Attending EuroSTAR 2025 in Edinburgh was a refreshing experience. For those who don’t know, EuroSTAR is the largest software testing conference in Europe. Two of us NorthCoders had the chance to take part in the conference and it was surely worth every penny. The conference gathered testers, QA engineers, and other quality-minded people from all over Europe. There was a relaxed, good atmosphere and it seemed that everyone was genuinely curious and willing to share their knowledge and learn the latest developments from the industry.
Theme: ‘AI on Trial’
This year’s theme, AI on Trial, led to many interesting topics and how the QA industry is embracing this hot topic. It’s a topic that clearly resonates across the industry, and it was interesting to hear different opinions where AI fits (and specially where it doesn’t) in the testing field. The keynotes covered some big-picture thinking of AI with some honest reflections and some future-gazing. Nothing too excessive - more like hands-on experiences from people who’ve been through the ups and downs of testing in ever evolving industry. We’ll dig into more of the talks in a follow-up post.
Tutorials
We also joined a few different half-day tutorials and smaller sessions. A couple worth mentioning of these workshops were tutorials where we learned about testing of LLMs and where to start with security testing. These turned out to be some of the most useful parts of the conference: hands-on, collaborative and focused to solve issues which you might come across in daily work. They provided concrete value not only for our internal work at NorthCode, but also created added value for our customers. They get to see firsthand how we take these newly learned practices into their projects!
The people
Often the most valuable part of the conferences is the people and the conversations. Some of the best discussions are about the relevant conference topics but sometimes they are about not-so-relevant ones. EuroSTAR was no different on this matter. We met some amazing professionals from our industry. Some of them we knew from before but most of them were totally new people. We think that the best discussions were often with people who you don’t know and can work in totally different contexts in the QA field. These discussions really made the whole conference experience to climb up to another level. It’s always nice to hear that people are wrestling with similar issues and how they have approached them.
A few tips if you’re interested in going to EuroSTAR conference
If you’re considering to take part in conference like EuroSTAR, here are a couple of things we think that made it worthwhile for us:
Join the tutorials/workshops - They’re usually not that much about theory, more about hands-on experience on figuring out new things.
Don’t just stick with your travel companion / colleagues - The real value of conferences comes from these discussions when talking with other professionals in the industry.
Stay curious - It doesn’t matter if you’re new or pro, don’t act like you know everything. Keep your mind open and be willing to learn from others.
Share your experiences - what didn’t work might be as helpful as what did.
Events like EuroSTAR remind us that it’s important to sometimes step out of the normal day-to-day work. It’s not about just learning about new tools or trends. It’s about connecting and getting a slightly wider view of the industry where we work in. Already looking forward to the next EuroSTAR!
