Andrew Paul
Senior Software Trainer at Instil, with a passion for education over training!
Limavady, United Kingdom
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Was a developer, then a teacher, then a lecturer and now a trainer at Instil. Having completed the circle, he very much wants to ensure that the circle joins, flows and radiates for current and future industry professionals.
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No Time, No Budget, No Training: Why 'Learning on the Job' Is Sabotaging Your Team
"We don't really pay for training. Our engineers just learn on the job."
It sounds sensible, even empowering. But scratch beneath the surface and you'll find it's often the root cause of recurring bugs, frustrated engineers, and teams that plateau just when they need to scale.
This talk challenges the comfortable myth that exposure equals expertise, and that motivated engineers will simply figure it out.
Through real examples from engineering teams, we'll explore how "learning on the job" often becomes "struggle alone", creating knowledge silos, uneven skills, and quiet burnout that never shows up on sprint reports.
You'll leave with a clearer understanding of training as system design rather than nice-to-have, practical approaches to building learning into team workflows without derailing delivery, and the business case for why investing in structured learning isn't just good for engineers - it's essential for sustainable growth.
Because great engineers keep learning anyway. Great teams just make it easier.
The Algorithm That Nearly Killed Me: When Testing Isn't Enough
When my new insulin pump’s algorithm confidently delivered what it claimed were hefty doses while my blood sugar soared toward dangerous levels, I faced a terrifying reality: the software was learning, but learning the wrong things. And it was utterly convinced it was doing a great job.
This isn’t just a medical device story - it’s a wake-up call for our entire industry. As ML and AI become critical infrastructure, they’re exposing fundamental flaws in how we approach quality. We test implementation rather than behaviour, write tests that validate our assumptions rather than challenge them and mistake comprehensive coverage for genuine safety.
Drawing from 15+ years as a software engineering trainer and consultant across multiple industries, I’ll explore how traditional testing blind spots become genuinely dangerous when systems learn and adapt. We’ll examine why teams confuse feeling safe with being safe, how AI amplifies our existing quality gaps and what it really means to test systems that make decisions affecting real lives.
You’ll leave with practical approaches to testing that focuses on impact over metrics, strategies for validating both deterministic and learning systems, and the essential questions every team should ask when software moves beyond just processing data to making decisions that matter.
Because whether it’s a payment system, a recommendation algorithm or life-critical medical software, our users are trusting us to get it right.
Learning to Talk the Talk - finding voices before it's too late
Promoted from a junior engineer on Friday afternoon to senior engineer on Monday morning- how many of us really hit the ground running? Or how many need months to figure out how we need to respond to our new responsibilities?
One of the biggest issues at this level learning how to communicate. To our team. To our managers. To our product owners. To an audience. What’s appropriate? What’s professional? What are they saying? What do we hear? Should I be using AI to help?
Preparing the industry for next wave of promoted young professionals requires us to engage and support communication skills now. We’ll look at how to overcome imposter syndrome, how to establish authentic voices and how to engage tools appropriately to grow ability from the earliest possible opportunity.
Andrew Paul
Senior Software Trainer at Instil, with a passion for education over training!
Limavady, United Kingdom
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