Walk or talk at the best QA conferences in 2018
Do you like meeting new people, sharing your knowledge and keeping up-to-date with the latest technology trends? Then you should definitely check your calendar and add there a few upcoming testing events.
I started visiting conferences and meetups a few years ago when I was studying at the university. They were quite different from the ones I attend nowadays, but even then I understood that it’s hardly possible to be part of a trend unless you write your name on some of visitors’ lists. To date, I have attended at least 20 conferences and meetups. Among them are the International GIS days at the Belarusian State University (Minsk, Belarus), Open GIS! in (Moscow, Russia), and of course lots of testing events (for example, this and this).
I’ve noticed that many QA engineers think conferences are a bit scary. But believe me, nobody will bite you there ;) What you will find is a situation where you, on the one hand, have some questions to ask the community about; and on the other hand, the community lacks your experience and input. This is precisely the reason, why I decided to share my thoughts on some upcoming testing conferences and hopefully inspire you to attend them.
Essentially, at a conference you are likely to:
- Meet new people, make friends, find like-minded people
- Share your knowledge, get feedback and some food for thought
- Learn new stuff, gain experience and / or theoretical knowledge
- Explore career opportunities, find out about local or international job markets
- Promote your company or yourself
- Have fun / entertainments / food ;)
The reason why you came to the venue will affect how you will behave there and the activities you are involved in will vary. But before you go, just remember that there are several options for you to become a part of any event:
- Organise it and be a part of the Conference / Support / Programme Committee team
- Speak at it and prepare a talk / workshop / tutorial
- Attend it as a visitor or guest
- Volunteer at it and help to run everything smoothly
Personally, I have tried 3 of these 4 options (I haven’t done any organising) and should admit that each has its pros and cons.
What’s your role at the conference?
Speaker
Let’s say, you are a speaker (by the way, try to find out what type of a speaker you are). In this case you should spend a significant amount of time on preparation and polishing your presentation. But as a reward, you gain the chance not only to share your ideas, and get valuable feedback from the audience, but usually also to attend a conference without any entrance fee and of course, put this talk into your CV or bio.
There’s a good thread about first talk preparation and surviving your first time being a speaker on a stage.
Attendee
Another option is to go as an attendee, delegate or participant. Here everything seems to be clear — you just need to buy a ticket and come. What obstacles might possibly stand in your way? Perhaps, the price: attending, commuting, accommodation — you’ll consider all of these twice before making up your mind, unless your money is burning a hole in your pocket. You might also want to check whether your company or organisation could help you to cover the expenses.
I’m sure, that if you visit conferences just to view the sessions and do not participate actively in any conversation or activity — it is not worth going at all. For the majority of big events there will be some source (on its own site, or on a service like YouTube / SlideShare) where talks and presentations will be published in some weeks or months after the event — it really worth the money isn’t it?
Volunteer
And here it is the third role for you — volunteer. I like this option, and I also contribute some of my time to volunteering in nature conservation, but that’s a topic for another article. As a matter of fact, not every conference announces a request for volunteers in its ‘call for collaboration’. Be ready to propose yourself and for some rejections before you’ll finally be accepted. It is equally important to remember throughout the event that you are here to help it run smoothly, so be active, and if something goes wrong — offer your assistance.
Back in Helsinki, last time I volunteered at the European Testing Conference and for me it was an amazingly useful 3 days event, full of work and fun.
What events can I visit?
Have a look at the ultimate list of testing conferences across the whole world that is updated on a regular basis and provides you with an overview of events worth attending in the next year. For local meetups, I advise using meetup.com because it has tons of events in different countries and cities, and there’s something for every taste. Finally, I highly recommend that you should sign up for testers Slack community and follow their #events channel. Thank to this Slack group, I learned about the forthcoming Romanian Testing conference on May 9–11 2018. Another good idea is to subscribe to some testing podcasts to listen to both announcements and feedback: Joe Colantonio automation awesomeness podcast and for Russian-speaking testers Radio QA with a recent Selenium conference discussion.
You might notice, that regardless of your current location, it’s easy to spot an event which it would be handy for you to commute to. I’m currently working in London, so I will focus on the events that are held in Western Europe.
Now, moving forward there are several remarkable events in the first half of 2018.
What? European Testing Conference
Where? Amsterdam (Netherlands)
When? February, 19–20
Link: http://europeantestingconference.eu/2018/
This is the conference which I like the most. Last time in Helsinki I was impressed by the way networking goes hand in hand with talks and practical sessions. I mean, you are not just listening to the speeches, but you actively participate in all activities. For instance, everybody could be involved in the retrospective after the first day.
Actually, I couldn’t describe the conference better than Maaret Pyhäjärvi, so let me just leave here a link to her blogpost “How is European Testing Conference Different?”. By the way, in this blog you’ll find tons of valuable tips about conferences and testing in general, so bookmark it and study it step-by-step. One of the recent tweets claimed that “Meeting new people is the scariest part of a conference”. That’s why there are sessions when participants are forced to start talking to people nearby. Lean coffee, open space, 5-minute talks… — they all facilitate communication.
