The Future of the QA Engineer & Playwright x AI Agents | Bay Area/ SFO Meet

The Test Tribe 5th San Francisco Meetup – The Future of the QA Engineer

📅 Date: 6th November 2025 (Thursday)
🕕 Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM PST
📍 Venue: Personalis, Inc.
6600 Dumbarton Cir, Fremont, CA 94555, United States
📍 Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/U2Dqy9zRnpQh7Pp77

Panel Discussion: The Future of the QA Engineer – From Tester to AI Strategist

Moderator: Stephen Fairclough, Vice President, Informatics at Personalis
Panelists:

• Aprajita Mathur, Software Test Engineering at Guardant Health
• Nidhi Jain, Software Developer at Roche
• Krutik Poojara, Product Security at Verizon

About the Discussion

The QA Engineer’s role is rapidly transforming in the era of Artificial Intelligence. This panel brings together experienced industry professionals and leaders to explore how quality engineering is evolving—from manual testing to AI-driven strategy.

Together, they’ll discuss the changing expectations from QA teams, how AI is reshaping quality practices, and what it means to be a “QA Engineer of the future.”

This conversation will help you understand how to stay ahead of the curve as the testing landscape shifts toward automation, intelligence, and strategic influence.

About the Moderator

Stephen Fairclough is a mission-driven people leader with over 20 years of experience leading diverse teams across scientific discovery, product development, clinical operations, and commercialization in academic, government, and commercial settings.

He is accomplished in developing teams and growing leaders to deliver on business goals, launch products, and drive market growth. A charismatic and inspirational communicator, Stephen effectively represents organizations to external stakeholders and investors.

Session 2: What’s New in Playwright – Meet the Agents

Speaker: Renata Andrade

In this session, we’ll explore the new Playwright Agents introduced in version 1.56. Playwright, a powerful automation framework, now includes its own intelligent agents:

• The Planner – explores your app and produces a Markdown test plan
• The Generator – transforms that plan into Playwright test files
• The Healer – executes the test suite and automatically repairs failing tests

We’ll experiment with different scenarios and discuss the best ways to use these agents effectively.

About the Speaker
Renata Andrade is a Software Quality Engineer with over 18 years of experience, passionate about solving complex challenges. Originally from Brazil and now based in San Francisco, she’s deeply involved in the global testing community.

After years of contributing to the Brazilian IT scene—teaching technology to kids, organizing meetups, and hosting conferences—Renata continues to share her expertise through her platform testingwithrenata.com and by mentoring aspiring professionals worldwide.

Outside of work, Renata practices Acroyoga and Slackline, loves dancing, and enjoys a vegan lifestyle. Her favorite food is broccoli—and interestingly, she doesn’t like coffee!

Key Takeaways

• Understand how AI is transforming the QA role
• Learn what it takes to move from tester to AI strategist
• Hear real-world experiences and frameworks from industry leaders
• Discover how to future-proof your QA career in an AI-driven world
  

About The Test Tribe

The Test Tribe is the world’s largest software testing community, empowering testers globally since 2018. With 400+ events and 120K+ members across 130+ countries, we bring software testers together to learn, grow, and connect through expert-led courses, membership programs, cohorts, and community events.

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