That's it, 2025 wrapped, and 2026 plans

2025: A Year of Stages, Roads, and New Horizons

As I sit down to reflect on 2025, I'm struck by how this year stretched me in directions I never anticipated. It was a year of standing on stages across three continents, driving thousands of miles through the American heartland, pushing the boundaries of AI-assisted development, navigating organizational transformation, and ultimately—facing my own limits.

Let me take you through this journey.

Standing on Shoulders of Giants: The Conference Circuit

This was undoubtedly my biggest year for public speaking. Five conferences, four countries, one message: sharing real experiences with quality engineering communities worldwide.

Test:Fest 2025 in Wrocław marked the 10th edition of this remarkable conference—and my continued presence since its very first edition in 2015. Eight times as a speaker, twice as an attendee, this community has been the foundation of my conference journey. My first presentation ever, my first discussion panel facilitation, my first English-language talk outside of work events—all happened on this stage. A decade of Test:Fest is a decade of personal growth.

Istanbul Testing Conference (ISTC) brought me to Turkey for the first time, presenting "Critical Thinking Rules in AI-Enhanced Software Testing." The response from the Turkish testing community was incredible—engaged questions, thoughtful discussions, and genuine curiosity about balancing AI capabilities with quality fundamentals.

QA or the Highway in Columbus, Ohio became much more than a conference—it was the anchor point for an adventure I'll never forget. But more on that later.

HUSTEF 2025 in Budapest welcomed me back seven years after my last presentation there. In 2018, I spoke about automation combined with security scanners. This time, I brought insights on remote leadership and team dynamics—reflecting how much our industry and my own focus have evolved.

Testing United in Milan rounded out the year with another chance to connect with European quality professionals and share experiences on the intersection of AI and testing practices.

What made this year special wasn't just the stages—it was the people. Meeting again with Tariq King and Rex Black, crossing paths with Rob Lambert—these are names that have inspired my professional journey for years. To share stages with them, exchange ideas, and be part of the same conversations is something I don't take for granted.

The Great American Adventure

I've always believed that experiencing a culture firsthand teaches you more than any book or documentary. When the opportunity to combine QA or the Highway with a proper American road trip emerged, I didn't hesitate.

June 20 to July 12, 2025. Three weeks. Thousands of miles. A journey from the East Coast to the Midlands and back.

The trip began in New York City—arriving just in time to experience my first American Independence Day in Philadelphia, walking the same streets where the Founding Fathers once debated the future of a nation. From there: Washington DC with its monuments and museums, Baltimore's harbors, Columbus for the conference itself, Cleveland's surprising charm, and a breathtaking stop at Niagara Falls from the Buffalo side.

This wasn't just tourism. Every stop was an opportunity to connect with the American archery community, scout potential partners for BowSmith, and understand the market I'm building for. Every pro shop visit, every conversation with local archers, every mile of highway added perspective I couldn't get from research alone.

The American approach to outdoor sports, the scale of the archery market, the passion of 3D archers and bowhunters—seeing it firsthand transformed my understanding of what BowSmith needs to be.

18+ Months of AI and Code: The Experiment Continues

What started as a curious experiment in early 2024 became a defining theme of 2025: Can someone with 20 years of testing experience but zero iOS development background build a production-quality app using AI as the implementation team?

The answer, I've learned, is nuanced. Yes—but not in the way the marketing hype suggests.

This year I evolved from basic chat interactions to orchestrating multiple specialized AI agents across parallel development streams. From losing context every few exchanges to maintaining coherent development sessions. From fighting the AI to conducting it like an orchestra.

The key insight: AI didn't eliminate the need for expertise. It transformed what expertise means. Technical decisions, quality judgment, domain knowledge, workflow design—these become more important, not less. The role shifts from "doing" to "orchestrating."

This journey became the foundation for my conference presentations, providing real data and genuine experiences instead of theoretical predictions. The transparency resonated—attendees appreciated hearing what actually works and what doesn't, rather than vendor promises.

