The Test Tribe's 22nd Porto Meetup

The Test Tribe 22nd Porto Meetup

Quality Engineering has evolved far beyond finding bugs. Today, QA teams shape autonomy, influence engineering culture, and drive strategic decisions. Whether you're scaling testing as a service or stepping into leadership roles, modern QA demands organizational clarity, technical depth, and strong collaboration.

At the 22nd Porto Meetup, we bring two insightful sessions exploring these themes from different angles:

• How QA teams can operate as a product, delivering internal value through scalable QAaaS models.
• How professionals navigate leadership paths—formal and informal, technical and functional—and the dilemmas that come with them.
• This meetup blends practical engineering approaches with career-oriented reflections, giving attendees a holistic view of how to grow, lead, and shape impactful QA organizations.

Date: 14th January 2026 (Wednesday)

Time: 18:30 (Portugal Time)

Venue: Uphold — R. do Bonjardim 672A, 4000-119 Porto, Portugal

SESSION 1 - How to Build a QAaaS Solution

Speaker: Joss Santos, Senior Manager & Lead QA

About the Session: 

Most QA teams fall into one of two models: integrated within development squads or operating as a separate function. Joss’s career has been shaped by the latter—where QA must consistently generate value while managing expectations from multiple stakeholders.

This session explores how QA teams can structure themselves like a product organization, where developers are the “users” and QA is a service that must be reliable, scalable, and impactful.

Joss will share how to design and deliver QA as a Service (QAaaS), including internal processes, communication models, and strategies for supporting teams at scale.

Key Takeaways

• How to design a scalable QA framework
• Structuring and delivering QA as a product (QAaaS)
• The do’s and don'ts of scaling QA teams and projects

About the Speaker

Joss Santos has over 7 years of experience in Quality Assurance, beginning his journey as a QA Automation Engineer. He has since led teams, built automation frameworks, and scaled QA operations across several organizations.

He created and led the QA department at Jscrambler, then took on senior QA roles at Talkdesk, Checkout.com, and most recently Adidas, where he built and manages the QA Automation team supporting global content delivery.

His expertise includes QA leadership, automation strategy, CI/CD, cloud QA (AWS), end-to-end testing, and frameworks such as Playwright, JavaScript, and TypeScript.

Joss is passionate about creating high-performing teams and treating QA as a product that evolves with organizational needs.

SESSION 2 - To Lead or Not to Lead? A Discussion on Career, Functional and Technical Leadership

Speaker: Tiago Paixão, Head of BizDev and Marketing at DbServices

About the Session

Leadership is not always a title—it’s often a function, an influence, or a responsibility someone grows into before it’s formally recognized.

In this session, Tiago Paixão explores:

• When someone becomes a leader
• How leadership roles differ across functional, technical, formal, and informal paths
• The realities and dilemmas leaders face in modern organizations
• This talk invites attendees to reflect on their own journeys and consider how leadership can evolve as a skill, a mindset, and a career direction.

Key Takeaways

• Understanding different leadership paths: functional vs. technical
• Transitioning from contributor to recognized leader
• Leadership challenges and dilemmas across teams and organizations

About the Speaker

Tiago Paixão brings 25 years of experience leading teams, products, and innovation initiatives across banking, retail, geotechnology, and technology sectors.

With degrees in Social Communication and Systems Analysis—and executive training from MIT Sloan School of Management—Tiago has held leadership roles such as:

• Head of Projects, Processes & Governance at AGIBANK
• Director of Innovation at Frigelar
• Development Manager at Rocket Chat and Codex Remote

For the last three years, he has been based in Portugal, driving BizDev and Marketing at DbServices. Tiago is also an author, with over 5,000 copies sold across Brazil and Portugal, writing in communication and fiction.

Why You Should Attend

• Learn how to structure QA teams for scalability and value
• Explore how QA can operate as a product through QAaaS
• Understand different leadership paths and their impact on career growth
• Gain practical and strategic insights from two experienced leaders
• Network with Porto’s thriving QA and tech community

About The Test Tribe

The Test Tribe is the world’s largest software testing community, empowering testers globally since 2018. With 400+ events and 120K+ members across 130+ countries, we bring testers together to learn, grow, and connect through meetups, conferences, cohorts, workshops, and more.

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