Louise Woodhams on joy, burnout and testing without AI

Louise Woodhams is automation and test lead at ZapMap, the app that maps EV chargers across the country, and a TWiQ leader in the MoTaverse. She joins Rosie to talk about joy at work when tech feels relentless. Louise shares the small things that keep her going: Wicker Man quotes in her Cypress test data, a piggy bank icon in the internal admin panel, a Gemini-generated seal of approval on every release, and a corgi spotted mid-spiral. They also revisit the day a critical PHP security fix had her team watching GitHub, Bitbucket and Down Detector until 8pm, and why that counts as trauma bonding.

The conversation gets candid about AI. Louise explains why she and her testers have chosen not to use it, how developers are now worried about their jobs too, and what gets lost when a favourite dev starts talking to Claude instead of the tester. Rosie shares why the MoTaverse is doubling down on humans, what owning her own content has taught her, and how Claire Norman’s MoTaCon talk on glimmers shaped both their thinking. Plus: mermaids are safe until 2096.

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