Kristoffer Nordström
Kristoffer is a Test developer who specialises in test automation for embedded and telecommunications systems. He has worked in the industry for over 6 years and are extremely interested in agile methodology, software testing and software development. Over the years he has developed several large scale test automation systems as well as started up and led non-functional and test tools teams. Kristoffer is also a scrum master and a firm believer in supporting people and their personal development. He has worked with and teached about distributed version control systems and has specialised in GIT. Previously he has been a speaker at the conference "DevCon 2011" in Karlskrona, where he also got very good feedback by the attendees, the topic he spoked on was "Agile Testing" and was a full session. Kristoffer is very active in the field of software testing via hisown blog, through other blogs and he is also very active on twitter with leading testing profiles internationally. Recently he was invited as a guest blogger for Europe's largest software testing conference "Eurostar". This last half year he has been conducting interviews with leading profiles in the testing and agile industry on behalf of the paper Lean Magazine. The articles he is most proud of are "Agile testing" with Lisa Crispin, "New roles for management" with Esther Derby and "Rapid Software testing" with Michael Bolton.
Track abstract - Testers - J2
Why every system test department should have a test developer
Of course there are potential drawbacks in hiring test developers instead of testers, the talk will describe what those drawbacks are and how to circumvent them. Some examples are creating a isolated test developer team within the team, hiring the wrong people, getting less manual test time.
A test developer is a engineer with a divergent skill set and belonging in two different camps, on the one hand the engineer has to be an excellent software developer with all that it entitles, on the other hand the engineer has to be passionate about software testing. How to combine these two identities?
The possibilities of having a test developer in your group is something that I will describe, for example making sure the test developer understands the needs and problems that your testers are facing on a daily basis, delivering hand-crafted test tools for your testers.
Why don't we see the role of a test developer that often? What separates a great test developer from the mediocre ones? Why is a tester who has acquired scripting skills not a test developer? Why is a developer who knows how to write unit tests not a test developer?
You should use test developers to implement test automation, this in order to free up your testers so that they can do "higher value testing". Your test engineers shouldn't waste their time running the same manual scripted regression tests over and over again every time a new release is done. That is what we have automation for.
What other custom made tools can we expect from a test developer?
By the end of this talk I hope to have inspired people into seeing the possibilities of hiring a test developer and also to inspire developers and testers alike to take the step to transform into a test developer.
