TestTalks.AI - The Testing AI Podcast

A mobile QA startup founder on making Appium-free, visual, low-maintenance test automation accessible.
Royi Haddad, co-founder of 21Labs, describes pivoting from a fully autonomous crawler to a visual, drag-and-drop mobile QA platform after learning customers want to validate their own specific scenarios. He explains how 21 abstracts away Appium, device farms, signing certificates and DOM complexity so anyone can create and run cloud tests in minutes, with live streaming feedback and automatic test maintenance across app changes. He and Jonathon discuss enriching QA with production data to focus on flows that matter, the impossibility and diminishing returns of testing every personalization permutation, and bridging the gap so developers get functional-UI feedback like unit tests. The theme throughout is value-driven, fast time-to-value testing.
**In this episode:**- Mobile Testing- Test Automation- Codeless Automation- AI in Testing- Shift-Right Testing- Test Management & Tooling- Continuous Testing
**Guest:** Royi Haddad — Co-Founder, 21  **Host:** Jonathon Wright — *The Automation Cyborg*
> “The more focused you are on what users are doing, the more focused you are on the flows that matter, the better your QA process looks like.”
🎧 *Subscribe to The QA Lead on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts for conversations on software testing, QA, test automation and the future of quality engineering.*
## Hashtags#SoftwareTesting #QA #QualityEngineering #TheQALead #TestingPodcast #MobileTesting #TestAutomation #CodelessAutomation #AITesting #ShiftRight #TestManagement #ContinuousTesting
## Apple Podcasts keywords (comma-separated tags)software testing, QA, quality assurance, test automation, quality engineering, QA podcast, mobile testing, codeless automation, ai in testing, shift-right testing, test management & tooling, continuous testing, royi haddad, 21

A Mercury veteran on test management, testing in production and redefining quality as customer value.
Joel Montvelisky, co-founder of PractiTest and a veteran of Mercury Interactive's Test Director, QTP and WinRunner era, reflects on the rigidity of legacy ALM tools and why testing tools must embrace flexibility. He and Jonathon explore how quality is migrating from a tester role into a company-wide concern, the rise of shift-left and shift-right, and the need for a quality architect to orchestrate overlapping testing activities. Joel argues that testing in production is only viable when backed by strong monitoring and a deliberate test architecture, not cockiness. The conversation lands on value-driven testing: measuring whether features actually resonate with customers rather than just counting test cases.
**In this episode:**- Test Management & Tooling- Test Strategy- Shift-Right Testing- Shift-Left Testing- Continuous Testing- Test Automation- Exploratory Testing- Quality Culture
**Guest:** Joel Montvelisky — Co-Founder & Chief Solution Architect, PractiTest  **Host:** Jonathon Wright — *The Automation Cyborg*
> “Quality is not lack of defects. Good quality is satisfying the needs of your customer, your end user, the person who's actually clicking the buttons, not the one paying the paychecks.”
🎧 *Subscribe to The QA Lead on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts for conversations on software testing, QA, test automation and the future of quality engineering.*
## Hashtags#SoftwareTesting #QA #QualityEngineering #TheQALead #TestingPodcast #TestManagement #TestStrategy #ShiftRight #ShiftLeft #ContinuousTesting #TestAutomation #ExploratoryTesting #QualityCulture

A test leader on interviewing, CVs, ISTQB and mentoring people through the pandemic job market.
Henna Ashraf, Head of Testing at finance company Cashplus, shares her journey from developer to tester to QA leader across e-commerce, gaming, identity and finance. She and Jonathon discuss the cost and difficulty of ISTQB certification, and her pro-bono work helping people prepare for interviews and exams during COVID-19. They dig into what makes a CV stand out, why she looks for potential and passion over past experience, and the importance of developing team members' personal profiles. A recurring theme is helping introverted technical people communicate their value and grow into leadership.
**In this episode:**- Career Development in QA- QA Leadership- Communication & Soft Skills- Mentoring & Community- Team Building & Hiring- Quality Culture
**Guest:** Henna Ashraf — Head of Testing, Cashplus  **Host:** Jonathon Wright — *The Automation Cyborg*
> “I want to pay more attention to the ability of that person, the capability, rather than what kind of experience they have in the past. I'm more interested in what this person can do in the future.”
🎧 *Subscribe to The QA Lead on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts for conversations on software testing, QA, test automation and the future of quality engineering.*
## Hashtags#SoftwareTesting #QA #QualityEngineering #TheQALead #TestingPodcast #QACareers #QALeadership #SoftSkills #Mentoring #Hiring #QualityCulture

