moved to software testing and has been there since. Worked as a freelance web developer for a while as well. A casual RPG gamer and a Sci-fi fan. When he’s not sharing memes online Mirza is usually learning new things, taking part in the testing community, or writing posts for his blog.

Takeaways

• How to navigate the entire interview process 
• How to create great resumes and cover letters 
• Tips for standing out from other candidates
• How to prepare for the interview and what to do during the interview
• How to approach technical interviews
• Negotiating the optimum offer

Conor Fitzgerald

HEAD OF TESTING

Conor Fitzgerald is a Quality Advocate with over 15 years of experience. He is passionate about whole team testing and working with teams on quality improvements. Currently, he is working as Head of Testing for Poppulo in Cork, Ireland. He has spoken at a number of conferences in recent years, including SoftTestDublin, TestBash, OnlineTestConf, AgileLeanInternational and RebelCon. Conor is an active member of the test community and is a Co-Founder of the Ministry of Testing Cork. Previous positions included Test Consultant, Test Lead/Manager and Automation focused roles. These positions were held in a wide variety of industries from embedded systems to financial systems with companies ranging from startups to large multinationals such as Intel. Occasionally blogs here at conorfi.com and frequently tweets at @conorfi.

A great many self-improvement books exist that claim that they can change your life. Yet stories and real-life observations are what make us better human beings and can help us advance in our careers and enrich our lives.

This book by Prakash Iyer has nudged me to unlearn, relearn, and reflect. I now understand the importance of taking action to boost my career.

I will cover some insights from this book during this talk.

Rahul Parwal

SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER

Rahul is a Software Engineer by education and works as a Senior Software Engineer with ifm engineering pvt. ltd., India. He is a Software Tester by trade, Programmer by practice, and a Mythology lover by heart. His latest e-book is available at https://leanpub.com/productivitytoolkit

• How thinking about Value helped me get promoted to a "team trainer" a year into my career.
• How using Value helped me to move from a product team I didn't want to be on, to one that I did!
• How I used Value to persuade my employer to fund a 4 day training course to further my career.
• And many more similar Valuable (hah!) stories for you to think about how you too can tap into Value

Takeaways

• Understand different roles and responsibilities, and have ideas on generating Value in them
• Use the concept of Value to better structure your role and responsibilities on the impact you can make
• Track the Value of your daily work (I've helped 3 people to get promoted using these ideas)
• Talk confidently about Value and impact using your own examples to absolutely catapult your career

David Williams

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING MANAGER

Award-Winning International Conference Speaker | Software Testing Veteran | Father | Mental Health First Aider | STEM Ambassador | Humanist | He/Him

Across his 19 years in the field of engineering, quality and testing he's been a web developer, tester, senior, team lead, test manager, head of testing, and has helped businesses to build quality-centric engineering practices and a focus around delivering customer value. He's now leading mobile application engineering at Ada Health, to improve their mobile apps, and to mature their consumer domain's engineering and delivery practices.

We've also seen his award-winning talks at several international testing conferences, including TestBash Brighton, where he spoke about Mental Health in Testing.

In this part, we will discuss how can a personal portfolio be used to impress a potential employer.

Takeaways

• Develop a professional tester portfolio website
• Identify the social media aspect of GitHub

Mirza Sisic

TESTING CONSULTANT

Mirza has always been a technology geek, helping friends and family with computer-related issues. Started originally in tech support and moved to software testing and has been there since. Worked as a freelance web developer for a while as well. A casual RPG gamer and a Sci-fi fan. When he’s not sharing memes online Mirza is usually learning new things, taking part in the testing community, or writing posts for his blog.

Would you consider yourself a leader? In the book, Executive Presence, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an expert on workplace power and influence, shows how to identify and embody the Executive Presence one needs to succeed in their career.

We have seen many people not succeed as leaders, even though they have the potential to be a leader. A key missing piece is Executive Presence.

In this book recommendation, I will share some insights into how to demonstrate executive presence and why it's so imperative for having a long-lasting and fulfilling career.

Ajay Balamurugadas

SENIOR DIRECTOR - QE, GSPANN TECHNOLOGIES

Ajay Balamurugadas, goes by the handle ‘ajay184f’ in the testing community and is continuously re-inventing his testing methodology. He co-founded Weekend Testing - a worldwide movement for skilled testing, authored multiple books available at bit.ly/booksaj and bit.ly/ajleanpub. His friends associate the terms - ‘Change Agent, Idea Man, Motivational’ to him. He tweets under @ajay184f and loves to have long conversations on software testing and life in general. He is currently working at GSPANN Technologies, Inc. as Senior Director - QE. When not testing, he spends time with his wife and two children.

