Boston-based SmartBear has poached Ron Trackey to become the firm’s new senior vice present of product management and design.
The appointment means Trackey, an industry veteran with more than 30 years of experience, has left his previous employer, Digital.ai, where he was vice president product management, responsible for rolling out automated software testing systems across the digital environments of a range of large financial institutions and other firms.
“As we navigate through the complexities of today’s technological landscape worldwide with AI-driven tools to accelerate development and create customer experiences that matter, Trackey will be pivotal in driving advancements in SmartBear’s product strategy and design,” stated Dan Faulkner, chief product officer at the company.
Faulkner added that “with his extensive experience across the tech industry working at world-class organisations, Trackey is a highly respected leader known for driving innovation and excellence.”
Career so far
Trackey has a long track record in working with testers, developers, and DevOps teams ats multiple well-known firms.
Proper to Digital.ai, he was with Carbonite, which was later acquired by OpenText, where he managed teams creating innovative solutions to meet market demands.
Before that, Trackey was senior director of product management, fraud, and authentication at RSA Security, overseeing consumer fraud and authentication services, where he played a critical role in advancing security technologies.
Trackey kicked off his career in earnest at Microsoft, where – for nearly 15 years – he led teams in both product and development leadership roles, delivering the first mobile voice search and mapping applications for Bing.
Responding to his new job, Trackey said that “SmartBear is setting a new standard where technology meets the future of development practice, a standard that emphasises visibility, quality, speed, and above all, the experiences of your development teams and your customers.”
New platform
Trackey’s appointment comes as SmartBear is aggressively targeting the financial services-focused software testing market, particularly in its home market, the US.
It recently launched a new test management platform. The standout feature, according to the firm, is its no-code test automation capabilities.
SmartBear said the Jira-native platform, which has been released on the Atlassian marketplace, should streamline software quality by enabling developers to turn manual tests into automated runs without any new or additional coding.
The platform, called Zephyr Scale, with an extension named Zephyr Scale Automate, is capable of running cross-browser tests, email and SMS testing, as well as parallel testing, the firm said.
Faulkner explained that the new solution “extends test automation to all.”
When asked to elaborate, he said that the platform “enables a step-change in test automation to speed up releases and free up capacity in testing teams.”
This means that any need for scripts is removed, allowing manual testers to design and use their own automated tests.
Faulkner disclosed that, during a two-month beta program close to 2,000 testers tried to platform by completing just over 28,000 test runs.
The platform’s name comes from Zephyr, a competitor deeply embedded in the Atlassian marketplace that was bought by SmartBear in 2018.
Reflect buy
The Somerville, Massachusetts-based technology specialist also said the new solution was a direct result of the company’s recent acquisition of rival firm Reflect.
“With our strategic acquisition of advanced AI-powered provider Reflect just months ago, we are pioneering a groundbreaking approach in test automation,” explained Faulkner.
In February, as reported by QA Financial, SmartBear acquired the AI-driven no-code testing platform called Reflect in a strategic move to strengthen the company’s GenAI capabilities.
The testing solution for web applications allows developers and testers to write tests faster as text prompts, enabling greater automation.
Prior to the acquisition, Reflect was owned by Battery Ventures, Craft Ventures, and Y Combinator. Financial details were never disclosed.
AI strategy
Faulkner pointed out that the Reflect acquisition accelerates SmartBear’s AI strategy to meet diverse customer needs by intelligently powering the firm’s three integrated hubs “for API development, testing, and production readiness with insights that power great user experiences across the entire software development lifecycle.”
In addition, he stressed it is in the process of realigning around 20 products into “intuitive solution hubs,” including its Test Hub, to simplify the customer experience.
The Test Hub allows testers to manage, automate, and execute all tests in one place to guarantee app quality.
Faulkner called his firm’s approach “groundbreaking in test automation” as it “removes barriers such as lack of time, technical expertise, and resources, allowing for complete traceability in the testing process.”
“Testing codes are being created more quickly and with less human oversight.”
Analyst Melinda Ballou
When asked to look into SmartBear’s GenAI strategy, Melinda Ballou, Research Director for Agile ALM, Quality, and portfolio strategies at IDC, said that a recent survey by her firm showed that “a majority of respondents now use AI and GenAI to augment software testing.
Bedford, MA-based Ballou added that “as code assistants permeate software development increasingly, effective software quality and testing strategies are vital to help ensure the quality of code which is being created more quickly and with less human oversight.”
She pointed out that “to improve efficiency, cited areas of focus with AI and GenAI as the technology evolves include test prioritization, identifying root cause of failed tests and code, test case creation, self-healing, test case maintenance, and test process improvement insights.”
Software cycles
Singling out Zephyr, one of SmartBear’s best-selling testing solutions, Faulkner claimed that “Zephyr Scale saves 40+ hours per month on average per user” because its “reporting capabilities allow testers to generate customisable reports and metrics to track testing progress, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions.”
Scrutinising SmartBear’s claims, Paul Nashawaty, practice lead for application development and modernization at Texas-based research and consultancy firm The Futurum Group, said in agreement that he sees in his own research that now close to a fifth of all financial organisations use GenAI in production application workload.
“By extending the robust test management functionalities with intuitive, codeless GenAI-powered automation capabilities, teams can achieve a synergistic test workflow that enhances test quality and accelerates software release cycles,” Nashawaty agreed.
“This combination democratises testing, making it not only accessible and manageable but also significantly boosts efficiency and coverage, ensuring higher software quality and faster go-to-market times and will allow for a great adoption of AI in production workloads,” the analyst concluded.
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