Ask Us Anything
What do YOU want to know? Maybe you have a technical automation question for the self-proclaimed lazy automator, Chris Loder? Perhaps you wanted to ask Melissa Benua about continuous testing, containers, or imposter syndrome? Maybe you're an aspiring conference speaker about automation and would like to know how to get started with your very own talk? Or conceivably your very curious mind wants to know "so why did Alison Wade start Women Who Test?" During this informal panel session, Melissa, Alison, and Chris will be at your disposal to answer this wide variety of questions on anything that your inquiring mind wants to know.
An Automation Architect at Upland InGenius, Chris Loder is an automation enthusiast to the core. His passion and experience help companies reduce regression time and improve overall software quality. With over two decades of automation experience, he designs and implements automation frameworks with his team of automation developers. Chris is a regular speaker at conferences and has delivered tutorials, keynotes and track sessions at STAREAST, STARWEST and STARCANADA. Topics include how to get started in automation, building automation frameworks and what we have learned from Saturday morning cartoons! Attendees of STAREAST 2019 will remember Chris from the Automation Zone in the Test Lab where he helps people learn to automate on his custom built framework. Chris loves to share his knowledge and experience and talk about all things automation! You can contact Chris via Twitter or LinkedIn.
Melissa Benua has worked in nearly every software development role—dev, test, DevOps, and program management—at companies big and small and somewhere in-between. She's created and run high availability, high-quality services for PlayFab, Bing, Cortana, and Xbox One, and now for mParticle's enormous data platform. Melissa discovered her love of massively-scaled systems while growing the Bing backend, where she honed the art of keeping highly-available complex systems up while undergoing significant code churn. Now an engineering director with mParticle, she’s passionate not only about maximizing efficiency both in her product code and in her developer tools but also about sharing best practices among colleagues and the tech world at large.
Alison Wade is the President of TechWell and an accomplished executive dedicated to the business of software. For the past fifteen years, she has worked with industry leaders developing programs for software development and testing professionals. She currently serves as the Program Chair for EPIC Experience, STAREAST, and STARWEST. She plays a vital role in Agile + DevOps West and East and also served as the program chair for STARCANADA and Mobile Test and Dev. Alison strives to increase awareness of diversity in the software industry concerning both the workforce and the role of software beyond commercial products and IT departments. In 2015, Alison launched Women Who Test, a program dedicated to women in software testing www.womenwhotest.com. You can find her at @awadesqe or @womenwhotest.