STAREAST 2025 - Test Automation
Sunday, April 27
Fundamentals of AI—ICAgile Certification (ICP-FAI)
Monday, April 28
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,...
Instill a DevOps Testing Culture in Your Team and Organization
The DevOps movement is here. Companies across many industries are breaking down siloed IT departments and federating them into product development teams. Testing and its practices are at the heart of these changes. Traditionally, IT organizations have been staffed with mostly manual testers and a limited number of automation and performance engineers. To keep pace with development in the new “you build it, you own it” environment, testing teams and individuals must develop new technical skills and even embrace coding to stay relevant and add greater value to the business. DevOps really...
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...
Test Automation Strategies: Navigating DevOps, Agile, and Complex Technologies
In the era of DevOps, agile methodologies, and the ever-expanding landscape of intricate technologies, the traditional bulky test automation strategy document has rapidly lost its relevance. Testers are grappling with the challenge of succinctly communicating intricate testing objectives. Yet, a beacon of optimism shines through! A streamlined, actionable, and impactful test automation strategy tailored for agile, DevOps, and even the notorious waterfall approach is within reach. Join Janna as she draws upon real-world test strategies from her experience, deconstructing the essential...
Getting Started with AI-Driven Automation
AI has been rapidly changing the way we approach software testing. Traditional test automation is time-consuming to create and breaks down easily in the presence of change. Thankfully, AI is helping testing teams create less procedural, more resilient tests that are able to self-heal in the presence of modern, rapidly changing, highly dynamic production systems. This sounds great, but you may be asking yourself: How do I get started? What additional skills do I need to learn? What tools are available for me to start using, right now? Join Dionny Santiago as he breaks down different AI...
Tuesday, April 29
Modern Web Testing with Playwright
Everybody gets frustrated when web apps are broken, but testing them thoroughly doesn’t need to be a chore. Playwright, a new open-source browser automation tool from Microsoft, makes testing web apps fun! Playwright offers a slew of nifty features like automatic waiting, mobile emulation, and network interception. Plus, with isolated browser contexts, Playwright tests can set up much faster than traditional Web UI tests. In this session, we will automate concise yet robust web app tests for a Kanban board web app with Playwright in TypeScript. You'll learn to test modern web apps of any...
Web Security Testing: The Basics and More
Web applications are often security critical or serve as front-ends for security critical applications, making web testing for vulnerabilities an essential part of software testing. Unfortunately, most software testers have not been taught how to identify web security issues while testing applications. Join Tom Stiehm as he shares what you need to know to security test web-based applications as part of your overall testing process. Learn about the most common web security vulnerabilities and how they are introduced into web code and exploited by hackers. Explore test techniques for...
Exploratory Testing in the Heat of the Sprint
Agile teams are burdened with the challenge of delivering working product increments after short iterations of development. Getting software from an ambiguous terse, incomplete requirement–to a done, working, solid, valuable, high-quality code requires testers to continuously adapt to change in a turbulent context and deliver actionable results. Chris Blain will illustrate how charter-driven session-based exploratory testing techniques can empower agile teams and help them learn quickly and adapt based on what really matters. Testers can design and execute tests on the fly as they explore...
test_my_code_with_python()
NewPython is one of the most popular programming languages these days. It's a great language for both beginners and pros, and the pytest framework makes testing in Python a breeze. In this introductory tutorial, we will learn how to start automating tests in Python with pytest. Specifically, we will cover configuring test projects, writing unit tests for libraries, writing API tests with requests, and writing UI tests with Playwright. We will also dig into many of pytest's advanced features like fixtures, parameters, and configs. Bring your laptops because you will be coding along with the...
Modern Web Testing with Cypress
The web has evolved. Finally, testing has too. Cypress is a modern testing tool that answers the testing needs of modern web applications. It has been gaining a lot of traction in the last couple of years, gaining worldwide popularity. If you have been waiting to learn Cypress, wait no more! Filip Hric will guide you through the first steps on how to start using Cypress and set up a project on your own. The good news is, learning Cypress is incredibly easy. You’ll write your first test in no time, and then you’ll discover how to write a full end-to-end test for a modern web application.
Learn How to Implement a Test Automation Framework in Java
In the realm of software development, the challenge of maintaining high-quality standards while meeting tight deadlines is ever-present. GenAI enabling developers to produce code and potentially even more defects in shorter time clearly calls for more rapid test automation development. One of the most complex and time consuming activities is designing and building an effective test automation framework. Péter will provide some theoretical background, then the attendees will implement a UI test automation framework in Java. One of the key aspects covered in this tutorial is proper...
