Julie Coleman

Hi. I'm an experienced SDET with knowledge about frontend and backend development. I started my testing journey in the hardware space, building and maintaining laboratories of routers, switches, and access points for AT&T's Network Operations Center. Once those systems were built, I spent most of my day troubleshooting with field technicians for large companies like McDonald's and Starbucks. I soon found out that I like creating and automating processes between my team and engineering as well as managing incidents and problem solving. This caught the attention of the QA department and I was invited to join a team of database-focused testing engineers.

There was only one problem, I had trained myself for potential jobs like networking or systems administration, not programming. I re-enrolled myself in college and started learning Python, Java and C++ as well as taking online tutorials, attending hackathons, and joining coding challenges. But I noticed there wasn't an SDET group in Austin, so I grabbed two of my friends and we started Austin Automation Professionals. We quickly assembled some of the best speakers and QA professionals in the area and began a following of around 50 members who regularly showed up to our monthly meetings and ended with a total list of over 2500 members.

I continue to serve the local tech community as a co-organizer for DevOpsDays Austin and a project manager for Open Austin. I am also re-enrolled in Austin Community College with a focus on an associates in UX/UI design. Combined with my MBA, this gives me a unique but well-rounded software engineering background.