After having great experiences with our Quality Engineering meetups in Berlin, we’re experimenting with meetups in other cities in Europe. We partnered with Regent AB to host our first meetup in Stockholm, Sweden.
Check out replays of the talks!
Surviving and Thriving with AI in QA
Test Automation lead Maryia Tuleika gave a great talk on the current state of AI. She discussed the risks and potential of AI and noted that improvements for traditional LLMs are likely to reach a ceiling soon. The main question people had was, quite predictably, “How can we verify the AI output if we aren’t professionals in the area of our question?”
Maria also made great observations about words that are often associated with AI, such as delve, realm, meticulous, and adept. While the words themselves are acceptable, people have gotten so used to seeing them in ChatGPT-generated texts that they’ve become indicators of AI use. The audience agreed that when we see LLM-generated text, we tend to trust the author less and may even feel that the author doesn’t respect the audience they’re trying to reach.
Quality, Happiness, and Developer Productivity
Test Architect Edward Schauman-Haigh focused on a topic I’m very fond of: the direct connection between developers' happiness and productivity. Finally, managers have started paying attention to employees’ emotional states, and approaches like DevEx and research like DORA are emerging. However, despite the evidence that these new practices are more efficient, some companies are still lagging behind. After the talk, attendees discussed how to convince managers to pay more attention to this topic.
Magical thinking: from astrology to code reviews
My talk offered a rational approach to reducing the effects of biases to make better decisions and work more effectively. I compared situations such as treating estimates as precise deadlines to relying on fortune cookies for predicting product success. Then I dug a bit deeper by showcasing the comparison between pull-request-based code reviews and pair programming.
I believe that to find the optimal work method, teams must work together to determine what works best for their company and specific needs. I loved chatting with attendees about ways to persuade management to allow for experimentation.
It was a great meetup, we hope to see you next time!
Regent AB was a lovely host! We had a pleasant atmosphere along with tasty sushi and wine, and — most importantly — we had great discussions with our amazing attendees. The main goal of these meetups is to have lively, engaging conversations and this meetup did not disappoint!
