GConferenceGridThe Conference Catalogue · Vol. 2026Folio № 029503
Of the Field

QA or the Highway 2026

Q

A or the Highway is the Midwest's largest software quality conference, held annually in Columbus, Ohio. The event brings together QA leads, SDETs, engineering managers, and industry thought leaders to share hard-won insights, real-world solutions, and practical lessons that attendees can apply immediately. The conference focuses on community, peer learning,…

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35Voices
10Underwriters
0Exhibitors
29On the bill · sessions
31Companies · in total
§I

The Voices

Programmed at QA, in alphabetical order.
Aaron Evans
Software tester & QA strategy consultant · One Shore
Alexa Beach
Sr. Quality Assurance Analyst · Sweetwater
Andrew Knight
Applitools
Ashley René Casey
Founder · Presence Over Pixels
Barbara Deaton
Sr. Software Manager · SAS Institute
Chris Harbert
CEO of Testery, International Speaker, & Podcast Host · Testery
David Leslie
Lead Software Engineer in Test · FlightSafety International
David Vano
Chief Revenue Officer · Parasoft Corporation
Emma Clouse
Quality Assurance Manager · Sweetwater Sound
Federico Toledo
Co-founder and Chief Quality Officer · Abstracta
Igor Dorovskikh
CEO and Founder · Engenious
Jeff Van Fleet
President & CEO · Lighthouse Technologies
Jenna Charlton
Developer Advocate · BrowserStack
Jenny Bramble
Empathetic Engineering Leader and Quality Advocate
Joel Wilson
Quality Engineering Leader · Ramsey Solutions
Kevin Roe
Senior SDET · Ramsey Solutions
Krishna Bandarupalli
QA Team Lead · Encova Insurance
Kyle Jenkins
Improving
Lee Barnes
Chief Quality Officer · Forte Group
Matthew Eakin
Matthew-Hope Eland
Wizard at Leading EDJE · Leading EDJE
Melissa Tondi
Principal Consultant · Disrupt Testing

— and 13 more, by name unsung —

§II

Underwritten By

The houses behind the program. Tiers as disclosed.
Context QAPlatinum
LeapworkPlatinum
AbstractaGold
BrowserStackGold
Checkpoint TechnologiesGold
Engenious UniversityGold
Lighthouse TechnologiesGold
ParasoftGold
TestMu AIGold
Qt GroupSilver
§III

The Programme

Selected from 29 sessions on the bill.
  • TBA

    AI Testing Isn't One Thing (And Treating It Like It Is Will Bite You)

    Your team shipped an AI feature. Congrats. Now someone asks: how do we test this? You write a test. The output changes. You run it again. Different output. You consider a career in…

  • TBA

    Awesome Web Testing with Playwright and AI

    Everybody gets frustrated when web apps are broken, but testing them thoroughly doesn't need to be a chore. Playwright together with AI makes testing web apps fun! Playwright offer…

  • TBA

    Being Nimble - The next step in Agile Testing Optimization

    We’ll examine how playbooks drive collaboration by ensuring the right stakeholders engage at the right moments throughout the SDLC by turning “who’s in the room” from a variable in…

  • TBA

    Collaborate on Your LEGO(R) Vision

    LEGO(R) sets are fun to build, but who has ever attempted to build a complete set without looking at the instructions? In this meeting, attendees will form teams and attempt to bui…

  • TBA

    Decision Records: Understanding Why Those Decisions Were Made!

    Ever stared at a complex system and thought, "Wait, why was that decision made?!" We’ve all been there – lost in a maze of logic, struggling to track down the root cause of a probl…

  • TBA

    Deploying and Testing Ephemeral Environments

    Merging code that hasn't been fully tested is one of the biggest reasons teams experience missed release dates and flaky test suites. Why? Merging code often means other developers…

  • TBA

    Ensuring Software Quality in the world of AI Developers

    Like it or not, AI agents can now turn a loosely written paragraph of requirements into a pull request that looks production-ready in minutes. That’s impressive — and horrifying. W…

  • TBA

    From API Contracts to UI Confidence: AI-Driven Quality in CI/CD

    In modern distributed architectures, the most disruptive defects are often the ones that live in the gaps between services. Contract violations—schema drift, breaking API changes, …

  • TBA

    From Quality Metrics to Quality Mindset: Building Teams That Own Outcomes

    Software teams often rely on metrics, dashboards, and defined processes to guide quality efforts. While these tools provide important visibility, they don’t automatically create ow…

Intermission
Part the Second · For the Buyer

What does it mean when 31 companies show up — and 4 bet on three roles at once?

31 companies. four are betting more than once.

The numbers below are derived from the speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors on this page — cross-referenced into one ledger. They are the only thing here that 10times.com cannot tell you.

01Fig. 01 — Composition of the House
4All threespeak · spons · exh
6Sponsoringsponsor only
0Exhibitingexhibitor only
21Speakingspeaker only

The Triple-Threat

Lighthouse Technologies·Abstracta·BrowserStack·Parasoft

02Fig. 02 — The Voices, by Seniority

34% of the speakers carry senior titles — C-suite, Founder, VP, or Director-level.

  • C-suite823%
  • Founder / Owner13%
  • VP-level13%
  • Director / Head of26%
  • Manager / Lead720%
  • Engineer · IC720%
  • Other roles926%

Of 35 on the bill · classified by free-text title

03Fig. 03 — The Heaviest in the Room
  1. 01Lighthouse TechnologiesSp·G2V
  2. 02AbstractaSp·G1V
  3. 03BrowserStackSp·G1V
  4. 04ParasoftSp·G1V
  5. 05Checkpoint TechnologiesSp·G
  6. 06Context QASp·P
  7. 07Engenious UniversitySp·G
  8. 08LeapworkSp·P
  9. 09Qt GroupSp·S
  10. 10TestMu AISp·G
  11. 11Improving2V
  12. 12Ramsey Solutions2V
  13. 13Applitools1V
  14. 14DBI Inc (DSW)1V
04Fig. 04 — By Tier
platinum2
20% of 10
gold7
70% of 10
silver1
10% of 10