In this session, Eduardo Fischer dos Santos, will be giving advice and answering any questions attendees might have about their careers.

This is an open session, during one of the breaks, that everyone can join in (with video or just on the chat).

Eduardo Fischer dos Santos

QUALITY ASSURANCE ENGINEER

Is a quality assurance engineer who focuses on mobile test automation and is currently working for an international stockbroker. He discovered his passion for testing during his time as a back-end developer and eventually made testing his full-time job.

In this part we go through examples of volunteer activities and see how these can help you stand out.

Takeaways

• Recognise the advantages volunteer activities can bring to your career development

Mirza Sisic

TESTING CONSULTANT

Mirza has always been a technology geek, helping friends and family with computer-related issues. Started originally in tech support and moved to software testing and has been there since. Worked as a freelance web developer for a while as well. A casual RPG gamer and a Sci-fi fan. When he’s not sharing memes online Mirza is usually learning new things, taking part in the testing community, or writing posts for his blog.

Takeaways

• Inspire other testers to run similar initiatives in their local markets
• How there is space in the testing world for more people, and this is a good way to enter it
• By explaining our numbers, we want to demonstrate that our model is reasonable and profitable for others to copy

Jokin Aspiazu

FELLOW TESTER

Jokin as been a Software Tester since 2008, he had moved from Waterfall to Agile, from Test cases to Exploratory testing, from Excel to Rapid Software Testing. He has learnt from James Bach & Michael Bolton, from Huib Schoots & Richard Bradshaw, from Lisa Crispin & Fiona Charles, from Pekka Marjamäki & Martin Hynie … and one night he invited Pradeep Soundararajan to dinner, so he knows about the secret sauce of testing. After a couple of years experimenting as Product Owner, he is back to testing, now trying the test consultant way.

A book that has had an impact on my career: The Professional by Subroto Bagchi.

A manifesto on what it takes to be a true professional in the modern world. By common definition, a professional is anyone who possesses the skills and knowledge necessary for a career-whether as a surgeon, a software engineer, or a plumber.

But according to Subroto Bagchi, our increasingly global marketplace demands more. In a world where the foolish, selfish, and unethical decisions of a few have affected the lives of millions, The Professional urges readers to act responsibly and reexamine "business as usual".

By exploring a variety of professional dilemmas across many industries, Bagchi defines the qualities of true professionals and the attributes that separate them from the merely competent. These include:

• Suffer no false attractions: It's always tempting to take the path of least resistance, but true professionals can separate the genuine from the phoney.
• Know when to say no: True professionals are not afraid to say no to things that are not worth their time, their energy, or their creativity.
• Take the long view: True professionals understand that every action, decision, and relationship, no matter how small, can have a lasting impact

Mahathee Dandibhotla

SENIOR ENGINEERING LEAD QUALITY

I'm Mahathee and I work as Senior Engineering Lead Quality at Persistent Systems Hyderabad, India. Apart from work, I'm a fun loving person. I love to bake, spend time with my family. I also volunteer at The Test Tribe and love interacting with people. I'm passionate, curious, and intrinsically motivated and always put my best foot forward in whatever I do. I also love reading books which are mostly motivational and have a good story telling in them.

This short presentation offers an updated perspective on what most modern organizations value in terms of quality, and how Quality Engineers and QE Teams will need to broaden their sphere of influence and skillsets to meet those expectations.

We will look at it from 2 perspectives – how Testing needs to evolve as a discipline, and how Quality could expand to take on emerging roles in the organization.

Takeaways

• The Quality Engineer role needs to keep evolving to be considered a high-value discipline in the organization
• The Quality Engineer can expand existing software testing scope farther (TestOps), wider (Experience QA), and deeper (Data Quality)
• The QE Team can also evolve to take on emerging Business, Process and Technology roles in a DevOps environment

Niko Mangahas

HEAD OF QUALITY ENGINEERING PRACTICE

Niko has over 15 years of Quality and Process Strategy Consulting for Information Systems across virtually every industry. After starting as a developer, he found his true passion in Testing and Quality roles. Formerly, Niko was Lead Solution Architect for QA at Hewlett Packard Asia-Pacific, growing the team in headcount, revenue, and clients through impactful capabilities and exciting innovations - touching all aspects of functional and non-functional testing. He also started and led the Enterprise Quality program for CareerBuilder as Director of QA, and now leads the Quality Engineering Practice for RCG Global Services, where he drives best practices, standards, innovation, and capability building internally and through technology partners. In addition, he has stood up and ran a number of testing COEs, teams, squads, and communities and has developed roadmaps, architecture, and automation programs for enterprise clients. He is passionate about leveraging AI and RPA technologies in Quality Engineering.

