What is Quality Engineering?

31st January 2025
  • Locked
Stuart Thomas's profile
Stuart Thomas

Head of Quality

What is Quality Engineering? image
A free account is required to view this content
Talk Description

In this talk, Stuart Thomas explores the concept of quality engineering and its role in modern software development. 

He argues that Quality Engineering is more than just a new term, it's an evolution of traditional testing and QA into a proactive, integrated approach to software quality.

Key points covered:

  • Quality as a continuous process: Quality Engineering moves beyond testing at the end of development and embeds quality practices throughout the software development lifecycle.
  • Industry evolution & best practices: Quality Engineering builds on models like Dan Ashby’s Continuous Testing and Janet Gregory & Lisa Crispin’s Holistic Testing. It ensures quality is a shared responsibility across teams, from developers to business leaders.
  • Shift left & shift right approaches: Quality Engineers focus on early testing (shift left) to catch issues before they escalate and use monitoring & observability (shift right) to maintain quality in production.
  • Developer experience & efficiency: A core focus is improving developer workflows, reducing bottlenecks and enabling faster feedback loops, leading to better productivity and higher-quality software.
  • Culture & long-term benefits: Quality Engineering requires a mindset shift but ultimately enables teams to deliver high-quality software that meets customer needs more quickly and safely.

Stuart concludes that quality engineering isn’t just about testing, it’s about making software development smoother, more efficient and more effective for everyone involved.

Stuart Thomas
He / Him
Head of Quality
Retro-gaming enthusiast, car lover, problem-solver, and quality evangelist. I have a passion for delivering high quality software by improving ways of working and delivering excellent test tools.
Stuart Thomas
He / Him
Head of Quality
Retro-gaming enthusiast, car lover, problem-solver, and quality evangelist. I have a passion for delivering high quality software by improving ways of working and delivering excellent test tools.
More Talks
Round table: women in test Athens

0h 33m 4s

Discover the QA career path Athens

0h 7m 6s

From QA to Software Engineer in test: an accelerating journey Athens

0h 10m 22s

Subscribe to our newsletter
We'll keep you up to date on all the testing trends.