To celebrate the relentless passion of testers, BrowserStack is honoring some of the icons in the testing space—those who push the industry forward by sharing their knowledge with the community at large through their thought leadership.
Lina Zubyte is a quality enthusiast passionate about building great products, working with high-performing diverse teams, traveling, and solving puzzles. She deeply cares about inclusion & diversity and advocates for the development of women in tech.
Tell us about your role as the Head of Quality at Doodle AG.
I tend to joke that being the "Head of Quality" is like being the "Head of Everything"!
Quality is such a broad term—it's incredibly contextual. In this role, I get to clarify what quality means in Doodle's context and drive initiatives to improve the quality culture. We aim to build the right product the right way by embracing collaboration, quality accountability, and preventing defects, and not just detecting them.
What innovations/trends in the space of software development are you most excited about?
Recently I've been learning more about evolutionary architecture. There's a term- ‘fitness functions’, in my own words, they are functions (manual or automated) on an architectural level that check how fit the architecture is. It involves an objective assessment of important architectural characteristics of the product.
I see this topic as highly relevant to product quality—it's deciding what is essential in the long run. For example, they could be about monitoring or performance.
What are some passion projects you're currently working on?
I've just launched a podcast called ‘Quality Bits’! It gives me the opportunity to have super interesting conversations about building high-quality products and teams with inspiring guests! You can follow it on your favorite listening platforms here.
What are you reading/learning right now? What made you interested in this?
"A Fortune-teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East" by Tiziano Terzani. As an avid traveler, I loved the idea of this travel autobiography. It is about a current affairs journalist who travels a lot and was told not to travel by plane for a year and how he explored Southeast Asia by other means of transport.
What's your favorite software testing quote of all time?
"Testers don't break the code, they break your illusions about the code"—Maaret Pyhäjärvi adapted from James Bach
What are the things you wish you knew about software testing when you started your career?
I wish I knew that tools are there only to help. Not knowing a tool or how to use it perfectly does not make anyone a worse tester. Tools are there just to aid your work. A skilled tester knows the balance of exploration and using the tools (and how to use them wisely).
What is your top advice to other QA leaders?
Let go of control.
QA is not about gatekeeping. Instead, it's about enabling others to have continuous quality habits and sharing knowledge. A whole new world opens up when we talk about quality which involves not just testing but the ways of work, continuous deployment, or even the team’s psychological safety.
(Responses have been edited for clarity.)
