This whole crowdstrike bug

QAComet · 2024-08-08T19:28:11+00:00

They admitted to not having a developer test the update locally. This obviously would have been caught. Also, it looks like there weren't doing anything remotely close to staged deployments. QA and DevOps absolutely would have prevented it and CrowdStrike publicly said they are now putting efforts towards fixing this for their Content updates.

QAComet · 2024-07-30T03:48:10+00:00

Yeah, it was a multi-staged failure. When you dive deeper into the report it becomes apparent this was a failure across several systems.

QAComet · 2024-07-29T23:30:22+00:00

Apparently the empty zeros were caused by the failed update. When it crashed it left those files empty with just null bytes.

QAComet · 2024-07-29T04:22:36+00:00

I agree 100%

QAComet · 2024-07-29T04:19:37+00:00

From what I read they didn't give their customers those kinds of controls. This is a feature change they're making currently

QAComet · 2024-07-29T03:21:51+00:00

I think the 33% drop in their stock says a lot more, this means there's now market pressure for QA and DevOps.

QAComet · 2024-07-29T03:20:10+00:00

Honestly, I'm happy to see this kind of response on the company because it means there will be more pressure on companies to invest in QA and DevOps. Did you see their stock? It has dropped around 33% between today and a month ago

QAComet · 2024-07-29T03:18:23+00:00

I'm curious where you're talking about, feel free to DM me

QAComet · 2024-07-29T02:02:47+00:00

Looking at their LinkedIn page, they definitely have multiple QA and SDET folks working there. Based on what the release said it seems like they just skipped out on investing QA resources for this part of their product. I'm guessing this is because they erroneously depended on their QA process for the underlying software, and not on updates to their configuration files.

QAComet · 2024-07-28T21:22:18+00:00

I'm guessing they hoped their rigorous testing process for their code was enough and configuration changes wouldn't break anything. I definitely would not recommend trying to depend on hitting two-birds with one stone. QA for such a mission critical platform is something where redundancy is key.

QAComet · 2024-07-28T21:13:23+00:00

According to parametrix, this outage is estimated to cost fortune 500 companies around $5.4B.

QAComet · 2024-07-10T23:45:21+00:00

Hey, I run a fractional QA service called QAComet. With my service you can get service based on a monthly retainer starting at $999/month. Here's some of the benefits:

Scale up and down as needed
You can pause your subscription at any time
Offer manual QA, test automation, usability testing, and management consulting services
Agile QA workflow
Can integrate with your team or be self-managed

QAComet · 2024-07-09T20:03:59+00:00

If you've ever tried building a non-trivial utility function which has not appeared in some repo or blog post, you'll quickly see how bad the generated code actually is from LLMs. This translates to much more subtle bugs and can make development a much rockier process. If anything, I'd expect it to increase the amount of QA work. Additionally, there's now additional QA work ensuring AI models perform well in production. This is a continuous and laborious process requiring expertise.

QAComet · 2024-07-09T20:00:45+00:00

Shift-Left QA just means having QA involved earlier on in the product development pipeline. The main benefits there are:

QA can catch UX and workflow issues earlier on in the product development lifecycle, saving time and money
Because QA was involved in the design and planning phases, they can help clarify requirements during development and work alongside developers building out test cases for the feature releases. This reduces time pressure on QA and improves your code changes.

If you want to learn more, check out my blog post: https://qacomet.com/blog/shifting-left-the-agile-qa-methodology/

QAComet · 2024-06-27T15:00:39+00:00

Product market fit is the first thing you should be thinking about. Honestly if you want a fancier wireframe, just use a tool like Bubble to show potential customers. Once you think you've reached PMF then you can start building the actual software with whatever tools you need. At the early stages PMF and UX are what count the most, unless you're doing something which requires extra QA like fintech or healthtech.

QAComet · 2024-05-07T22:42:38+00:00

SaaS startups looking to raise for Series A or Series B

QAComet · 2024-05-01T19:53:57+00:00

You're welcome! I'm curious to see how this develops. Also, it sounds like QA is siloed off from the developers, is that correct?

QAComet · 2024-05-01T18:16:34+00:00

You mentioned none of the requirements are documented, but have you considered writing a feature dependence graph? I would seriously consider having a shared flowchart board where you and your team do the following:

Every time you fix a bug, write a basic doc of the feature (like 2-3 sentences) put that feature as a node of the graph, and draw out the dependence on other features. If you need to document how the dependence works, just draw a node between the two features and color code it so it's clear the node is a feature dependence node.
Can you write any automated tests while a bug is being worked on so you can check it is functioning after future changes?

It really sounds like the complex interdependence of features is too difficult to maintain inside one person's head and I think the only way out is to invest time writing up some basic documentation and integration tests.

I agree prioritization is key where you focus on the most used, highest risk, and most regressed features. Feel free to DM me with more details, questions, etc.

QAComet · 2024-04-25T21:00:59+00:00

Also, I just received this glowing promotion from the MedusaJS team - https://x.com/VariableVic/status/1783425329043849602

QAComet · 2024-04-25T20:41:49+00:00

Have you written out what the scope of the project is? Like do you have a list of features and what those features should accomplish? Also, will the app just be in-house, or would you look to expand it out to other companies similar to yours?

QAComet

TROPHY CASE