Leeds Testing Atelier - Home

On the 13th of May 2025, the fully independent, punk, Leeds Testing Atelier returns at The Tetley for a day of learning, collaboration and laughs!

Check out our awesome speakers!
Lauren Borodajko
I live in West Yorkshire and have been working as an Engineering Manager with my background being in Quality Coaching. I love putting people first, and that is exactly why I stated The Organic Edge Newsletter and started to document Organic Quality. My approach has helped scale engineering teams across the globe ranging from unicorn start-ups to FTSE 250 companies. I have always been curious about how the world works and I am a passionate supporter of changing the narrative around dyslexia.
Organic Quality, it starts with the soil
Throughout my career from Tester and Quality Coach to Engineering Manager. I have relied on an approach Organic Quality. This philosophy has consistently helped the teams I work with mature and achieve high performance fast. At its core, Organic Quality is built upon three key values: kindness, curiosity, and credibility. By embracing these values, individuals and teams can create an environment where success feels effortless and work becomes something to genuinely enjoy. Sounds easy right? We all know that when people are involved, things are never easy! In this talk I will walk through the four pillars of Organic Quality: Conscious Awareness, Open Communication, Social Responsibility & Empowered Leadership. There will be real life stories of our learnings and actionable examples of how everyone can be a little more organic at work.
Andy Burgin
Andy is by day a Principal Platform Engineer at a gambling firm, by night an opensource AI contributor working with LLMs and AI applications running in Kubernetes. Currently working with K8sGPT to help analyse and diagnose faults on Kubernetes clusters. He also is a small part of the organizing team for DevOpsDays London and ran the DevOps meetup in Leeds for almost a decade hosting over 50 events. He’s attended and has spoken at a bunch of DevOps conferences and in his own words is "an all-round DevOps nuisance".
AI Agents - Lets Talk...
Let's talk about the latest hot topic in our industry - AI Agents. They might be coming for your job, entire workforces may be replaced by these super-smart chunks of code, so what does it mean for you? We'll also see one in action.
Emily O'Connor
Emily O'Connor is a Principal Test Engineer at Audacia, a consultancy that work across a variety of industries. Given each consultant cannot be an expert in each of them - Emily uses this to her advantage by identifying edge cases and test scenarios by recognising the fact that she is not often the companies typical users.
Testing your assumptions - You are not your customer
This talk goes over some of the assumptions development teams can make and how recognising them can help teams build better quality products - because you are not your customer.
Stephen Platten
Stephen is an award winning (European Software Testing awards, TESTA) tester and QA, with a passion for test improvement and development. I have worked in most aspects of electronic engineering/software engineering. He has a passion for testing and understanding complex applications, technologies, and projects. To quote him, "I want to be the best manager, tester, and coach I can be, to be "The Stoic Tester"
Stoicism & Software Testing: Ancient Philosophy Meets Modern Methods
Testing is often chaos, uncertainty, changing requirements, constant defects, and a challenging stakeholder. What is the answer to this chaos? A 2000-year-old philosophy?? Stephen's talk will about Stoicism and how it's principles can be used to gain a different perspective on this chaos to make us happier testers.
Sorrel Harriet
Having bounced around academia and the tech industry in various roles, Sorrel now works part-time as a research software engineer at Leeds University and part-time as a freelance learning coach and consultant to engineering teams. Much of what we do as engineers hinges on our capacity to learn, independently and collaboratively, yet learning to learn isn't a prominent feature of most curriculums. That's why she started her consultancy, where she can bring her research and teacher experience to support continuous learning.
Testing in the dark: Life as a research software engineer
This short talk will give the audience an insight into the chaotic underworld that is research software engineering. It aims to ignite inter-contextual learning in areas like software design, testing, and supporting neurodiversity in teams. If you've ever been curious about engineering in an academic research context, this one's for you!
Costa Giannakopoulos
I’m a tester and I absolutely love it. It’s what I was meant to do even though it’s something I fell into by luck. I have worked at MadeByPi, Sky, DAZN, Infinity Works/Accenture and now Collibra. I see myself as a quality engineer and quality coach as testing is everyone’s responsibility. My goal is to shepherd the team I am in and point them in the right direction of creating high quality software. I am a father of 3 amazing daughters. I also love playing 5 a side football and snooker.
What the heck is subcutaneous testing?
Ever wondered how you might reduce the number of UI tests you have and still cover the key scenarios? Costa will answer the question what the heck is subcutaneous testing? With loads of real examples of how Pactumjs makes this easy!
Olawale Ibitoye
My name is Olawale Ibitoye, and I am a tester with six years of testing experience. I also hold a master's degree in AI and data science. I enjoy discussing technology and ethics, and in my free time, I am an avid fan of sports, particularly football.
AI Ethics in SDLC
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) across diverse domains such as healthcare, transportation, and consumer services has transformed societal and technological landscapes. However, this rapid adoption also amplifies the ethical challenges posed by AI systems, including issues related to bias, privacy, transparency, and accountability. Addressing these challenges requires adoption of AI ethics throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC) while fostering collaboration across diverse functional teams, including developers, designers, testers, and end-users.
Kat Obring
After 20 successful years in the software industry, I now teach teams and individuals shift-left testing strategies and leveraging DevOps practices to achieve speedy delivery with predictable quality. My tenure at companies such as Linden Lab (Second Life), Disney Online, Infinity Works, and Accenture has reinforced my belief that most technology challenges are fundamentally about people. Therefore, my focus is on developing processes and nurturing relationships that foster high-performing, contented teams. I emphasise that effective testing is a critical component of quality engineering that will speed up your delivery, not slow it down.
