STARWEST 2024 - Developer
Customize your STARWEST 2024 experience with sessions for software developers.
Sunday, September 22
Fundamentals of AI—ICAgile Certification (ICP-FAI)
Agile Tester Certification—ISTQB/ICAgile
Monday, September 23
Test Automation: How to Start and Succeed
Many organizations invest a lot of effort in test automation at the system level but then have serious problems as their product matures and changes over time. As a leader, how can you ensure that your new automation efforts will get off to a good start? What can you do to ensure that your automation work provides continuing added value? Chris Loder will explain the critical issues you need to know to get a good start, and he will share his extensive experience in building great automation. He covers the most important management issues you should address for test automation success,...
Evaluating and Testing Generative AI: Insights and Strategies
Generative AI (GenAI), exemplified by groundbreaking systems like ChatGPT and LLAMA, is revolutionizing the software landscape. These advanced technologies represent some of the most sophisticated software ever devised, capable of navigating an unprecedented range of prompts and questions, many of which have never been posed in human history. Their ability to generate varied responses to the same query and even fabricate answers when uncertain poses unique challenges in verification and testing. This talk delves into the intricacies of validating such systems and identifies areas needing...
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...
Become Your Company's Quality Consultant
Companies of all sizes face difficulties in achieving higher quality standards within their organization. As quality engineering includes various roles and activities, it is also challenging to find the right people to analyze the current state from a wide perspective and provide the recommendations that will allow these organizations to mature their teams, improving their DevOps culture in the process. Join Péter Földházi as he illustrates the knowledge and skills necessary to become your company's quality consultant. Péter's goal is to involve engineers from beginner to advanced levels...
Testing on the Right: Lessons in Monitoring and Observability
Observability has exploded onto the software engineering zeitgeist over the last five years, and for a good reason. However, it suffers from being misunderstood and sometimes equated with a closely related subject—monitoring. This confusion is compounded by the fact that some of the existing tools and frameworks just adopted a lot of the observability terminology in just the letter of the word, not the intent. Not having a solid grasp on the basics of observability is becoming unacceptable in the world of effective software quality engineering. Kaushal Dalvi shares his experiences in the...
Confident Communication Drives Powerful Quality Leadership
Driving a culture of quality starts with effective communication. Join Erika Chestnut to unlock your communication superpowers! Imagine a cheat code that helps us boost productivity and team vibes by 10x. Leverage behavior self-assessments to help discover your unique strengths, communication styles, and reactions to challenges. Erika will help you learn to communicate effectively with your team, management, and cross-functional teams to build a culture of quality. You will learn to assess how others best receive and process information and how to put the best tips and techniques into...
Tuesday, September 24
Supercharge Your Workflow: To GitHub and Beyond
Whether you are new or experienced with GitHub this class is for you! Supercharging your workflow caters to anyone who wants to enhance their Agile and DevOps process with the capabilities of GitHub. GitHub has long been the premier site for open-source projects and is now turning a pivotal corner into becoming the predominant platform for all aspects of the development lifecycle. Some examples of this include; protecting company code through various GitHub Products or curating marketplace actions and workflows prior to use. This tutorial will look at how to leverage GitHub Actions (CI/CD...
A Quality Engineering Introduction to AI and Machine Learning
Although there are several controversies and misunderstandings surrounding AI and machine learning, one thing is apparent — people have quality concerns about the safety, reliability, and trustworthiness of these types of systems. Not only are ML-based systems shrouded in mystery due to their largely black-box nature, they also tend to be unpredictable since they can adapt and learn new things at runtime. Validating ML systems is challenging and requires a cross-section of knowledge, skills, and experience from areas such as mathematics, data science, software engineering, cyber-security,...
Harnessing Generative AI in Software Testing: A Real-World Guide
The advent of Generative AI (GenAI), including Large Language Models (LLMs) and tools like ChatGPT, is not just another technological shift—it's a paradigm change, particularly in the realm of software testing. Unlike the transitions to mobile or cloud computing, GenAI introduces both unparalleled utility and disruption in software quality assurance. This session is dedicated to demystifying GenAI in software testing, distinguishing hype from reality, and providing practical tools and techniques to enhance your team's software quality while also highlighting potential pitfalls and...
Wednesday, September 25
Building and Testing Serverless API Applications with AWS SAM
The primary draw for implementation of AWS serverless applications is the supposed simplicity. Anyone that has attempted to implement testing on a serverless application, however, knows that it is anything but simple. Serverless technologies allow for the faster construction of more complex applications with more complex integrations while also providing new technologies and execution environments, all of which pose a challenge to those used to testing in a more traditional way. This presentation looks at an API-based serverless application as an example and introduces how the application...
Flowstate, Automation, and LLMs: Don’t Let Tests Block Productivity
It is known that developers are most productive when they can stay in flow, but also that delaying or omitting tests can cause disruption, breakage, and security issues down the line. By properly leveraging background automation, team collaboration, and machine learning in your native DevOps workflow, you can get the best of both worlds: productive flowstate AND safe code. In this talk, Jon Peck will take a look at ways to take advantage of asynchronous test notifications, single-pane-of-glass reviews, and GPT-based tools for faster coding, test generation, and vulnerability remediation....