Wednesday, April 30
Heuristics to Help You Design, Build, and Choose Test Tools
How well do we design and acquire our tools? Drawing on compelling evidence gathered from a series of interviews, workshops, surveys, and case studies with industry gurus and hands-on practitioners, we’re diving deep into a set of heuristics. Each one is a gateway to discovery, backed by explanations and enriched with engaging exploratory activities based on solid research. As an attendee, you will gain access to resources that can help enable critical thinking and reflection about tools and the problems they solve. We will see how sometimes heuristics can pinpoint when a tool might...
Test Automation Tune-Up with Cypress: Fixing Common Pitfalls and Boosting Efficiency
Sluggish tests, flakiness, and maintenance headaches can be signs of test automation anti-patterns creeping into your codebase. In this session, Anna Patterson will identify the most common pitfalls developers and testers encounter in Cypress—such as excessive reliance on UI interactions, hard-coded waits, unstable test data, and lack of isolation. She will break down how these issues impact your test reliability and offer actionable strategies to overcome them. By the end of the talk, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge to optimize your test suite for speed, stability, and long-term...
Is Your Playbook for Generative AI in Test Automation on Point?
Generative AI allows us to create test automation scripts really fast, but how can we be sure the outcome is truly complete? In this talk, Julio will discuss the critical process of how to define your prompts and evaluate if the results from AI-driven test automation creation cover all the necessary bases. He will bring a playbook for GenAI in test automation created based on the results of research that collected advice and feedback from dozens of test automation engineers. In the session, Julio will discuss practical examples of the mindset, a set of steps to be followed when using...
Path to Becoming a Test Automation Engineer Rock Star!
So… you want to become a Test Automation Engineer (or hire and develop one)? While there’s quite a bit of information available about important technical and tool skills to master, there’s not enough discussion around the path to becoming an effective Test Automation Engineer that knows how to add VALUE. This had led to a proliferation of engineers who are proficient with tools and building frameworks but have skill and knowledge gaps, especially in software testing, that reduce the value they deliver with test automation. In this talk, Lee will share his lessons learned from over 30 years...
Elevating Test Leadership: Strategies for Effective Team Management and Career Growth
PreviewMastering test leadership involves not only guiding your team through complex testing scenarios but also fostering their professional development and advancing your own career trajectory. In today’s fast-evolving tech landscape, test leaders face the challenge of balancing rigorous quality assurance with identifying the talent, development of team’s skills and career trajectories. During his tenure as Practice Head of Quality Engineering at a major tech firm, Srinivas Rao Labhani implemented a comprehensive strategy of implementing a sense of belongingness to the organization,...
How to Automate Your Desktop Apps with Ruby and Appium
PreviewDesktop automation is not easy, and for a while, Augustin Gottlieb Pequeno found automatically testing desktop apps a challenge. In this talk, he will share his automation journey with you so you can avoid the pitfalls and pain points common to desktop automation and properly build an automation framework for your desktop apps that can run on a CI/CD pipeline, while being able to support cross-platform testing. In addition, he will also explore the use of Ruby for test automation and how this often overlooked niche language is perfect for desktop automation testing when combined...
Panel - Revolutionizing Test Automation: The Impact of Generative AI on Quality Engineering
As Generative AI rapidly reshapes how we work, its impact on quality engineering and more specifically test automation is profound. Join our panel of AI and testing experts as they dive into how Gen AI is transforming testing practices, from creating smarter automation frameworks to redefining manual testing roles. Explore cutting-edge tools, discuss the challenges of integrating AI into test strategies, and debate the ethical implications of AI-driven quality engineering. This thought-provoking session will be driven by your questions and thus provide actionable insights, inspire...
Thursday, May 1
Harnessing the Power of Large Language Models: Automatically Generating High-Quality, Readable, and Maintainable Unit Test Cases for Java and Python
In this talk, Lisa Waugh will discuss the challenges in delivering high-quality software due to manual testing and the need for automated unit test generation. Despite the development of techniques and tools to automatically generate unit tests, the generated tests often suffer from poor readability and lack resemblance to developer-written tests. To address these issues, Lisa's team has investigated the use of large language models (LLMs) to improve the readability and usability of automatically generated tests. They have created a pipeline to guide LLMs in generating high-coverage,...
