7 powerful female QA leaders across the globe to follow

Tech remains overwhelmingly dominated by men, and that gap continues to widen with senior roles, with only 20% female representation on executive leadership teams. Part of closing the gender gap is modeling successful female career paths in tech, and highlighting women’s roles as influential testers, consultants, leaders, and entrepreneurs in QA.

The women featured in this spotlight have many things in common: intelligence, practical experience, a passion for QA. Some are mothers. Some were educated in a university, some learned on the job. Some are CEOs. All of them are part of a global workforce, working remotely for companies across a variety of countries with unique perspectives, insights, and experiences.

For QA professionals looking for software testing inspiration, pathways to success, emerging tech tips, or a new bootcamp, start by exploring the resources offered by these 7 women leading the fray in software testing and QA.

Beth Marshall, Staff Quality Engineer at Smoothwall

In addition to her role at at internet security software company Smoothwall, Marshall runs a blog where she writes tutorials, publishes tips/boot camps, and covers how-to’s on test automation. Marshall’s active in the community as an instructor at Automation University and bootcamp tutor at the Coders Guild. Find her on Twitter.

Marshall is based in Leeds, England.

Check out Marshall’s blog on C# solution For UI Automation Using Selenium 4.0

Julia Pottinger, Head of Training and Development at Quality Works

In additon to being a certified tester and QA expert, Pottinger now works as a consultant with insights ranging from fusing manual and automated testing to API testing and training. She regularly aids companies in improving test coverage, optimizing processes, and getting a better product to market faster. Pottinger shares her experience and expertise on her blog, Twitter, and Youtube.

Pottinger is based in Kingston, Jamaica.

Check out Pottinger’s WebdriverIO course.

Sri Priya P Kulkarni, Senior Test Automation Specialist at IBM

Kulkarni started as a QA automation engineer at Broadridge Financial Solutions before joining IBM as a full-time senior test automation specialist. Kulkarni is active on Github, Twitter, and her blog, where she covers topics like dev life cycles, how to create superb test cases, and test case results analysis.

Kulkarni is based in Bengaluru, India.

Check out her guide on test case design techniques.

Kristel Kruustük, Chief Testing Officer and Founder of Testlio

Picture this: 2012, London. Kruustük is a full-time tester with a passion that isn’t being met by her current company and the present state of QA.

Kruustük noticed the lack of quality software testers and massive frustration around QA best practices. Kruustük and her partner, Marko, came up with an idea and pitched Testlio at the Angel Hack hackathon, where they won first prize and seed money. 

Today, Testlio is the leader of networked testing with a community of more than 10k software testers and 150+ global employees serving clients like NBA, Microsoft, CBS, etc.

In addition to Testlio, Kruustük is an angel investor supporting founders from underrepresented communities. Her first investment was ImagiLabs, an app that teaches girls and non-binary kids to code. Ask her about it on Twitter.

Kruustük is based in Talliin, Estonia.

Watch Kruustük host a webinar, “Remote Testing: Best Practices & Applications,” and read more about Testlio here.

Dawn Jardine, Director of Quality at Rangle.IO

Starting her career over 20 years ago, Jardine climbed the QA ladder one rung at a time, starting as a test specialist to QA analyst, lead, manager, and now her senior director role. 

She currently leads Rangle.IO’s quality assurance strategy and Agile quality practice. Jardine regularly tweets, blogs, and consults on QA strategies, digital operating models, Agile QA methods, and gaining business wins through automation.

Jardine is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 

Listen to Jardine’s webinar, “Mixing automation and exploratory testing for quality coverage.”

Angie Jones, Advisory Board Member at Applitools and Executive Director of Test Automation University

Emerging from her role as Senior Software Engineer at Twitter, Jones transitioned to Applitools, where she developed Test Automation University into the world’s largest online software testing education platform. As of Dec. 2021, Jones is leaving Applitools.

As a leading voice in the QA world, Jones is an international speaker, workshop leader, and test automation expert regularly writing on her blog.

Jones is based in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. 

Read Jones’s blog post on how to achieve in-sprint automation.

Elizabeth Zagroba, Quality Lead at Mendix

Zagroba currently serves as Quality Lead at low-code software platform Mendix where she reviews and contributes code to a Python test automation repository for 15+ teams building Mendix apps across three units.

Zagroba is a frequent panelist discussing test automation, exploratory testing, test reporting, QA tools, etc. She also tweets and blogs on Agile methodologies, unlocking feedback loops, and team and test lead strategies for success.

Zagroba is based in Rotterdam, South Holland, Netherlands.

Read Zagroba’s latest blog on finding a place for exploratory testing.