SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rainforest QA, creators of the world’s only AI-powered crowdtesting platform for agile and continuous integration software teams, today announced Zack Smocha as vice president of product, Derek Choy as vice president of engineering and Peter Farago as vice president of marketing. Together, the new executive additions bring extensive experience in scaling software businesses as well as in crowdsourcing and testing, including Mercury Interactive, Sauce Labs and HackerOne. Smocha, Choy and Farago will all be based in Rainforest QA’s San Francisco office.
“There is enormous demand for smarter ways to do QA and testing within agile environments, and Rainforest’s rapid growth is a testament to that,” said Fred Stevens-Smith, CEO of Rainforest QA. “Zack, Derek and Peter are all proven leaders scaling successful software businesses. They will play a critical role in our effort to meet the increasing demand for Rainforest’s testing platform, as we continue to see development teams struggle in their ability to balance the right level of speed versus quality.”
With the growth of agile and continuous integration, engineering teams are under more pressure than ever to build and release software faster. Yet, QA and testing remain a significant bottleneck, often performed manually and taking days — if not weeks — to get right. According to a recent report from CapGemini, 99% of companies expressed they have challenges testing in agile environments.
The additions of Smocha, Choy and Farago to the Rainforest QA team come on the heels of strong company momentum in 2016, including a $12M Series A funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, growing 2016 revenue by 2.4X. In 2017, Rainforest QA is well-poised to continue this trajectory, with revenues expected to more than double once again, and regression test steps executed across the platform to triple.
Details on each new executive are as follows:
Zack Smocha, Vice President of Product
As vice president of product, Zack Smocha will drive the roadmap for new and existing products. Smocha has more than 15 years of experience generating growth at leading companies in the application life cycle industry. At Mercury Interactive, acquired by HP for $4.5 billion, Smocha helped ramp company revenue from $50 million to $900 million. Over his tenure, he held senior positions in development and product management for Loadrunner, the company’s flagship product. At Sauce Labs, Smocha was instrumental in defining the company’s initial strategy, and at Coverity, acquired by Synopsis for $375 million, Smocha drove a product roadmap that delivered 2.5X revenue growth.
Derek Choy, Vice President of Engineering
At Rainforest, Derek Choy is responsible for driving technical innovation and scaling Rainforest’s globally distributed engineering team. Choy joins Rainforest QA from Aria Systems, where he was vice president of engineering, scaling a similarly distributed engineering team by 10X, which supported revenue growth of more than 20X. Prior to Aria Systems, Choy was director of software development at eBay, where he led product development for its billing platform, and was responsible for streamlining processes across several teams. Choy has also held senior engineering and management positions at Accenture and AT&T.
Peter Farago, Vice President of Marketing
Peter Farago oversees marketing, including branding, communications, product marketing and demand generation. He brings more than 15 years of experience building marketing across companies with successful exits. Farago most recently built and led marketing for HackerOne, the world’s leading bug bounty platform, where he helped increase revenue by 4X and customer adoption by 3X. Prior to this, Farago was CMO at Acompli, leading the company to its $200 million acquisition by Microsoft Corporation after only one round of funding. Earlier, Farago led marketing for over five years at Flurry, acquired by Yahoo! for $300 million. Farago has also held senior marketing positions at Electronic Arts, Digital Chocolate and Microsoft.
About Rainforest
Rainforest QA helps agile and continuous delivery engineering teams move faster with the industry’s only AI-powered crowdtesting platform. Our platform leverages 50,000 qualified testers to deliver on-demand, comprehensive and machine learning verified regression test results. Rainforest customers spend less time and money testing so they can ship better applications faster. For more information on Rainforest, visit https://www.rainforestqa.com.