Melissa Benua

Imagine this … 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 production. Well, setting up the pipeline capable of doing just that is becoming more and more common. But most organizations hit the same stumbling block—just what IS the appropriate battery of tests? Automated build architectures don't always lend themselves well to the traditional stages of testing. In… Show more

Imagine this … 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 production. Well, setting up the pipeline capable of doing just that is becoming more and more common. But most organizations hit the same stumbling block—just what IS the appropriate battery of tests? Automated build architectures don't always lend themselves well to the traditional stages of testing. In this hands-on tutorial, Melissa Benua introduces you to key test design principles—applicable to organizations both large and small—that allow them to take full advantage of the pipeline's capabilities without introducing unnecessary bottlenecks. Learn how to make highly reliable tests that run fast and preserve just enough information to let testers and developers determine exactly what went wrong and how to reproduce the error locally. Explore ways to reduce overlap while still maintaining adequate test coverage. Take back ideas about which test areas could benefit from being combined into a single suite and which areas could benefit most from being broken out altogether. Show less

Software Engineering as a discipline is always evolving. The technologies and tools that were in vogue yesterday are passé today and gone altogether tomorrow. Despite this high churn, there are a number of skills that software testers, in particular, possess that are eternally useful. They cut across time and tools and even job titles. Melissa will help software testers look past technologies and titles to explore the skills that they may already possess that are in high demand. She will… Show more

Software Engineering as a discipline is always evolving. The technologies and tools that were in vogue yesterday are passé today and gone altogether tomorrow. Despite this high churn, there are a number of skills that software testers, in particular, possess that are eternally useful. They cut across time and tools and even job titles. Melissa will help software testers look past technologies and titles to explore the skills that they may already possess that are in high demand. She will explain some of the hottest job titles and technologies in the market today, and go in-depth into what skills many software testers already hold that uniquely qualify them for these positions. In the most cutting-edge software companies – from startups to megacorps – traditional software testing functions have been encompassed in roles that might not be immediately obvious. From continuous integration to test automation to devops and beyond - discover what skills are you holding that can unlock the next step in your career? Tools are ephemeral, but your skills are timeless. Show less

Software engineering as a discipline has come a long way. For some teams, months-long cycles of dev-test-build-release have shrunk down to mere days—or even hours. In the fastest, leanest organizations, most testing happens in parallel with development as part of a slick, continuous integration pipeline. Come along with Melissa Benua as she explores just how quickly and safely a product can be released using ultramodern engineering technologies. All testers know how to file a bug, but more… Show more

Software engineering as a discipline has come a long way. For some teams, months-long cycles of dev-test-build-release have shrunk down to mere days—or even hours. In the fastest, leanest organizations, most testing happens in parallel with development as part of a slick, continuous integration pipeline. Come along with Melissa Benua as she explores just how quickly and safely a product can be released using ultramodern engineering technologies. All testers know how to file a bug, but more testers should know how to configure a continuous integration (CI) pipeline tool, how to wrest code coverage and complexity metrics from it, how to wire-in automated testing and monitoring, and how to author tests to take full advantage of that paradigm. Walk with Melissa through the stages of true CI and continuous development that power software startups and mega-corporations alike. Take a deep-dive into the crucial technical skills that top software testers bring to the table to help their organizations push to the next level. Are you ready to step into the future of software testing? Show less

Continuous Integration as a Way of Life
Continuous integration (CI) is a buzzword in software development today. We know it means “run lots of builds,” but having a continuous integration pipeline opens up opportunities well beyond making sure your team's code compiles. What if this pipeline could improve everything from the quality of code reviews to how often and safely you deploy to production and how you monitor your product in the wild? What if CI could provide insights into how… Show more

Continuous Integration as a Way of Life
Continuous integration (CI) is a buzzword in software development today. We know it means “run lots of builds,” but having a continuous integration pipeline opens up opportunities well beyond making sure your team's code compiles. What if this pipeline could improve everything from the quality of code reviews to how often and safely you deploy to production and how you monitor your product in the wild? What if CI could provide insights into how automated tests are performing and how to improve them? Melissa Benua describes how to set up a basic CI infrastructure and then transform it into a way of life for development and test teams. Using free or nearly free tools, Melissa walks through a practical approach to making sure your code works—all the time and at every stage of the release train. Come away with practical advice for creating builds and running automation on the fly without spending hundreds of hours or thousands of dollars. Show less

Continuous Integration as a Tester’s Way of Life
Continuous integration (CI) is a buzzword in software development today. We know it means “run lots of builds,” but having a continuous integration pipeline opens up opportunities well beyond making sure your team's code compiles. What if this pipeline could improve everything from the quality of code reviews to how often and safely you deploy to production and how you monitor your product in the wild? What if CI could provide insights into… Show more