An author and QA leader argues metrics should tell a story and testing is about confidence.
Mike Lyles, author of 'The Drive-Thru Is Not Always Faster', explains why metrics should tell a story about confidence and product quality rather than pass/fail percentages, using a low-tech dashboard that reports testers' confidence. Prompted by COVID's rush to digital channels, he covers performance, security, and data-privacy (CCPA) readiness, plus service virtualization and contract testing to enable end-to-end testing early. He dives into visual testing and how the brain fills gaps, accessibility as 'the next data thing', cross-browser coverage, chaos/resilience testing (including reverse-breaking on too-fast responses), and the rise of crowd testing. Throughout he champions exploratory testing, asking 'why', and knowing your product and market.
**In this episode:**- Performance Testing- Accessibility Testing- Security Testing- Test Metrics & Reporting- Exploratory Testing- Test Data Management- Chaos Engineering & Resilience- Contract Testing
**Guest:** Mike Lyles — QA Leader, Author & Speaker, Marketing services company  **Host:** Jonathon Wright — *The Automation Cyborg*
> “The dashboard really doesn't have a number on it... the big column is what is the tester's confidence in this product right now, and do we feel like this is ready for production?”
🎧 *Subscribe to The QA Lead on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts for conversations on software testing, QA, test automation and the future of quality engineering.*
## Hashtags#SoftwareTesting #QA #QualityEngineering #TheQALead #TestingPodcast #PerformanceTesting #AccessibilityTesting #SecurityTesting #TestMetrics #ExploratoryTesting #TestData #ChaosEngineering #ContractTesting #ConfidenceEngineering

A QE leader shows how data turns testers into user advocates and reveals a project's digital heartbeat.
Adrian O'Leary charts his journey from ERP consulting to leading large quality organizations at United Airlines, Cognizant, Comcast, and NIIT. He advocates a federated testing center of excellence/enablement with shared tools, frameworks, and metrics so resources stay fungible across agile teams. Using Lean/Six Sigma, he shows how data pinpoints where defects are injected versus found, quantifying cost-of-quality savings and enabling honest conversations with third parties. He introduces 'spherical shifting'—extending quality across the whole digital and customer lifecycle—and vivid metrics like a 'digital heartbeat' (EKG vs bell-curve defect charts) and 'watermelon' project status. He also touches on AI/ML, RPA, and self-healing, zero-touch automation.
**In this episode:**- QA Leadership- Test Metrics & Reporting- Test Strategy- Shift-Right Testing- DevOps & QAOps- Risk-Based Testing- AI in Testing- Test Automation
**Guest:** Adrian O'Leary — Global Head of Quality Engineering Practice, NIIT Technologies  **Host:** Jonathon Wright — *The Automation Cyborg*
> “Where I'm finding defects, I'm dead. My productivity is dead... So just gather the data and have a conversation. If you gather the right data, it's not going to lie.”
🎧 *Subscribe to The QA Lead on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts for conversations on software testing, QA, test automation and the future of quality engineering.*
## Hashtags#SoftwareTesting #QA #QualityEngineering #TheQALead #TestingPodcast #QALeadership #TestMetrics #TestStrategy #ShiftRight #DevOps #RiskBasedTesting #AITesting #TestAutomation

A tester explains how GraphQL schemas and clever test data make dashboard testing tractable.
Mike Harris, tester at Geckoboard and BCS SIGiST program chair, describes testing a data-visualization dashboard product where controlling input data and validating outputs is the core challenge. He praises GraphQL's schema as a natural coverage reference, pairing boundary-value research with a colleague's random-data generator to explore the API early, then hardening useful cases into a CircleCI regression pack. He shares creative test-data sourcing (NASA planetary data plus invented 'Klingon planets' for extreme numbers), exploratory testing at the API level per Elisabeth Hendrickson, and continuous deployment practices. He also reflects on remote working, community events going virtual, and blending work with home life.
**In this episode:**- API Testing- Test Data Management- Exploratory Testing- Test Automation- Continuous Testing- Regression Testing- Mentoring & Community- Remote & Distributed Teams
**Guest:** Mike Harris — Tester / QA, Geckoboard  **Host:** Jonathon Wright — *The Automation Cyborg*
> “I love the schema in GraphQL because I could use that as a reference point... it was all in the one place, rather than having to wade through different code. It was a dream as a tester.”
🎧 *Subscribe to The QA Lead on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts for conversations on software testing, QA, test automation and the future of quality engineering.*
## Hashtags#SoftwareTesting #QA #QualityEngineering #TheQALead #TestingPodcast #APITesting #TestData #ExploratoryTesting #TestAutomation #ContinuousTesting #RegressionTesting #Mentoring #RemoteTeams

A quality engineer shares remote-team tips, contract testing, and data-driven performance testing.
Bernardo Guerreiro discusses thriving in a fully remote, globally distributed engineering culture, emphasizing asynchronous communication, transparency, shared knowledge, and treating a support/service desk as a first-class citizen. He explains contract testing for microservices architectures and, crucially, knowing when NOT to apply a favourite technique if it doesn't fit a company's maturity. At Auth0 he prioritized performance testing over contract testing, using tools like Artillery and K6 close to the developer stack and a data-driven approach that profiles real customer usage patterns and past incidents. He closes on observability, traceability, and his interest in mentoring newcomers to testing.
**In this episode:**- Remote & Distributed Teams- Contract Testing- Performance Testing- Test Data & Environments- Continuous Testing- DevOps & QAOps- Observability- Communication & Soft Skills
**Guest:** Bernardo Guerreiro — Quality Engineer / Quality Advocate, Auth0  **Host:** Jonathon Wright — *The Automation Cyborg*
> “You have to be careful not to try and apply everything you know, because it won't necessarily fit the maturity or the stage or the tech that that company is using.”
🎧 *Subscribe to The QA Lead on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts for conversations on software testing, QA, test automation and the future of quality engineering.*
## Hashtags#SoftwareTesting #QA #QualityEngineering #TheQALead #TestingPodcast #RemoteTeams #ContractTesting #PerformanceTesting #TestEnvironments #ContinuousTesting #DevOps #Observability #SoftSkills

