Yavuz Gurbuz
Senior QA Engineer
& Travel Writer
I break software for a living and explore cities on weekends. By day, I'm an automation architect building test infrastructure for security-critical products. By night (and long weekends), I write about slow travel and the places that deserve more than a weekend.
My Story
Engineer. Traveler. Both.
I spent years building test automation frameworks at scale — the kind that run hundreds of times a day, catch regressions before they ship, and get quietly blamed when something breaks anyway. That work taught me how to think systematically, care obsessively about quality, and document things clearly enough that other people can understand them at 2am.
Travel taught me everything else. How to read a room when you don't speak the language. How to slow down and actually notice where you are. How to write about a place so someone else can feel it, not just navigate it. Some of my best debugging happens in airport lounges; some of my best writing happens right after a hard week of work.
This site holds both sides of that life — a travel blog that doubles as a professional portfolio. The same values run through both: precision, honesty, and the belief that doing something well is worth the extra time it takes.
Experience
Professional Timeline
LastPass (GoTo)
Jul 2021 – PresentSenior QA Engineer
- —Architected end-to-end automation suite covering 300+ daily CI runs across browser, mobile, and API layers.
- —Embedded OWASP security checks and zero-trust validation into the SDLC, cutting security regressions by measurable margins.
- —Led cross-functional quality strategy for a product used by millions of users globally.
CBT Nuggets
Nov 2017 – Jul 2021Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)
- —Built robust WebdriverIO and Selenium frameworks from scratch, enabling reliable regression coverage for a large e-learning platform.
- —Integrated test pipelines with GitLab CI/CD and Sauce Labs cloud execution.
- —Mentored junior QA engineers on automation best practices and test design patterns.
Skills
What I Work With
Credentials
Certs & Education
MBA — Southern States University
B.S. — Anadolu University
Projects
Selected Work
Yavuz Travels
A slow travel blog built with Next.js 16, Tailwind CSS v4, and Framer Motion. Static-site architecture, zero database — just content and craft.
Visit blog →QA Automation at LastPass
300+ daily CI runs across browser, mobile, and API. Full-stack automation covering critical user flows for a password manager trusted by millions.
Security Integration
Embedded OWASP top-10 checks, zero-trust validation, and threat modeling directly into the SDLC — shifting security left before vulnerabilities reach production.
Beyond Work
The Travel Side
I travel slowly and photograph honestly — no drone shots, no golden-hour-only itineraries. I've spent weeks in cities that most people spend days in, and I've come to believe that the third day anywhere is when the place finally starts to feel real. The blog is where I write those down before I forget them.
Slow Travel
A week in one city beats five cities in five days. Depth over breadth, always.
Honest Stories
No affiliate links buried in rankings. No five-star hotel stays billed as 'budget'. Just honest writing about real experiences.
Context Matters
Places have history, culture, complexity. The best travel writing helps you understand a place, not just visit it.
Currently
What I'm Up To
Scaling test automation at LastPass — pushing toward full zero-trust coverage across all critical user flows.
Playwright's new tracing APIs and how they change the debugging workflow for distributed test suites.
The Art of Invisibility by Kevin Mitnick — still one of the clearest explanations of real-world security thinking.
Next trip is somewhere in Southeast Asia. Leaning toward Vietnam — the north, slow.
Stories in Your Inbox
New posts, destination guides, and the occasional honest opinion on travel. No spam, no sponsored content — just the good stuff.