Stay informed: https://twitter.com/EuroTestingConf
What? UKSTAR
Where? London (United Kingdom)
When? March, 12–13
Link: https://ukstar.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/
This is another must-go conference where you won’t regret a penny of your expenses. Though I missed the event last year, I met the organisers and what’s even more useful — heard the reviews of former participants. What tempted me is the chance to be on a two-day event full of networking and talks. Why shouldn’t I prepare one and discuss what really matters to me? A few days after I first came across this event, I pressed the “Submit” button and in a couple of weeks, out of the blue, I received a congratulations email.
So, assuming you are already booking your tickets — don’t miss my talk about deeper testing and investigation of iOS applications on the second day. Nathalie Van Delft from the UKSTAR Committee has said: “I think the final result is an amazing balance of keynotes, workshops and tracks with something in it for every tester.” Nothing to add here, just come and experience it by your own.
Stay informed: https://twitter.com/UKSTARconf
What? TestBash
Where and When?
- Brighton (United Kingdom) | March, 15–16
- Utrecht (Netherlands) | April, 12–13
- Dublin (Ireland) | May, 18
Link: https://dojo.ministryoftesting.com/events
These are widely known events organised by Ministry of Testing. They are held regularly and in different parts of the world. You may notice that the format varies from city to city, but generally there’s 1–2 days including the conference and some pre-event courses. To put it in a nutshell: lots of different talks that will cater for any taste, networking sessions, and cool people including recognised leaders in the European and global testing world.
Stay informed: https://twitter.com/ministryoftest
What? Heisenbug Conference
Where? St. Petersburg (Russia)
When? May, 17–18
Link: https://heisenbug-piter.ru/en/
It is impossible not to mention Heisenbug. Back in December, there were two great talks that went behind the scenes to reveal all about testing at Badoo: Break limitations of Calabash-Android automation by Rajdeep Varma and Geolocation testing at Badoo: mistakes, hidden pitfalls, hacks and a selfie stick by Alexander Khozya and Nikolay Kozlov.
So, the next session will be in May, and I expect speakers to present plenty of technical and practice-oriented talks that could boost your performance at work. Be ready to find yourself among technically savvy colleagues who are not afraid of looking into code, applying non-trivial tools or developing their own frameworks.
Stay informed: https://twitter.com/HeisenbugConf
What? Nordic Testing Days
Where? Tallinn (Estonia)
When? June, 6–8
Link: https://nordictestingdays.eu/
Last year I was fascinated not only by the testing talks (even tried one myself in a lightning talk format). By the way, add “A Chase of Incremental Improvement” by Maaret Pyhäjärvi to your playlist queue. Apart from that, I got a lot of fun from “Presentation karaoke” (when you get random images and need to tell a consistent testing story with them) and other less formal events in the evening after the first day.
Just one last mention here: it was precisely in the messenger of the Official conference app that I saw the announcement about an open position for QA at Badoo, which changed my life drastically. By the way, Badoo is still hiring ;)
Stay informed: https://twitter.com/nordictestdays
From my perspective, the icing on the cake:
What? EuroSTAR
Where? the Hague (the Netherlands)
When? November, 12–15 2018
Link: https://conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/
With a call for submissions still running till February, there is still a chance for you to try out the particular role you prefer. I’d go for speaking, of course. So far, it’s one of the biggest and most diverse conferences with a long history. Its name speaks for itself, so I cannot add anything more.
What? SQA Days EU
Where? Riga (Latvia)
When? March, 22–23 2019
Link: http://www.sqadays.eu/en/index
Finally, there’s an experimental event. It’s going to be the first conference of the EU branch of Software Quality Assurance Days, that are running in Russia and Belarus on a half-yearly basis. I bet you’ll be astonished by how popular these conferences are. The really cool thing is that organizers keep the history of the past events and you can view not only the schedule, but almost always the presentation and videos of the talks as well (although the vast majority is in Russian). I was honoured to present my talks there three times and I am now looking forward to this English-speaking event that has just been announced. Let’s make sure the first event in the series is full of people!
As you see, the conferences, venues and dates are quite different. All you need is to apply and allocate the time in your calendar. As for me, at odd times I check the news feed and announcements, so that I can work out whether each event is a good one for me or not.
My personal approach is to plan journeys in advance, so that I can buy early bird tickets and consider the best prices for travelling. I focus on the local events that are apparently cheaper and pick up several more distant events, that I can potentially visit. Then I will edit the list, depending on the conditions.
In order to get the most out of this plan, I’d recommend you should prepare a bit beforehand. It’s always worthwhile to check the schedule, pick up the topics or the speakers that are interesting for you, and try to make your own path between the conference rooms. Furthermore, workshops or tutorials may require some prerequisites like laptops with additional software, and relevant knowledge or stories to share.
Last but not least, I should mention that some people feel too shy at the events and hesitate to start talking or ask questions. Recently, I received one more, let’s say “tool” that could help you break the ice with another conference participant. I’d like to introduce you to TestSphere, a deck of cards with testing-related notes. More information can be found in the official announcement. Here I’d like to stress just one of the possible uses of this pack — to start the dialogue. You just need to find any person at the coffee-break, pick up a random card — and voilà you have an idea how to start the talk (quite easy isn’t it?). Some more insights about TestSphere usage are in this thread.
Feel free to share your favourite conferences in the comments to this post, and of course do not forget to mention why you have a passion for them. See you at one of the upcoming events!
