Quality Engineering Strategy and the Culture of Testing in the Age of AI

Hey all, fall is upon us! So we had a last minute back-out of our speaker this month but after some juggling I convinced Arash to come and give us the talk he's preparing for the conference he's attending two days later. So we get a sneak preview!!!!

Quality Engineering Strategy and the Culture of Testing in the Age of AI

• As organizations accelerate their digital transformation journeys, Quality Engineering (QE) has evolved far beyond traditional Quality Assurance (QA). Modern technology organizations require a comprehensive testing strategy that embeds quality throughout the software development lifecycle, enabling faster delivery, reduced risk, improved customer experience, and greater business confidence. This session explores how leaders can build an effective Quality Engineering strategy by establishing a strong culture of testing where quality is a shared responsibility across product, engineering, operations, and business teams. Attendees will learn how to align testing practices with organizational goals and create a scalable approach that balances Manual Testing, Automation Testing, and AI-Assisted Testing. The discussion will highlight the continued importance of manual testing for exploratory, usability, accessibility, and business process validation; the role of automation testing in accelerating regression, integration, API, and end-to-end testing; and how AI-assisted testing is transforming the industry through intelligent test generation, self-healing automation, predictive risk analysis, test data creation, and accelerated defect detection. A successful testing strategy must also extend beyond functional validation. The session will emphasize the need for comprehensive non-functional testing, including performance, scalability, security, reliability, resilience, accessibility, and operational readiness. Attendees will gain practical insights into defining a balanced test pyramid, implementing risk-based testing approaches, establishing meaningful quality metrics, and integrating testing within modern DevOps and CI/CD pipelines. Whether your organization is beginning its Quality Engineering transformation or looking to mature its testing capabilities, this session will provide actionable guidance for creating a sustainable quality culture that leverages people, processes, automation, and AI to deliver high-quality software at speed and scale.

Arash's Bio: Arash Taheri is a technical leader with over 18 years of experience in software quality assurance, test automation, team leadership, and project management. He is currently the director of quality assurance and quality engineering at Central 1. With extensive experience in software development lifecycle and proficiency in agile methodologies, Arash deeply understands the technical and non-technical challenges of continuous integration and continuous delivery and knows how to integrate test automation into DevOps to speed up production releases with fewer number of incidents. Arash’s engineering background, combined with his MBA degree and PMP certification, empowers him to take a project management approach to delivering releases that are in scope, on schedule, and with high quality.

[https://www.linkedin.com/in/arashtaheri/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/arashtaheri/)

Venue - Slalom Build's offices