PNW Software Quality Professionals (PNSQC)

Name: Get your resume seen! Talks to help your tech job search
Start: 2026-02-18T02:00:00.000Z
End: 2026-02-18T04:00:00.000Z
Location: Trimble

4.6•125 ratings

About us

Welcome to the PNW Software Quality Professionals Meetup group, hosted by the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference (PNSQC)! This group is for anyone in the software engineering field who loves talking about quality assurance (QA) and wants to connect with like-minded professionals in the Pacific Northwest region. We host monthly hybrid events, with in-person meetups in Portland, OR and Seattle, WA. Whether you're a manual tester, automation engineer, director of QA, or software development engineer in test (SDET), this is the perfect space to learn, grow, and share your knowledge.

Our meetups focus on:

Presentations from industry experts on cutting-edge QA practices and emerging automation tools and technologies
Hands-on workshops to sharpen your testing skills
Networking opportunities to connect with like-minded professionals

Recent meetups have included:

Test Automation Deep Dive - An open discussion on the current tools in the industry for automating tests (Playwright, Postman, etc.) and how to boost your skills with them
AI Prompts - An informal presentation on how Artifical Intelligence via products like ChatGPT has grown in usage, and how we as software quality professionals can take advantage of this technology
Quality Jam - A quickfire round of 6 presenters, each with 10 minutes to talk about something they're passionate about in the industry and deliver a key takeaway to the audience

We aim to foster a supportive and collaborative community where you can exchange ideas, discuss best practices, and keep up with the ever-evolving world of software quality. Whether you’re just starting or have years of experience, this group will help you stay ahead in the fast-paced tech landscape. Join us as we build a strong network of Software Quality Professionals right here in the Pacific Northwest!

The Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference (PNSQC) is a 501(c)(3), Oregon-based nonprofit with a mission of spreading knowledge and ideas about software quality, strengthening the software field, and helping members of the community advance their professional objectives. PNSQC has consistently attracted over 300 quality professionals across the United States and internationally for the past few years. Our attendees represent testers, managers, developers, and thought leaders from the private, government, and educational sectors. Over half of our attendees are from organizations centered within the Pacific Northwest and along the West Coast. With over 100 companies and 11 countries represented, our conference has a broad reach to many within software development and IT. We're excited to be entering our 43rd year and hope you'll join us for one of our events! Visit our website at https://pnsqc.org to learn more about and register for our conference.

Featured event

Get your resume seen! Talks to help your tech job search

Tue, Feb 17 · 18:00 PST

Trimble, 5665 Meadows Rd #400, Lake Oswego, OR, US

This event is hybrid; a Zoom link will be emailed and posted as a comment closer to the date, but please note that the talk itself doesn't start until 6:30!

February is right in the middle of peak hiring season, and PNSQC has a couple of speakers lined up to help you land that next role in a very competitive market.

First, Jeremy Elwood will give his talk titled The Paradox of Plenty: A Modern Hiring Story. It's a reflection on finding a job, but told from the employer's perspective: exploring what actually differentiated successful candidates from the rest, why resume screening failed to surface the strongest candidates, and what to look for in a successful candidate. Along the way, it offers concrete advice for everyone: how job seekers can better present their experience, approach take-home challenges, and prepare for interviews; and how hiring managers can ask better questions, design meaningful evaluations, and reduce unnecessary pain in the process. Ultimately, the talk aims not only to surface systemic problems in modern software engineer hiring, but also to offer practical guidance and cautious optimism for navigating (and surviving) the "paradox of plenty".

Heather Wilcox is excited to follow with her talk titled Resume Tips and Tricks, which will go further in depth on how to write a resume that hiring managers will notice, along with other helpful hints for survival in the era of AI. As an experienced hiring manager and job seeker herself, Heather has reviewed hundreds (maybe thousands?) of resumes. She can tell you that the AI and recruiter generated resumes are usually easy to spot and often treated with a certain amount of disdain and distrust. But, at the same time, you need your information to get past the AI screeners and into the hands of a real human. It's not an easy needle to thread, but she's done it and so can you!

Schedule (all times in PT):
6-6:30 PM: Light refreshments (soft drinks, pizza) and networking
6:30-7:30 PM: Talks/Presentation
7:30-8 PM: Q&A and more networking

Thanks to Trimble this month for lending us their space for the evening!