Different Teams, Different Testers

Veerle Verhagen, Hanna Schlander, Chris Armstrong, Sanne Visser, Shey Crompton

Panel Discussion

Imagine you discover a mysterious way to swap jobs with any tester in the world.

This thought experiment is what we’ll be diving into with this panel. In a different team you might function even better than you currently are. We’ll talk about surviving and thriving in different team dynamics. It’s good to know that there’s a lot of different types of settings for testers to work in and it’s especially good to know how they affect you. As a group, we want to facilitate a discussion how to navigate these differences and how to find the context that works best for you.

Your host is Veerle Verhagen. She is a test consultant for Risqit. Veerle will be putting her whirlwind energy into guiding our discussions.

Our first panelist is Hanna Schlander (formerly Dernbrant), a DevOps Quality Catalyst with Jayway from Sweden. As a tester that has recently transitioned from waterfall to Devops, Hanna will share her perspectives on working as an internal tester for the same product long term. Our second panelist is Chris Armstrong, podcast co-host of the Testing Peers and QA strategy consultant with Provar. Chris will share his experience switching jobs during the pandemic. Our third panelist is Shey Crompton, independent test consultant. Shey will discuss freelancing and finding work as an independent contractor. Our fourth panelist is Sanne Visser, a test consultant from Capgemini. Sanne will share her experience about her current project where she is team-lead of a project with only part-timers.

Key Takeaways

  • Finding your ideal work situation
  • Learning what different team setups there are for testers
  • Listen to the varied experiences from the panel
  • Most importantly – you drive this session, what you take away is up to you!

So join us and find out how you can be the best you!

See the other talks and speakers that took part in the Testing Voices event here.

About Me!

Veerle Verhagen – RisQIT, Netherlands

Veerle Verhagen is a software tester with RisQIT. She has a background in historical linguistics, but felt that dead languages weren’t a viable career choice so she turned to IT. She immediately felt at home in the software testing community, where almost everyone is even weirder than she is. Veerle is a social animal who cannot wait for the office to open again. Until that time she tries to connect and keep in touch with testers around the globe online, from the comfort of her own kitchen.

Hanna Schlander – Jayway, Sweden

Hanna Schlander (formerly Dernbrant) is a Quality Catalyst at Jayway by Devoteam. In her current job, she works in the retail industry with a DevOps project built with Microservices. Hanna started her testing career by getting some training in testing at her first job after university, it was love at first sight! Throughout her 10 years in testing, she has worked in multiple fields such as MedTech and Telecom and in a lot of different stages of testing. Being a very curious person Hanna loves the ever-changing world of testing. When she’s not working you’ll most likely find her outside walking her dog or binge-watching some old tv-series.

Chris Armstrong – Provar, UK

Chris is currently working as a QA Strategy Consultant at Provar. Having worked in quality for 17 years, Chris specialises in test leadership. Through the years, he has worked with and led testing teams, and has learnt the skills needed to overcome many challenges faced by team leads and test managers. Chris is passionate about quality; people, process, and products. He is an active member of the global software testing community, and co-host of the popular podcast “Testing Peers”. Chris loves to engage with new people – facilitating events and interesting discussions is his bag. He has been part of the Community Team at multiple EuroSTAR conferences and UKSTAR, co-ordinating community events and leading the Huddle team of volunteers.

Sanne Visser – Capgemini, Netherlands

Passionate tester, sharing experience with test communities, helping others to learn new things and keep up with technology trends, winner of EuroSTAR Rising STAR award in 2018 for my efforts to expand awareness of blockchain and testing. Founder and chairperson for the Meetup “Blockchain Testing Community” in the Netherlands, currently working as Managing Consultant for Capgemini.

Shey Crompton – Compton Consulting, UK

I have been in the software industry for over 20 years, starting as a games tester, then moving around in management circles, and finally settling back into testing and test leadership. I am currently Senior Quality Engineer at an insurance start-up, helping build quality into every aspect of the software lifecycle. When not testing software, I test my patience by building things out of wood or playing golf.


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