Man, the job market is brutal! It took me four months of job searching in 2025 to find SELF Id when MassMutual outsourced its technology department. And it took me four months of near constant job searching in 2026 to find AAA Life when I was caught up in the second round of SELF's layoffs in the end of January.
Stories for Software QA Engineers shifting from manual to automated testing.
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June 3, 2026
New Position Unlocked: Senior SDET at AAA Life Insurance, starting Monday, June 15th, 2026!
I have two announcements: I've accepted a job offer as a Senior SDET role at AAA Life Insurance Company, and will be starting Monday, June 15th! And I have been nominated to be one of the volunteer Directors on the leadership board of the Software Quality Group of New England.
Man, the job market is brutal! It took me four months of job searching in 2025 to find SELF Id when MassMutual outsourced its technology department. And it took me four months of near constant job searching in 2026 to find AAA Life when I was caught up in the second round of SELF's layoffs in the end of January.
Man, the job market is brutal! It took me four months of job searching in 2025 to find SELF Id when MassMutual outsourced its technology department. And it took me four months of near constant job searching in 2026 to find AAA Life when I was caught up in the second round of SELF's layoffs in the end of January.
June 2, 2026
SDET Lean Coffee #1: With AI, what is useful testing and what is workslop? SQGNE, June 2, 2026
With AI, what is useful when it comes to testing and what is workslop? How do you create workflows in AI? With AI producing massive amounts of code, how can a tester keep up?
These are some of the topics attendees decided to talk about in our first ever SDET Lean Coffee, as part of the Software Quality Group of New England ( sqgne.org ). We exchanged war stories, horror stories, shared insights, and provided a bit of group therapy as we talked about the stress involved being the main support role of the software development team.
A surprise guest was Lisa Crispin (LisaCrispin.com), author of "Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams". Lisa has been working with DORA, Google Cloud's DevOps Research and Assessment division.
Recently, Lisa gave a talk teaming up with the "Beyond Quality" podcast, sharing what she has been doing "AI, testing, and the DORA AI Capabilities Model" at Lisa's site at https://lisacrispin.com/2026/04/20/ai-testing-and-the-dora-ai-capabilities-model/ discussing:
SDET Lean Coffees for the SQGNE will (usually) be held the first Tuesday of each month at 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm EDT.
Interested in attending the next session Tuesday, July 7th?
Register at the Software Quality Group of New England website at https://www.sqgne.org/
Happy Testing!
-T.J. Maher
Software Engineer in Test
BlueSky | YouTube | LinkedIn | Articles
These are some of the topics attendees decided to talk about in our first ever SDET Lean Coffee, as part of the Software Quality Group of New England ( sqgne.org ). We exchanged war stories, horror stories, shared insights, and provided a bit of group therapy as we talked about the stress involved being the main support role of the software development team.
A surprise guest was Lisa Crispin (LisaCrispin.com), author of "Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams". Lisa has been working with DORA, Google Cloud's DevOps Research and Assessment division.
Recently, Lisa gave a talk teaming up with the "Beyond Quality" podcast, sharing what she has been doing "AI, testing, and the DORA AI Capabilities Model" at Lisa's site at https://lisacrispin.com/2026/04/20/ai-testing-and-the-dora-ai-capabilities-model/ discussing:
- The Dora AI Capabilitues Model
- How we need to test AI agents since AI agents can degrade over time
What is a "Lean Coffee"?
"Lean Coffee is a structured, but agenda-less meeting. Participants gather, build an agenda, and begin talking. Conversations are directed and productive because the agenda for the meeting was democratically generated". This format arose over fifteen years ago, when "Jim Benson and Jeremy Lightsmith wanted to start a group that would discuss Lean techniques in knowledge work – but didn’t want to start a whole new cumbersome organization with steering committees, speakers, and such. They wanted a group that did not rely on anything other than people showing up and wanting to learn or create", according to LeanCoffee.org.When Is The Next SDET Lean Coffee?
SDET Lean Coffees for the SQGNE will (usually) be held the first Tuesday of each month at 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm EDT.
Interested in attending the next session Tuesday, July 7th?
Register at the Software Quality Group of New England website at https://www.sqgne.org/
Happy Testing!
-T.J. Maher
Software Engineer in Test
BlueSky | YouTube | LinkedIn | Articles
June 1, 2026
Come join us at the next SQGNE Meeting! Open-Source Malware: Defending Your Software Supply Chain From Evolving Threats - June 17, 2026
"Open-Source Malware: Defending Your Software Supply Chain From Evolving Threats" will be the topic of the next Software Quality Group of New England (sqgne.org) meeting.
Join us on Zoom or in person at Burlington, MA ( Register Here )
"Bryan Whyte breaks down the latest wave of open source malware, explains how these threats diverge from traditional vulnerabilities, and shares actionable steps for organizations to defend mission-critical software.
Speaker: Bryan Whyte, CISSP Director, Solutions Engineering @Sonatype
Date: June 17, 2026 @ 6:00 pm
Join us on Zoom or in person at Burlington, MA ( Register Here )
"Bryan Whyte breaks down the latest wave of open source malware, explains how these threats diverge from traditional vulnerabilities, and shares actionable steps for organizations to defend mission-critical software.
"As organizations deepen their reliance on open-source software, evolving security threats are reshaping the landscape at an unprecedented pace.
"Threat actors are now increasingly targeting development pipelines and trusted ecosystems like npm to orchestrate supply chain attacks with significant downstream impact. Incidents such as the 2025 Shai-Hulud npm campaign, the XZ Utils backdoor, and the widespread compromise of over 23,000 GitHub repositories illustrate how open-source malware has quickly become a critical, top-tier threat built to evade legacy scanning and exploit trust woven into modern delivery pipelines.
"--The shifting tactics of threat actors targeting npm, PyPi, GitHub, and development pipelines
"--Key differences between open-source malware and traditional malware or vulnerabilities
"--The most prevalent malware types and tactics driving today's software supply chain attacks
"After spending 20 years in software development, Bryan started his journey into Application Security in 2015 with the AppScan tool suite for Static, Dynamic and Mobile Application Security Testing. In 2018, he expanded his Cybersecurity proficiency, earning the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). In 2019, he was excited to join Sonatype due to the explosive growth of open-source software, which has made Software Composition Analysis (SCA) a critical aspect of Application Security".