Continuous Integration as a Tester’s Way of Life
Continuous integration (CI) is a buzzword in software development today. We know it means “run lots of builds,” but having a continuous integration pipeline opens up opportunities well beyond making sure your team's code compiles. What if this pipeline could improve everything from the quality of code reviews to how often and safely you deploy to production and how you monitor your product in the wild? What if CI could provide insights into how automated tests are performing and how to improve them? Melissa Benua describes how to set up a basic CI infrastructure and then transform it into a way of life for development and test teams. Using free or nearly free tools, Melissa walks through a practical approach to making sure your code works—all the time and at every stage of the release train. Come away with practical advice for creating builds and running automation on the fly without spending hundreds of hours or thousands of dollars. Show less

When You're the Lone (Female) Voice of Reason
With software engineering still dominated by men, it is not uncommon for women to find themselves alone on a team of men. Those who are test-focused can find themselves in the awkward position of not only being the sole woman in the ship room, but with the tough job of telling her peers they are not ready to go to production. Melissa Benua has spent many years as the lone female voice speaking up for code quality at companies both big and small… Show more

When You're the Lone (Female) Voice of Reason
With software engineering still dominated by men, it is not uncommon for women to find themselves alone on a team of men. Those who are test-focused can find themselves in the awkward position of not only being the sole woman in the ship room, but with the tough job of telling her peers they are not ready to go to production. Melissa Benua has spent many years as the lone female voice speaking up for code quality at companies both big and small. Learn from her experiences on how to be heard and taken seriously, with tips on how to be “the woman” without making the job about being female, how to avoid common traps in team situations, and how to improve your team’s attitude toward test. Melissa walks through how to use an organized, data-driven approach to remove the 'intimidation factor' from the process of advocating for code quality in a team-based setting. Show less

Can Your Mobile Infrastructure Survive 1 Million Concurrent Users?
You’re building the next killer mobile app. How do you ensure that your app is both stable and capable of near-instant data updates? Build a backend! But there’s more to building a backend than standing up a SQL server in your datacenter and calling it a day. Since different types of apps demand different backend services, how do you know what sort of backend you need? And, more importantly, how can you ensure that your… Show more

Can Your Mobile Infrastructure Survive 1 Million Concurrent Users?
You’re building the next killer mobile app. How do you ensure that your app is both stable and capable of near-instant data updates? Build a backend! But there’s more to building a backend than standing up a SQL server in your datacenter and calling it a day. Since different types of apps demand different backend services, how do you know what sort of backend you need? And, more importantly, how can you ensure that your backend will scale so you can survive an explosion of users that comes from events like being featured in the app store? Siva Katir and Melissa Benua will discuss the common scenarios facing mobile app developers who are looking to expand beyond just the device and will share best practices learned while building the PlayFab and other companies’ backends. Join Siva and Melissa to learn how you can ensure that your app can scale safely and affordably into the millions of concurrent users (CCU) and across multiple platforms. Show less

Integration Testing as Validation and Monitoring
In the world of software-as-a-service, just about anyone with a laptop and an Internet connection can spin up their very own cloud-based web service. Software startups, in particular, are often big on ideas but small on staff. This makes streamlining the traditional develop-test-integrate-deploy-monitor pipeline critically important. Melissa Benua says that an effective way to accomplish this is to reduce the number of different test suites… Show more

Integration Testing as Validation and Monitoring
In the world of software-as-a-service, just about anyone with a laptop and an Internet connection can spin up their very own cloud-based web service. Software startups, in particular, are often big on ideas but small on staff. This makes streamlining the traditional develop-test-integrate-deploy-monitor pipeline critically important. Melissa Benua says that an effective way to accomplish this is to reduce the number of different test suites that verify many of the same things for each stage. Melissa explains how teams can avoid this by authoring the right set of tests and using the right frameworks. Drawing on lessons learned in companies both large and small, Melissa shows how teams can drastically slash time spent developing automation, verifying builds for release, and monitoring code in production—without sacrificing availability or reliability.
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When You're the Lone (Female) Voice of Reason
With software engineering still dominated by men, it is not uncommon for women to find themselves alone on a team of men. Those who are test-focused can find themselves in the awkward position of not only being the sole woman in the ship room, but with the tough job of telling her peers they are not ready to go to production. Melissa Benua has spent many years as the lone female voice speaking up for code quality at companies both big and small.… Show more

When You're the Lone (Female) Voice of Reason
With software engineering still dominated by men, it is not uncommon for women to find themselves alone on a team of men. Those who are test-focused can find themselves in the awkward position of not only being the sole woman in the ship room, but with the tough job of telling her peers they are not ready to go to production. Melissa Benua has spent many years as the lone female voice speaking up for code quality at companies both big and small. Learn from her experiences on how to be heard and taken seriously, with tips on how to be “the woman” without making the job about being female, how to avoid common traps in team situations, and how to improve your team’s attitude toward test. Melissa walks through how to use an organized, data-driven approach to remove the 'intimidation factor' from the process of advocating for code quality in a team-based setting. Show less