Treat Your Test Tools Like a Real Product
Have you ever had a QA tool fail to gain momentum? Ever had a splintered array of test automation frameworks that does the exact same thing across your quality engineering organization? Ever have a hard time getting leadership to sign off for tools that you know could easily boost testing productivity? If you answered yes to any of these, come join Albrecht in this crash course in building your quality engineering roadmap. In this session, Albrecht will go over how to build a product roadmap that aligns with your organization's goals and identify key milestones, to ensure your toolset is...
Navigating the Future: Embracing Automation Testing in a Rapidly Evolving Digital World
PreviewIn today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, quality assurance is undergoing a major transformation. QA professionals must maintain software quality while adapting to the rapid pace of development, accelerated by AI. To keep up, the shift from manual testing to automation and AI-driven solutions is essential. This transition is not just about speed—it’s about fostering innovation, adaptability, and future readiness. However, adopting automation is complex, requiring team-wide processes and long-term maintenance for success. Where do you start? In this session, Amanda will share a...
Applying Software Testing Principles to Risk Management Control Testing
PreviewIn today's dynamic business environment, robust risk management is crucial for organizational success. Traditional approaches to risk management control testing often focus on compliance, but they can benefit significantly from the rigorous methodologies developed in software testing. This presentation will explore how core software testing principles—such as test case design, automation, regression testing, and defect tracking—can be effectively applied to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of risk management control testing. Attendees will learn how to leverage these...
Scaling Automated Tests to Infinity and Beyond
Testing is a risk-mitigating activity that takes time. Ideally, we want to cover as many behaviors as possible in the shortest amount of time for fast feedback. The only way to speed up is to scale up. But how? This talk outlines a playbook for the five most impactful ways to scale up tests. From improving infrastructure to arranging tests more efficiently down to refining the performance of particular steps, you will learn tried-and-true techniques for running more tests in less time. With this playbook, you could scale up to hundreds of tests running concurrently without crashing. Join...
Playwright Tips & Tricks—Why Does Microsoft's Framework Perform So Well in Testing?
This session aims to provide a comprehensive overview of Playwright, Microsoft's powerful framework for test automation. Michal will explore its core functionalities and delve into practical tips and tricks to enhance its usage. The session will begin by defining what Playwright is and highlight its key features that set it apart in the testing landscape. The session will then cover advanced usage techniques, including how to effectively utilize the Trace Viewer for generating detailed test reports and implementing concurrency in tests to boost efficiency. Furthermore, Michal will examine...
Testing Under Pressure: Leveraging AI to Satisfy the C-Suite
In an era where "doing more with less" has become a corporate mantra, executives are increasingly turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI) to boost efficiency and productivity. This shift places significant pressure on testing teams to rapidly adopt AI solutions without compromising quality. In this engaging presentation, a C-suite executive and a testing expert offer a unique "fly on the wall" perspective into the dynamic between leadership expectations and the realities faced by testers. The session will delve into the challenges testers encounter under executive mandates, explore...
The Revolution Was Not Televised: Software QA in the Era of Streaming and Livestreaming Services
PreviewYou heard about it—Netflix's Love is Blind Live event fiasco last year, Pluto's VMA's blues in LATAM, and other subpar experiences for some streaming services, both live and on-demand. How is software QA involved in those? Or, how was it NOT involved? As content production and distribution companies consolidate and grow their streaming services and peripheral activities including: user personalization, loyalty, and engagement; tailored quality assurance and testing efforts become critical to ensure a fully immersive and optimal experience. In this session, Ramy will explore how to...
Why Testing Needs to Be Part of Your Brand Loyalty Strategy
Every experience counts – In a recent Sauce Labs study, 57% of consumers said they’d consider switching to a competitor after just 3-4 negative interactions with a company’s website, software, or mobile app. With all the options available, consumers are growing less forgiving, putting a bigger emphasis on the need for a clear brand loyalty strategy that takes the execution of the digital experience into bigger consideration. Design and engineering are key to the equation and the culmination of that is implementing a testing strategy – one that makes the rollout and updating of new features...
Stop Listening to the Industry
Making the transition from manual testing to full test automation is hard. Consultants, vendors, speakers and the internet all have their own recommendations about how to get started. The challenge is that sometimes those recommendations do not align to your business’s development strategy or security protocols. So who is right? Do you shirk your company’s best practices that have been developed over time in favor of what the industry says is the ideal configuration? Will the testing rules be the same tomorrow? Maybe it’s time to blaze your own testing trail. In this session, Ingrid Warden...