Slides
Overview
The world changed almost overnight when COVID-19 arrived. We went from working side-by-side with developers and fellow QEs to working remotely — navigating masks, curbside pickup, virtual classrooms, network issues, and meeting fatigue.
No more packed stadiums and social events. Our children had to get used to virtual classrooms, while we juggled work, family, and a level of context-switching nobody trained us for.
This session was an open discussion about the impact COVID-19 had on quality engineering as a discipline and on the people who practice it.
What We Discussed
- How the overnight shift to remote work changed quality engineering processes
- The challenges of async communication when you’re used to tapping a developer on the shoulder
- How distributed teams affected release confidence and test coverage decisions
- The mental health dimension — isolation, burnout, and the blurring of work/life boundaries
- What changed permanently vs. what teams couldn’t wait to roll back
- Silver linings: remote-first enabled global collaboration and hiring diversity
Reflections
The pandemic stress-tested not just our infrastructure, but our processes and our people. The teams that coped best weren’t necessarily the ones with the most mature automation suites — they were the ones with strong communication habits and psychological safety already baked in.
What the pandemic accelerated, in the end, was a long-overdue conversation about what quality engineering is actually for — and why it’s a human discipline first, a technical one second.
Event Details
Format: Open discussion / roundtable
Community: Testaholics Anonymous — Past Events