In this Discussion session, our wonderful host Callum Akehurst-Ryan is joined by three career experts to discuss ways to improve your CVs and make them stand out.

Elizabeth Zagroba is Quality Lead at Mendix in Rotterdam. Her goal is to guide enough testers, leaders, etc. to make herself redundant so she can take on new and bigger challenges. You can find Elizabeth's big thoughts on her blog.

Nicola Martin is passionate about increasing diversity and inclusion in software engineering. She is a panellist and speaker with over 20 years of experience in tech and she speaks at global conferences focusing on quality, testing, diversity, women in tech and mentoring.

Peet Michelsen is a seasoned software tester with over 20 years of experience who specialises in test automation, test management and continuous integration. In his work, he wants to be challenged and is always on the lookout for the next problem to solve. And when not working, Peet likes to explore the Scottish countryside and enjoy a good ale or whisky.

Takeaways

• Ways to improve your CVs and how they can get noticed

Elizabeth Zagroba

QUALITY LEAD

Elizabeth is Quality Lead at Mendix in Rotterdam. She reviews and contributes code to a Python test automation repository for 15+ teams building Mendix apps across three units. She builds exploratory testing skills by asking pointed questions throughout the unit, facilitating workshops, and coordinating an ensemble (mob) testing practice. She injects what she learns from conferences, books, and meetups into her daily work, and spreads her knowledge through the company-wide Agile guild she facilitates. She's presented at conferences throughout North America and Europe, and co-organizes the Friends of Good Software conference (FroGS conf http://frogsconf.nl/). She coaches people to success when possible, but isn't afraid to direct when necessary. She's the go-to person for things like supporting new presenters, reviewing documentation, navigating tricky organizational questions, and thinking critically about what we're building. Her goal is to guide enough testers, leaders, etc. to make herself redundant so she can take on new and bigger challenges. You can find Elizabeth's big thoughts on her blog (https://elizabethzagroba.com/) and little thoughts on Twitter @ezagroba.

Nicola Martin

HEAD OF QUALITY ENGINEERING

Nicola is currently working in the AI and Data Science field as Head of Quality Engineering at Adarga. Nicola is passionate about increasing diversity and inclusion in software engineering. She is a panellist and speaker with over 20 years' experience in tech. She speaks at global conferences focusing on quality, testing, diversity, women in tech and mentoring. She mentors and coaches professionals wanting to either change or develop their careers. She is a mentor for the British Computer Society (BCS), and is also a committee team member for the BCS Special Interest Group in Software Testing (SIGiST), BCS Pride🏳️‍🌈 and BCSWomen.

Peet Michielsen

SENIOR SYSTEMS VERIFICATION ENGINEER

I am a seasoned software tester with over 20 years of experience. I specialise in test automation, test management and continuous integration. I started my career in The Netherlands and later moved to Scotland. On both sides of the North Sea, I have worked on numerous projects in a wide range of industries. I'm currently working as a senior systems verification engineer at Optos in Dunfermline, Scotland. In my work I want to be challenged and am always on the lookout for the next problem to solve. And when not working, I like to explore the Scottish countryside and enjoy a good ale or whisky.

In this session, happening during one of the breaks, Niko will be answering any questions live and giving tips on how to create a good CV.

You'll be able to join Niko, with video or just on the chat.

If you would like Niko to review your CV before the event and chat to him about it, during this session, please upload your CV here or send it to Niko Mangahas with the subject: TestBash Careers - CV Advice Session with Niko.

Niko Mangahas

HEAD OF QUALITY ENGINEERING PRACTICE

Niko has over 15 years of Quality and Process Strategy Consulting for Information Systems across virtually every industry. After starting as a developer, he found his true passion in Testing and Quality roles. Formerly, Niko was Lead Solution Architect for QA at Hewlett Packard Asia-Pacific, growing the team in headcount, revenue, and clients through impactful capabilities and exciting innovations - touching all aspects of functional and non-functional testing. He also started and led the Enterprise Quality program for CareerBuilder as Director of QA, and now leads the Quality Engineering Practice for RCG Global Services, where he drives best practices, standards, innovation, and capability building internally and through technology partners. In addition, he has stood up and ran a number of testing COEs, teams, squads, and communities and has developed roadmaps, architecture, and automation programs for enterprise clients. He is passionate about leveraging AI and RPA technologies in Quality Engineering.

