Announcing The 44^th ANNUAL PNSQC

The PNSQC and Portland AWS User Group are joining forces this June at ProFocus Headquarters for an evening of technical learning with cloud, security, and quality professionals from across the region.

This month, Trevor Gudeman, Senior Software Engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, takes us inside how AWS can level up code quality across CI/CD workflows. With a focus on CodeBuild and CodePipeline, Trevor will show how AWS-native tools can take the manual effort out of key quality checks — think linting, unit testing, code coverage, static analysis, security scanning, and quality gates — so your team can catch issues earlier and ship with more confidence.

This will be a hybrid meetup, so mingle in person or tune in online. Doors (and virtual lobby) open at 5:30pm for a half hour of pre-talk networking.

Drinks provided by ProFocus. Free to attend!
‎
Schedule:

• 5:30pm - 6pm Networking
• 6pm - 7:30pm Tech Talk

Converge with your fellow software professionals this May at Steeplejack on NE Broadway!

What are project managers actually saying about AI, quality, and delivery — and what does it mean for us in QA? Jahzeel Ormeño, Founder and Principal Consultant of SimplexityPM, is bringing the conversation from the PMI Portland Annual Conference straight to our Meetup with her informal talk "From the PMI Conference Floor: What the PM World Is Saying About Quality, AI, and Getting Work Done Right".

Jahzeel is excited to debrief her experience from the conference with an honest conversation about what PMs are actually talking about: where AI is showing up (and where it isn’t), what else dominated the room, and how the PM practices most of us take for granted connect directly to software quality outcomes. Come ready to share what you’re seeing on your end too — the best part will be comparing notes.

You don’t need to be a PM to get something out of this. It’s a good fit if you’re curious about any of the following:
• What PMs and quality folks have in common (and where they still talk past each other)
• How AI is actually landing in delivery teams — beyond the hype
• Which PM habits quietly prevent quality problems before they start
• Continuing the conversations from PMI Portland 2026

This will be a hybrid meetup, so mingle in person or tune in online. Doors (and virtual lobby) open at 6pm for a half hour of pre-talk networking.

Schedule:

• 6pm - 6:30pm Networking (online included)
• 6:30pm - 7:30pm ‎Open discussion led by Jahzeel

(While free to attend, food and drinks from the delicious Steeplejack menu will not be covered.)

Join us for our April meetup, presented and hosted by PLUS QA in Southeast Portland!
‎ ‎
This month, PLUS QA's own VP Ryan Wilder and Lead Dev Gianni Zamora walk us through how they're building AI solutions that work within their well-practiced manual testing strategies.
‎ ‎
Through a live demo and discussion, you'll see how PLUS QA tackled this challenge by embedding AI capabilities into their existing tools and in-house software, fine-tuning results and workflows to fit the way their teams already worked. Striking the right balance of custom AI tooling amplified the natural strength of manual testing, seamlessly boosting the daily tasks accomplished by project leads and testers without the burden of adopting yet another outside tool.
‎
It's a practical, human-centered take on AI in QA, expanding what manual testers can do while emphasizing the high-quality human expertise that great testing demands.
‎‎
This will be a hybrid meetup, so mingle in person or tune in online. Doors (and virtual lobby) open at 6 pm for a half hour of pre-talk networking.
‎‎
Schedule:

• 6:00 - 6:30pm Networking (online included)
• 6:30 - 8:00pm AI-Augmented Manual Testing: Demo & Discussion with PLUS QA

If you have been considering submitting a paper to PNSQC but are not quite sure where to start, this session is for you.

Join your hosts Ying Ki Kwong and Gwendolyn Avington, along with other PNSQC authors, for a one-hour fireside chat designed to demystify the PNSQC paper proposal process, especially for first-time or less-experienced authors.

We will walk through what makes a strong proposal, what reviewers are looking for, and how the process works from abstract to final paper.

You will hear directly from past PNSQC authors, who will share their experiences, lessons learned, and practical advice on turning an idea into a successful submission.
We will also cover:

• What to expect from the Call for Proposals
• How the peer review process supports you through the summer
• Resources available to help you develop your paper
• How to connect with Track Chairs or experienced authors to refine your idea

Most importantly, there will be plenty of time for questions and open discussion.
If you are on the fence about submitting, this is a great opportunity to get clarity, build confidence, and take the next step.
The CFP deadline is April 20. This session might be the push you need.

This event is hybrid; a Zoom link will be emailed and posted as a comment closer to the date, but please note that the talk itself doesn't start until 6:30!

February is right in the middle of peak hiring season, and PNSQC has a couple of speakers lined up to help you land that next role in a very competitive market.

First, Jeremy Elwood will give his talk titled The Paradox of Plenty: A Modern Hiring Story. It's a reflection on finding a job, but told from the employer's perspective: exploring what actually differentiated successful candidates from the rest, why resume screening failed to surface the strongest candidates, and what to look for in a successful candidate. Along the way, it offers concrete advice for everyone: how job seekers can better present their experience, approach take-home challenges, and prepare for interviews; and how hiring managers can ask better questions, design meaningful evaluations, and reduce unnecessary pain in the process. Ultimately, the talk aims not only to surface systemic problems in modern software engineer hiring, but also to offer practical guidance and cautious optimism for navigating (and surviving) the "paradox of plenty".

Heather Wilcox is excited to follow with her talk titled Resume Tips and Tricks, which will go further in depth on how to write a resume that hiring managers will notice, along with other helpful hints for survival in the era of AI. As an experienced hiring manager and job seeker herself, Heather has reviewed hundreds (maybe thousands?) of resumes. She can tell you that the AI and recruiter generated resumes are usually easy to spot and often treated with a certain amount of disdain and distrust. But, at the same time, you need your information to get past the AI screeners and into the hands of a real human. It's not an easy needle to thread, but she's done it and so can you!

Schedule (all times in PT):
6-6:30 PM: Light refreshments (soft drinks, pizza) and networking
6:30-7:30 PM: Talks/Presentation
7:30-8 PM: Q&A and more networking

Thanks to Trimble this month for lending us their space for the evening!