A veteran QA director argues quality assurance is really about real-time knowledge, not quality itself.
Niall Lynch, a 35-year QA veteran and former Symantec enterprise QA director, shares his core philosophy that QA's real job is to provide real-time knowledge of product quality to serve rational risk-taking, not to 'assure' quality. He explains test contexts, traceability from requirements to tests, and metrics like test coverage and 'time to quality' that reveal code problems early instead of at ship time. He champions role definition, managing up, building trust with engineering, passive status reporting, and simulation over brute-force automation. Drawing on his humanities education, he stresses embracing irreducible complexity and mentoring the next generation of testers.
**In this episode:**- QA Leadership- Test Metrics & Reporting- Test Strategy- Risk-Based Testing- Performance Testing- Test Management & Tooling- Team Building & Hiring- Mentoring & Community
**Guest:** Niall Lynch — QA Leader & Consultant, Symantec (former); independent consultant  **Host:** Jonathon Wright — *The Automation Cyborg*
> “The problem of QA is not a problem of quality, it's a problem of knowledge. QA doesn't actually assure the quality of anything; that's up to product management and engineering.”
🎧 *Subscribe to The QA Lead on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts for conversations on software testing, QA, test automation and the future of quality engineering.*
## Hashtags#SoftwareTesting #QA #QualityEngineering #TheQALead #TestingPodcast #QALeadership #TestMetrics #TestStrategy #RiskBasedTesting #PerformanceTesting #TestManagement #Hiring #Mentoring

A test architect with law and psychology degrees explains why testing starts at requirements.
Tatiana Zinchenko traces her path from a criminal-law and computer-science background in Ukraine to becoming a test architect at a large Dutch organization. She argues that soft skills and psychology are as important as technical knowledge, and that a test architect must see the whole organizational picture rather than working in silos. A recurring theme is shifting testing left: she reviews requirements and refinements before development to catch contradictions and ambiguity early, saving costly rework. She also stresses confident-yet-open decision making, mentoring, and continuous self-learning, which earned her the nickname 'Queen of QA'.
**In this episode:**- QA Leadership- Test Strategy- Shift-Left Testing- Test Case Design- Exploratory Testing- Communication & Soft Skills- Agile Testing- Career Development in QA
**Guest:** Tatiana Zinchenko — Test Architect  **Host:** Jonathon Wright — *The Automation Cyborg*
> “It's not only hard skills that you have to have to be a good professional, it's also soft skills. It's a combination of the two of them.”
🎧 *Subscribe to The QA Lead on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts for conversations on software testing, QA, test automation and the future of quality engineering.*
## Hashtags#SoftwareTesting #QA #QualityEngineering #TheQALead #TestingPodcast #QALeadership #TestStrategy #ShiftLeft #TestDesign #ExploratoryTesting #SoftSkills #AgileTesting #QACareers

A Eurostar Rising Star on inclusive automation that supports testers rather than replacing them.
Brendan Connolly, winner of Eurostar's Rising Star award for his blog on inclusive automation, argues that automation is too often exclusive, leaving out both categories of tests and the testers who execute them. He unpacks the creator, executor and consumer personas to clarify who automation actually serves and why so many automation efforts fail when run by one person as a black box. He champions using Jupyter Notebooks to blend executable code and markdown into living documentation, letting testers script through exploratory journeys, cross third-party service boundaries and reuse page objects and APIs interactively. He is skeptical of chasing test quantity for bragging rights, favoring a handful of contract-focused regression tests, better communication of value to stakeholders, crowd testing, and feeding user analytics back into the tester feedback loop.
**In this episode:**- Test Automation- Exploratory Testing- Communication & Soft Skills- Regression Testing- Test Management & Tooling- Observability- BDD & TDD- Risk-Based Testing
**Guest:** Brendan Connolly — Software Tester / Automation Engineer, Construction management platform  **Host:** Jonathon Wright — *The Automation Cyborg*
> “Automation is a cure that gets pitched... it's going to solve the testing problem. But it's just a tool... The success and failure is based on how your team is supporting it.”
🎧 *Subscribe to The QA Lead on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts for conversations on software testing, QA, test automation and the future of quality engineering.*
## Hashtags#SoftwareTesting #QA #QualityEngineering #TheQALead #TestingPodcast #TestAutomation #ExploratoryTesting #SoftSkills #RegressionTesting #TestManagement #Observability #BDD #RiskBasedTesting