STARWEST 2026 - Experienced Tester
Sunday, September 20
Strategies for Testing AI-Based Systems
Monday, September 21
Testing from the Inside: AI-Assisted Unit Testing Edition
NewWant to level up your testing and development skills while harnessing the power of AI? In today’s environments, shifting left is more important than ever to catch bugs early and accelerate delivery. Traditional software testing teaches you to think outside the box from a user’s perspective—but some of the best insights come from looking inside the box, analyzing the code itself, and applying AI to make testing faster and smarter. Join Tariq King as he walks you through the fundamentals of program-based testing, now enhanced with AI assistance. Learn how to apply techniques such as testing...
Becoming an AI-Native Testing Organization
NewAI is changing how software is designed, built, and validated. As industries transition to AI-native product development, testing organizations must adapt their practices and skills. Manual testing is no longer enough; traditional automation should be enhanced with AI-driven quality engineering, autonomous agents, and data-powered tactics for faster and more reliable product delivery. Join Adam Auerbach to explore what it means to become an AI-Native Testing Organization. He will outline the AI-native software development lifecycle (SDLC) and highlight necessary changes in quality...
Getting Dirty with Data, Bots, Agents & Code: A Hands-On Approach to AI Testing
NewAI has crept into almost every app, feature, and test tool — but most testers still don’t have a playbook for how to utilize it. In this hands-on session, attendees will roll up their sleeves and get “dirty” with real data, bots, agents, and code. We’ll build test data generators, use ChatGPT for document transcription, create a lightweight chatbot, and even spin up dashboards to visualize results. Along the way, participants will learn how to design and evaluate systems where AI outputs are probabilistic, biased, or inconsistent — and how to adapt their testing mindset to this new reality...
Building Apps and Tests Together with AI: Agentic Spec-Driven Development
NewWhat if you could turn ideas into working software with tests to prove it, using AI as your collaborator? This hands-on half-day tutorial introduces agentic spec-driven development, a practical approach for building web apps and test automation together with AI coding agents like Claude, Cursor, Copilot, or Codex. Designed for testers and anyone involved in software development, this session shows how to define a clear project context and rules. You will write feature specs as structured markdown with user stories, design decisions, and acceptance criteria. Then you will use AI to generate...
Test Smarter, Not Harder: How to Design Test Suites for Continuous Delivery
Imagine: as soon as any developed functionality is submitted into the code repository, it is automatically subjected to the appropriate battery of tests and then released straight into the wild. Setting up the pipeline to do just that has become commonplace, but most organizations hit the same stumbling block: just what IS the appropriate battery of tests? Automated build pipelines don't always lend themselves well to the traditional stages of testing. In this hands-on tutorial, Melissa will introduce testers to the key principles of test case and test suite design that apply to...
Tuesday, September 22
Strategies for Testing Autonomous AI and Multi-Agent Architectures
NewTesting Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents presents a paradigm shift from traditional software quality assurance. Unlike deterministic, rule-based applications, AI agents exhibit emergent behaviors, learn from their environments, and make autonomous decisions, making conventional test case design and execution insufficient. This tutorial will provide a comprehensive understanding of the unique challenges and advanced strategies required to effectively test single and multi-agent AI systems. Participants will learn how testing agents differ significantly from testing traditional software....
Test Automation Architecture Master Class
NewEverybody loves to talk about the latest and greatest tools when it comes to test automation. But what about coding principles that are specific to testing, and how can you properly design a test automation architecture even before the tool selection? At what stages of delivery shall your solution be integrated into CI/CD pipelines, and what's the value you can provide to the team? Will AI replace you or parts of your work? How to make your work visible to all the key stakeholders, and ensure buy-in from your higher-ups? These are going to be the main topics of discussion during Péter's...
Holistic Performance Testing for Modern Applications
With the advent of frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue, the landscape of application performance has changed significantly in terms of testing and measurement. Gone are the days of measuring response time as a single value based on back-end performance. In modern web and mobile applications, additional layers need to be peeled apart at the front end to truly understand its performance characteristics. Traditional approaches to performance testing are no longer sufficient to provide a delightfully responsive user experience. Join Kaushal Dalvi as he details new developments in the...
AI-Driven API Test and Automation
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use GenAI to implement and test a REST API from scratch. Using Cursor as your development environment, you’ll be guided through a hands-on experience that combines powerful tools like Mocha, Supertest, k6, and GitHub Actions to implement automated testing and continuous integration. Under the guidance of Julio de Lima, you’ll first dive into essential REST API architecture concepts to build a solid foundation. Then, with the support of GenAI, you’ll generate and refine your API, create functional test cases, and automate them to validate behavior and...