Takeaways

• Career breaks could be good, relaxing and fun if planned a little. How to leave the door open to return back to work within the same organisation?
• How to cope when the career break is not a planned one- How to join the workforce again after the break?
• Some stories both personal and from others which helped me make the decisions during tough times

Kiruthika Ganesan

HEAD OF QUALITY ASSURANCE

I am currently the Head of QA at Deko with over 15 years of experience in the IT industry, working as a Developer, Tester and Tutor. However, testing is what I am really passionate about because I get to experience the best of both worlds, from understanding what the customer really wants, through to seeing how the magic really happens. Also, a keen advocate of Women in Tech initiatives. When I am not working, I love spending time with my kids and enjoy writing short stories.

In this talk, Ioan shows how this book by Steve Krug has improved his testing and consequently, his career.

Ioan Solderea

QA

I am one of those people who want to know all about all but will also be happy knowing a lot about a lot. Because of this I choose to be a tester since you get to learn always new technologies, you get to test in the most diverse areas and it is always fun to tell people you found a bug.

Finding your next role can be a bit exciting and overwhelming at the same time. Another layer of complexity adds when you must find a job in a new country.
In this talk, I’ll share my experiences in job hunting when I moved to the UK in 2014 and the tips on how to land a job on a new island.

Takeaways

• Understand the challenges of finding a job in a new country
• Learn how to tackle the above challenges
• Identify how can you help someone new on your team

Suman Bala

TEST ARCHITECT

Suman Bala is a Test Architect with a passion for improvement in quality processes and is a strong believer in Test Automation. She feels proud of how people’s perspective has changed regarding testing throughout her career. She is striving to instil the idea that quality is everyone’s responsibility as opposed to merely laying it at the feet of QA. She is a co-organiser for the Ministry of Testing Bucks meet-up. She is a mentor and coach at work and within the wider testing community. She is co-designing and delivering the “Software Testing Bootcamp” sponsored by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

• Content Creation
• Public Speaking
• Social Media
• Portfolio Website
• Volunteer Activities

In this session, I'll draw a conclusion to the above and will be answering live all the questions you have.

Takeaways

• Prioritise to put yourself out there by leveraging content creation - writing blog posts about testing, and creating video tutorials and podcasts
• Plan to establish yourself as a relevant professional, using public speaking at meetups, conferences, user groups and practical workshops
• Use social media to improve your online presence
• Develop a GitHub profile which illustrates your practical knowledge, to demonstrate you can make an automated checking framework, and more
• Identify how to develop a professional tester portfolio website, which can give you better visibility in search engine results - have basic SEO in mind
• Collaborate with the testing communities, and their members to increase the number of people in your personal network - a good referral can give you a big advantage over other candidates when applying for jobs
• Recognise the advantage of volunteer activities, such as pro-bono mentoring, or contributing to Open Source
• Conclude how to use all the above, to get more lucrative job offers, negotiate more perks, explain to recruiters why you are worth more than the initial offer, and/or after applying the above for a while, use it to explain at your current job why you deserve a better raise

Mirza Sisic

TESTING CONSULTANT

Mirza has always been a technology geek, helping friends and family with computer-related issues. Started originally in tech support and moved to software testing and has been there since. Worked as a freelance web developer for a while as well. A casual RPG gamer and a Sci-fi fan. When he’s not sharing memes online Mirza is usually learning new things, taking part in the testing community, or writing posts for his blog.

It's not a TestBash without 99-Second Talks!

The 99-Second Talks is the attendee's stage, an opportunity for you to come on stage and talk for, that's right, 99 seconds.

This time we will be experimenting with something new: you will be given the opportunity to pre-record your 99-Seconds Talk throughout the conference. This will then be shown at the end of the day and/or added to the MoT Learning Platform after the event.

You can talk about anything, a testing topic you want to share, a personal experience, an idea sparked by all the amazing talks you've just listened to... the stage is yours, for 99-Seconds!

If doing the talk live on the main stage, our beautiful host Jenna Charlton will introduce you on stage and start the clock. As soon as the time's up, a noise will be heard and that's it: time's up!

Prerequisites

You will need to give your web browser permissions to allow your camera and microphone. Make sure these are enabled before you go on screen.