How Quality Engineering Roles Are Changing - 10th SF Bay Area Meetup
Quality Engineering is expanding beyond test execution.
As automation handles more repetitive testing work, QEs are increasingly contributing earlier in design and development, and later in CI/CD and production. AI adds another layer to that shift, both by automating parts of the testing workflow and by introducing new questions around how AI-assisted tools and AI-powered systems should be evaluated.
Join The Test Tribe’s 10th SF Bay Area Meetup for a discussion on how the Quality Engineering role is evolving, and where QEs can contribute as AI, DevOps, and continuous delivery become a larger part of the software development lifecycle.
Event Details
Date: September 2, 2026
Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PDT
Venue: 1631 N First St, San Jose, CA
What's on the Agenda?
How Quality Engineering Roles Are Changing
Speaker: Alexander Stoykovych
As automation takes on more repetitive activities such as test-script creation, test-data generation, and test maintenance, the role of a Quality Engineer can move toward broader engineering and risk-focused work.
In this session, Alexander Stoykovych will explore how Quality Engineering is becoming more integrated into the development lifecycle and DevOps practices.
The session will look at how QEs can contribute across feature design, pull-request reviews, CI/CD pipelines, ephemeral environments, and production telemetry, rather than being involved only after implementation is complete.
Alexander will also discuss how the scope of quality can extend beyond functional correctness to areas such as UX, APIs, AI and algorithmic behaviour, privacy, security, fairness, production performance, and business risk.
The session will also consider where human judgement remains important as AI is used for activities such as test creation, test-data generation, and maintenance.
How This Meetup Solves Your Problem
If your QE role is still defined mainly around test execution and automation maintenance, it can be difficult to understand where the role should expand as engineering practices change.
This session will explore:
How AI and automation can change the day-to-day responsibilities of Quality Engineers
Where QEs can contribute through risk assessment and exploratory testing
How quality can be considered earlier during design, development, code reviews, and CI/CD
How the scope of QE can extend beyond functional testing into UX, APIs, AI behaviour, privacy, security, and production performance
How teams can think about quality through outcomes such as release confidence, risk reduction, customer experience, and production behaviour
Why Show Up on September 2?
This meetup is an opportunity to discuss how the QE role is changing without reducing the conversation to tools or automation alone.
You will be able to hear Alexander’s perspective, ask questions, compare approaches with other practitioners, and discuss how different teams are defining Quality Engineering today.
You will also meet QA professionals, Quality Engineers, SDETs, developers, and engineering leaders from the SF Bay Area community.
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About The Test Tribe
The Test Tribe is the world's largest software testing community, empowering testers globally since 2018. With 925+ events and 170K+ members across 130+ countries, we bring software professionals together to learn, grow, and connect through meetups, conferences, cohorts, masterclasses, and more.
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