From Gatekeepers to Coaches: Evolving the QA Role in Agile Teams
Every agile team I ever worked on has at one time or another felt held back by their QA process, and often rightly so, because too many QAs have been trained to be gatekeepers, not enablers of safe releases. In this talk, you’ll hear how modern QA professionals can shift from being that bottleneck into quality coaches, finally breaking down silos and building stronger engineering culture. I’ll present practical strategies for implementing this shift, such as pair testing, collaborative code reviews and quality-focused workshops that will improve the entire team’s testing capabilities.
Chris Briggs
I fell into testing eight years and have loved the work ever since. I’ve been on a number of professional journeys; from manual to a hybrid of auto-manual testing, bare functional testing to considering all quality attributes, being a team member, to being a leader, and attending community events and conferences to now, speaking at them. With a lively and at times, derailing interest in the world I love to play with ideas and new perspectives. Otherwise I do enjoy a spot of cooking and crafting.
The Good, The Right, and The Fitting: Moral Philosophy in Software Testing
The future is now. Never before have we had such power to do harm—or to do good. But what is good? What is right? What is fitting—and for whom? Can we afford the luxury of thinking about morality in software testing? Can we afford not to? Quality Engineering often focuses on functional and non-functional attributes, ensuring performance, security, and usability. Even the broader, glue-work role of QEs tends to center on fulfilling business needs and meeting delivery goals. Yet, whether we acknowledge it or not, our work has an inherent moral dimension. This talk begins with an exploration of Aristotelian, Kantian, and Utilitarian ethics, introducing core philosophical concepts that we will then apply to real-world software testing dilemmas. The purpose of this talk is not to leave attendees with answers or definitive frameworks. Instead, attendees will leave with a conceptual scaffolding that enables them to critically examine their own domains, collaboratively assess ethical challenges, integrate moral reasoning into their decision-making, and hopefully, a lot of questions! Ethical testing isn’t only about avoiding harm in the present - but about doing good, now and in the future.
Jit Gosai
Jitesh’s expertise in testing spans over two decades. He currently works as the Principal Tester for the BBC, supporting teams to create high-quality products by fostering a Culture of Quality. He shares his experiences at conferences across Europe and in his newsletter https://qualityeng.substack.com/.
Psychological Safety for Staff+ Engineers
Psychological safety is fundamental for successful teams as it allows people to take risks and feel confident that no one on the team would embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting mistakes, asking questions or offering new ideas. But taking those risks doesn't come naturally to people and needs to be nurtured. Why? Because people have a natural tendency to look up in the hierarchy as to what is and isn't acceptable. Therefore if we model behaviors that show that it is safe for interpersonal risk-taking, it helps others see that they, too, can take these risks. In this talk, I'd like to share what psychological safety is, why it matters to software teams and how Staff+ engineers can foster environments high in psychological safety.
Denny Thampi
I am passionate about Quality Engineering, process improvement, and team collaboration. With almost 20 years of experience, I’ve helped teams move beyond traditional testing, embedding quality at every stage of development. I love working with people, mentoring testers to grow into quality engineers, and encouraging a collaborative, automation-first approach. My focus is always on making processes smoother, improving efficiency, and ensuring high-quality software delivery.
The Shift to Quality Engineering: Adapting Skills, Mindsets, and Practices
Embedding quality in the entire product life cycle has become an essential part in the modern software development landscape. This talk explores the transformative shift from traditional QA to Quality Engineering, focusing on how teams can adapt their skills, mindset and practices to foster continuous quality. Learn how modern techniques such as shift left, automation and robust feedback loops help drive quality not only during development but also in monitoring, analytics and post production performance.
Melissa Rocks
I've been in testing for 8+ years now and my passion is inclusivity in the workplace, ranging from mental health to accessibility to neurodiversity considerations. Before facing my own physical disability struggles this was always something I was keen on but since I've experienced it more I can really give explanations of how small things can make all the difference to those with and without these considerations.
Who Cares About Accessibility
Accessibility? The history and use of it. Let's talk about why we want it to be regularly considered in tech, who it can help and how we can go about that.
Mike Smith
Hiya, I’m Mike Smith, and I’ve been working in Test, development, and architecture for about 15 years. Currently as the Head of Testing at Ocean Technologies, I’m focused on turning struggling QA teams into empowered, high-performing Testing groups that really make a difference. The work often involves tackling tricky challenges like legacy systems, inefficient processes, and distributed teams and I love finding practical, people-focused solutions to these issues. Outside of work, I’m a lifelong gamer and content creator who’s passionate about building communities that are inclusive and thoughtful, especially when it comes to mental health. Whether it’s through gaming or my day job, I believe in creating spaces where people can exist and be themselves without judgement.
Turning the Tide: Revitalising Testing in a Legacy-Driven World
Legacy systems, siloed teams, and outdated Testing processes are challenges that many organisations face—but they don’t have to be roadblocks to quality and innovation. Drawing from my experience transforming Testing teams across complex environments, I'll share actionable strategies for rebuilding trust in testing, introducing modern practices, and aligning Testing efforts with business goals. From overcoming blame culture to navigating distributed teams across time zones, this talk will highlight the insights, techniques, and mindsets that can drive rapid improvement and lasting change.