Quality Is More Than Testing—How to Build a Test Team with a Customer-Centric Mindset
PreviewTesters are not part of the process; they don’t have sufficient knowledge of the client’s business to understand the big picture. This failure to understand leads to unsatisfactory outcomes that leave the client with unanswered questions. For a client to feel testing is of value, the software must work seamlessly and exceed their expectations. The solution is to shift testing left towards discovery and include testers early in the process so they have a stake in end-to-end results. Testers must understand the subject matter, ask questions, and be a valued part of the core team....
Cautionary Tales in Integration Testing
Integration tests are often rife with pitfalls that can result in confusing, flaky, or otherwise completely unmaintainable tests. Those pitfalls can often be mitigated by testing in containers, as this usually provides the most straightforward path to creating ephemeral test environments. Containerized tests typically provide isolation and reproducibility, but they can be costly to initially set up, especially if the system under test is not built for a containerized environment. Nonetheless, there are many benefits to containerized testing, even if the system under test won’t ultimately...
BiDi-Powered Selenium: Shaping Tomorrow's Automation
Explore the power of W3C BiDi protocol in Selenium. Join Puja to see how this new-age protocol transforms browser automation, bringing massive performance gains. BiDi taps into the event-driven nature of browsers to expose fine-grained automation functionality. This session will cover: W3C BiDi protocol basics, upgrading current browser automation, new automation possibilities, practical applications of BiDi in action, Selenium's ongoing BiDi journey, and how you can contribute to Selenium's BiDi development. Take a peek into the future of Selenium automation with BiDi, unlocking advanced...
AI in Testing: A Moderated Panel Discussion
Artificial intelligence is the newest trend in software testing. But what is it, and how will it impact the tester's role, both today and in the future? What do you need to do to embrace this emerging technology? Tariq King will moderate this panel discussion to give you an opportunity to hear the opinions of industry leaders about AI in testing. You will have a chance to drive the debate, so come prepared with all your AI questions.
Lightning Strikes the Keynotes
Throughout the years, Lightning Talks have been a popular part of the STAR conferences. If you’re not familiar with the concept, Lightning Talks consists of a series of five-minute talks by different speakers within one presentation period. Lightning Talks are the opportunity for speakers to deliver their single biggest bang-for-the-buck idea in a rapid-fire presentation. And now, lightning has struck the STAR keynotes. Some of the best-known experts in testing will step up to the podium and give you their best shot of lightning. Get multiple keynote presentations for the price of one—and...
Thursday, September 26
Testing for Synergy: Progressive Testing Strategies for Interdependent Product Suites
In today's dynamic business landscape, organizations grapple with the challenge of innovating across multiple product developments simultaneously. This session explores the intricacies of concurrent development involving seven products, highlighting the pivotal roles of scrum teams, engineering approach, and collaborative testing strategies. Traditional independent product testing approaches prove insufficient in the context of interdependence and a unified platform. The discussion centers on the need for an evolved testing strategy that shifts left, meticulously addressing integration...
“Low Code”—Coded Automation Using Free Tools
Using artificial intelligence to generate test code is a hybrid automation strategy that combines the best of both worlds. Tests can be created very quickly by almost anyone using AI, yet the tests are still planned by humans and maintainable by humans. With the right prompts, you can have AI construct traditional test code using open source testing tools that the world is already familiar with (Chai, Mocha, Cypress). As a result, you end up with structured code that is logical and easy to maintain without having to wonder what the AI is testing. In this session, Timothy will look at...
Cloud Testing of Cybersecurity Features in Mobile Apps
In CI/CD pipelines, automated testing services validate functionality of apps across hundreds of real-world mobile devices and OS versions. However, these same automated testing services can use methods and tools that violate security policies such as: emulators, virtualization, resigning, debugging, dual spaces, Magisk and more. Once security protections are added to a mobile app, the security features will trigger and may prevent automated testing. In this session, Karen will discuss how you can eliminate the need to test protected and unprotected builds separately. You will also...
Compile to Combat in 24 Hours—The Death of Regression Tests
As a Quality Engineering Director for a consulting firm delivering innovative data products to the US Department of Defense, Sufyan was faced with a new challenge. The US Government had directed all agencies delivering software solutions to the Department of Defense to provide the ultimate advantage to its warfighters. All software solutions must meet the Compile to Combat (C2C24) directive in that all requests for changes to software being used by the military must be delivered in 24 hours from the point of development to delivery. As a Quality Engineering team, this meant long and...
Friday, September 27
Feeling Lucky, Won't Delete Later
How many of you know someone who just seems to be REALLY lucky? Good things just seem to happen to them over and over again? A few years ago, I noticed this with people in my life and wondered…is there a way to be lucky on purpose? And turns out--it's very possible! Luck is not a singular binary thing, where you are or are not lucky. Instead it’s 5 (or more) different things, many things you can DIY yourself. In this talk you will learn about the many different kinds of luck, how you can do them on purpose and change your life for good, just like I did!