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Testing is crucial for producing reliable software. As an industry, we know a lot about testing, or at least about testing conventional software. The recent democratization of AI and LLMs enabled developers and software companies to easily integrate text or image generation features into their products. LLMs possess unique properties that make testing LLM-powered software quite challenging. Why is this the case, and how can we test such software properly? Testing LLM-powered software is challenging for at least three reasons: LLMs usually produce unstructured and non-deterministic output. A small change…

New frameworks and tools are constantly emerging, each promising to make our lives easier and our applications faster. But every so often, a framework comes along that doesn’t just promise incremental improvements—it redefines the game. Qwik is one such framework: built by performance nerds, for performance nerds.  Qwik introduces novel architecture that eliminates the need for the traditional UI hydration process, a step that often bogs down web apps with unnecessary overhead. Instead of rehydrating the entire UI on the client side, Qwik only activates the parts of the application…

AI and AI-powered development have become incredibly hot topics in the technology industry. The potential of AI to revolutionize various fields is widely acknowledged, and while impressive, is still being developed. Researchers, developers, and organizations are actively exploring new ways to use AI. In this dynamic landscape, we at profiq are constantly seeking out and experimenting with new libraries, plugins, and tools that leverage AI. These resources aim to enhance productivity, automate repetitive tasks, and unlock new possibilities in software development. One such resource is GitHub Copilot (Copilot). Copilot is…

When a user has a problem or an issue, it might seem logical to stop the conversation and immediately jump in with a solution. However, this can prevent us from truly understanding the customer’s needs and getting a broader view of the issue at hand. Active listening is an important component of any job - including in the software industry. We sat down recently with Dr. Erica Noll Webb, the senior research manager at Docker, to discuss the importance of customer-centric innovation and other timely topics related to her work.…

We recently hosted a Peer 2 Peer Tech Leader roundtable discussion in the Rocky Mountains. The group is composed of engineering leaders from a wide variety of software tech companies ranging from smaller 4-6 person engineering teams at startups to engineering leaders at FANG companies, and organizations in the government sector responsible for over 400 engineers. The primary goal for the roundtables is to provide a forum to network with peers, to share experiences, and to learn from each other. For each meeting a discussion topic is agreed upon -…

Carl Jung once said, “The creative mind plays with the object it loves.” Like Jung, we believe play can fuel innovation, and sometimes, the wilder the idea, the better. ? You might be wondering why would we submerge a PC in liquid (in our case, mineral oil)? To that, we reply, “Why does anyone climb Mount Everest? Because they can.” So, we did! We created a Linux PC from upcycled computer parts, submerged it in mineral oil, lit it with LED light strips, and added a LEGO ship, because no aquarium…

Have you ever seen a speaking piano? Pretty cool, right? At profiq, we sometimes take a break from serious business and explore some pretty obscure ideas. A musical instrument able to replicate human speech is one of them. Inspired by YouTube videos and by our friends from the House of Hungarian Music in Budapest, we decided to dive deeper into the science and technology behind speaking instruments. Our mission? To understand how everything works, go beyond just a single instrument, and create an entire “speaking orchestra”. Our methodology In order…

At profiq, we often research and demo new and interesting modern technologies. One interesting Silicon Valley startup called Split (http://www.split.io) caught our attention with its recent launch of the Feature Experimentation Platform. The Feature Experimentation Platform is intriguing because it lets developers rapidly iterate product features, target them to customers, and measure their impact in one unified solution. It consists of an SDK for various languages and a cloud service console that lets you control and monitor features of an application in real time. Because we could potentially use this…

Petr Večeřa, a software engineer at profiq specializing in test engineering, shares his thoughts on his role as a technical QA and test engineer. Petr started at profiq three years ago in the Tech Research position where his task was to develop a prototype of test automation for a company from Silicon Valley. Now he is in charge of one of the QA teams and he is responsible for several products. Q: Your position is called a Software Engineer but its goal is testing – how does it go together?…

Rendering ExtJS app in a specific page element Introduction Hello, My name is Jiří Znoj and I am working as a Software Engineer at profiq, an agile software development company. I, as a part of the team “Tech Research”, investigate various technologies for potential customers and for our purposes - to use the best technologies for our cause. Nowadays web apps are built by a combination of technologies. There are many frameworks that you can combine to build excellent and powerful web systems. Lately, I've been exploring Liferay, a Java-based…