The experiment isn't over. It's entering its most exciting phase yet.

Finding My Place: Work and Transformation

2025 was also the year of consolidation at work. The ongoing merger between Viessmann and Carrier Europe created Europe's largest HVAC enterprise—and with it came all the challenges and opportunities of organizational transformation.

Finding my place in this new landscape required patience, adaptability, and a clear focus on value. As Software Quality Competence Lead, my role evolved to bridge quality processes across previously separate organizations, establish unified KPIs, and design quality monitoring systems that serve the combined entity.

Large organizational changes are never easy. They test your resilience, challenge your assumptions, and force you to articulate your value in new contexts. But they also open doors and create possibilities that didn't exist before.

A Wake-Up Call: Health and Priorities

I don't like to dwell on difficulties, but honesty requires acknowledging that 2025 ended with a challenge I didn't see coming.

Health problems in December, including a hospital stay, forced me to stop and reconsider. When your body demands attention, everything else fades into perspective. Suddenly, the conference circuit, the road trips, the late-night coding sessions—all of it needs to be weighed against something more fundamental.

This isn't a farewell to ambition. It's a recalibration. 2026 will be about smarter work, not just more work. About sustainable pace rather than sprints. About priorities that serve both my dreams and my wellbeing.

BowSmith: From Experiment to Product

The biggest source of excitement entering 2026 is watching BowSmith transform from an AI experiment into a real product.

bowsmith.app is no longer just a coding exercise. It's becoming a comprehensive archery companion competition tracking, practice logs, bow tuning tools, gear management—built by an archer, for archers. The vision: disrupt how archers collect, analyze, and learn from their training data. Bring the data-driven approach that transformed other sports into the world of compound archery and 3D shooting.

Spring 2026 will see the app reach alpha testers. The response so far from the archery community has been encouraging there's a genuine gap in the market for tools that understand the nuances of bow tuning, sight settings, and competition scoring the way we archers actually use them.

The AI-assisted development approach isn't just a curiosity anymore. It's the engine that makes it possible for one person with domain expertise to compete with established players. That's the real disruption.

Dreams Taking Shape: Archery Infrastructure in Poland

Beyond the app, a bigger dream is slowly crystallizing: bringing archery infrastructure to Poland.

The country has passionate archers but limited access to proper facilities—especially for 3D archery and field courses. What if we could change that? What if we could build spaces that make the sport accessible to more people?

It's early days. Questions about land, permits, partnerships, and sustainability are still being explored. But the seed is planted. The vision of walking a 3D course through Polish forests, of seeing new archers discover the sport I love, of contributing to the community that welcomed me—that vision keeps growing.

Looking Ahead: 2026 Plans

The year ahead is already taking shape:

Mid-2026: Conference proposals targeting US soil. The story of AI-orchestrated development has resonated at European conferences; now it's time to bring it to American audiences. QA events, testing conferences, and software delivery gatherings are in my sights.

Ongoing: The BowSmith roadtrip concept—face-to-face marketing at archery events, pro shop visits, building genuine connections with the community I'm serving. The summer 2025 trip proved the value of this approach. 2026 will scale it.

Gratitude

A year like this doesn't happen alone.

Thank you to the conference organizers who trusted me with their stages. To Test:Fest for a decade of growth. To the archery community that embraced an app developer who shoots arrows. To colleagues who supported the merger transition. To family who endured my travel schedule. To the AI systems that challenged my assumptions about what's possible.

And thank you to whoever took the time to read this far. Your attention means something.

2025 was a lot. 2026 will be different more focused, more sustainable, but no less ambitious.

See you on the stages, on the roads, and on the ranges.

Mike

If you want to follow the BowSmith journey or connect about quality engineering, AI-assisted development, or archery, find me on LinkedIn or check out bowsmith.app.

Tags: #Conferences #QualityEngineering #AI #Archery #BowSmith #YearInReview #2025