In honour of International Women’s Day, we want to share our discussion about what it means to be a woman in software testing in 2020. We asked Dr. Christin Wiedemann, President of Radical I/O and passionate diversity advocate, to join us as a guest moderator and lead a discussion about the software testing experiences of individuals who identify as women. We spoke about the state of testing for women now, and where we still need to go with PLATO Testing’s Shawnee Polchis-Lanteigne, Hootsuite’s Jesse Ye, and PLATO Testing’s Danielle Gulliver.
A Ph.D. particle physicist by training, Christin uses her scientific background and analytical skills to dissect complex software solution problems. Her career in the technology sector has primarily been spent in the professional services industry, starting as a quality assurance consultant and progressing through the different manager and director roles. As Director of Quality Engineering at Slalom Build, she is part of an incredible team of quality advocates, working collaboratively with clients to create groundbreaking products, while simultaneously advancing quality engineering practices.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinwiedemann/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/c_wiedemann
Danielle Gulliver is a software tester at PLATO Testing Ltd. who completed her Bachelor of Computer Science from Carleton University in May of 2017. Although her specialization was in Game Design, her technological interests are broad. In her short career, she has had experience with performance testing, automated testing, content QA, writing blog posts and now, podcasting.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-gulliver-32ab78119/?originalSubdomain=ca
Jessie Ye began her career as a QA tester at STEMSOFT Software and has advanced her career over the last seven years to become a DevOps engineer. Today, she uses her knowledge in software quality assurance practices to build a continuous delivery platform at Hootsuite that is enabling developers & test engineers around the world.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessie-z-ye/
Shawnee Polchis-Lanteigne is an Associate QA Manager from Woodstock First Nation and is a part of the PLATO Testing Fredericton team. She started testing when she took the Indigenous Software Tester Training course in 2017 and since she then, Shawnee has been working on Agile focused projects. Shawnee enjoys speaking as an advocate for software testing careers and has spoken on multiple panels about diversity, and to different communities to inspire future testers. When she is not testing, Shawnee enjoys exploring local events, learning new art mediums, and any outdoor activities.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnee-polchis-lanteigne-11733512b/