AiGovOps for Testers: Validating AI Systems You Can Ship — and Defend
NewAI is in the systems you're testing — and the rules just changed. With the EU AI Act in full enforcement, 250+ U.S. state bills in motion, and audit demands rising, "we tested it" is no longer enough. Regulators, customers, and your own legal team want evidence: who validated what, against which risks, with what controls running when the model shipped. The good news: testers are the natural front line for AI governance. You already own validation, traceability, and the test-evidence chain that auditors will ask for. The opportunity is to make that work load-bearing for AI systems — and to...
Automating Test Design with a Little Help from Generative AI
NewRob Sabourin has spent over four decades pioneering automated test design across a wide range of technology stacks. More recently, he’s been exploring the power, promise—and occasional perversity—of applying Generative AI to the challenges of test design. In this lively and hands-on tutorial, Rob shares practical lessons from his experience using Generative AI to address real-world testing problems. From success stories and failures to unexpected surprises, he offers a candid look at what works, what doesn’t, and why. You will explore a variety of proven test design techniques, including...
AI-Enabled SDLC: Let the Robot Do the Work
NewTheory is great, but what about getting your hands dirty with some real problem-solving? This tutorial is about building your own AI Operating System that you'll take home and use immediately. Join Melissa Benua and Ryan Lee for a hands-on session where you'll construct a personalized AI toolkit that solves YOUR specific testing problems, regardless of your coding background. We'll start by deconstructing the modern SDLC, the same one you're already working in, and show you exactly where AI accelerates each phase. Then we'll prove a critical insight: code is now cheap. AI can generate...
Wednesday, September 23
Tester 2.0—Becoming Indispensable in the Age of AI
Over the past few months, it has become clear that human testing expertise isn't going anywhere. However, surviving the AI era is not the same as thriving in it; simply "not being replaced yet" isn’t the same as being future-ready. With code being produced faster than ever and teams getting leaner, there seems to be a growing gap between code velocity and code quality. Are we just going to have to live with the fact that software quality is in decline? The answer is "no, but..." While some things stay the same, testers of tomorrow need to prepare for the trials ahead. Advocates for quality...
AI-Assisted Accessibility Testing: Generating WCAG-Focused Checks with Playwright MCP and LLM CLI
Accessibility testing is critical, yet often under-tested due to limited expertise, time constraints, and manual effort. While tools exist, teams still struggle to translate WCAG guidelines into actionable, repeatable automated checks. In this session, Sidhartha will explore how AI can responsibly assist accessibility testing — not by replacing standards or human judgment, but by bridging the gap between guidelines and executable tests. Using Playwright MCP together with an LLM CLI, Sidhartha will demonstrate how AI can: interpret WCAG requirements, generate meaningful accessibility test...
Thursday, September 24
The Quality Engineering Mindset: High-Performance Frameworks for Career and Personal Growth
Success in software testing depends on more than technical know-how—it requires a unique set of skills that can elevate both your work and your personal growth. The mindset, habits, and analytical approach testers develop are powerful assets for thriving in an ever-changing world. The core skills honed as a tester—curiosity, critical thinking, adaptability, and clear communication—are exactly what you need to solve complex problems, make smart decisions, and drive improvement in any domain. Kulas explores how the essential skills of a software tester—like questioning assumptions, focusing...
From Shadow Work to Spotlight: Making Your QA Impact Undeniable
Your manager asks you, "What did you accomplish this quarter…?" and your mind goes blank—trying to remember every feature, test plan, and testing result you've produced. The work is ‘invisible’; catching critical bugs before no one sees them and saving time and money that nobody sees, hence ‘The QA Curse.' Meanwhile, software developers ship features, and product owners show revenue metrics. According to the renowned P.I.E. research study of corporations, 10% of your promotion is based on performance and 60% is based on visibility. So working hard doesn’t get you promoted! The challenge is...
Cartoon Logic, Real Automation: What We Learned from Saturday Morning Cartoons
Do you remember sitting in front of the TV on Saturday mornings, bowl of cereal in hand, glued to your favorite cartoons? In this interactive session, Chris Loder brings that nostalgia to life, and invites you to help connect the dots between classic cartoon wisdom and modern test automation practices. Through real-time audience participation, live polls, and open discussion, we'll explore how characters like Scooby Doo®, Wile E. Coyote®, and Bugs Bunny® accidentally (or cleverly) taught us principles that apply directly to automation strategy, code reuse, and team collaboration. What can...