Developer Spotlight: Diana Gabriel
We’re back with another article in our Developer Spotlight series, where we highlight different members of our team and offer them an opportunity to share their stories. This time, we sat down to talk with Diana, a master QA engineer who’s been an essential part of development here at eko for over eight years(!!).
Diana designs and executes test scripts and performs complex manual tests for new features. But most importantly, she’s part of the development process from ideation to going live (and well after), which puts her in the perfect position to see the big picture and make sure everything’s bug-free.
Let’s get started!
What’s your role here at Eko? How long have you been at eko? and what do you love most about it?
I work in QA, and my role is to be constantly alert for bugs, even after testing something a hundred times.
I’ve been working at eko for more than eight years, and I’ve just realized that I was only 28 years old when I started. Now my 40th birthday is glimpsing at me!
The thing I love about my job is that even after so many years, I’m still always learning new things. It’s as though I came yesterday. It’s so dynamic, and a lot of things are always happening. There’s no such thing as routine at eko!
What does your typical workday look like?
I work from home part-time, and my day usually starts early in the morning until late afternoon. I know my tasks in advance, and I plan my day accordingly. Sometimes that means setting up a meeting on zoom, preparing a test environment, reading specs, or planning tests. I try to get those things out of the way as soon as possible, and that way, I can work smoothly and efficiently on detecting bugs throughout the day.
I’m not always strict with my hours. Sometimes I find myself drawn to things in the late evening just because I’m curious to investigate some bugs. It’s fun. Working in QA at eko is like solving puzzles; it’s a game that never ends.
How has your workday changed since the pandemic?
Since I became a mom, my priorities have changed. But it was important to me not to give up on my job. A year before the pandemic started, I tried working from home to see how it goes. It turned out to be the ideal solution to combine raising my kid and working. So actually, when the pandemic started, it didn’t really change my schedule. I had been preparing for this working environment a year in advance.
I do miss working at the office, though. The social aspect is essential for my mental energy. But I remind myself that everything is temporary, and the advantage is that my productivity from home is higher than ever. As an added bonus, our eko operations manager sometimes pampers us with surprises delivered to our doorstep, which always raises a smile!
How would you describe your job to a child?
Imagine you ask your dad to make apple muffins with cinnamon. I taste it first to check that he made it well. Then, to my surprise, I find out that dad put in banana instead of apple, salt instead of sugar, and forgot to add any cinnamon! My job is to tell dad to make the muffins better so that you have a yummy muffin :-) Still, no one’s perfect, and he might get the quantity of cinnamon wrong, but hopefully, we can make it as tasty as possible!
What was your most challenging experience at work?
I think the most challenging experience was when we completely removed Flash from our creation platform. Flash was tightly integrated with a lot of eko Studio’s core components from its very early days, so untangling it proved a real challenge. Though it wasn’t the first time we said goodbye to Flash in one of our products, it was much more complicated than previous operations. I think it had more QA cycles than any feature I have ever tested. The difficulty wasn’t in the type of tests that I had to do. It was the number of cycles we had, which included many sanity tests. If you work in QA, you know how unforgiving that can be. Thankfully that’s now behind me. RIP Flash!
What’s your passion? What do you love doing?
I love reading. I like to linger on words as I read. And read them over and over again if something is beautifully written. Languages and the origin of words, and the connection between words in other languages fascinate me. One day I hope to write my own book (and illustrate it — another of my passions — but that’s another story…;)
What is similar to QA in other offices, what is different?
We use some of the same QA methodologies as in other offices, and we have some standards and QA tools used in many other places. But even so, eko is different in many ways. We don’t stick to the rules, and there is much freedom in the way we work. Our emphasis is on moving fast while not compromising on quality. If I choose to test something without a standard test plan and in an unusual way that deviates from what is accepted in the QA community, no one cares as long as the results are satisfying.
Also, the developers here are close and friendly with the QA team. Unlike other offices I used to work in, they patiently teach me a lot of stuff, and we both want to make the product as refined as possible. It’s a joint effort here. You’re not alone.
What are the QA challenges?
Many times we forget to think outside the box. We can lose the big picture, and we might miss trivial or important bugs.
Sometimes development time comes at the expense of testing time. That ends up forcing us to prioritize our tests and cast aside things that we wanted to test or test things in a superficial manner. It can be really disappointing because, in the end, the quality of our work is measured by the quality of the product.
Sometimes, we don’t have time to test and examine the features in-depth because we are busy with other tasks on parallel other products. We need to be creative in real-time and improvise quickly to do the best we can.
What do you think is needed to be a successful QA engineer at eko?
You need to be open to changes. You need to be mentally flexible, curious, diligent, and agile. You should know how to discern between what is bland what is important, and you shouldn’t be afraid of insisting on things you view as essential to the product’s quality. On top of that, don’t stop learning new things, don’t break from routine tasks, trust your intuition, be nice, be humble, and try to keep a sense of humor.
If you could switch jobs with someone, who would it be and why?
I’d be a restaurant critic. It’s my dream job… but maybe that’s a side effect of being pregnant and always hungry…
If you could choose anyone, alive or dead, who would you pick as your mentor and why?
My grandma was my perfect mentor. She was smart and noble and equally streetwise.
I was lucky to get to know her. Thanks to her, I learned a lot about taking things in proportion and appreciating what I have.
What does success mean to you?
Warning — cliché ahead.
If I wake up in the morning and am happy for what I have, I have succeeded.
We are always taught to think big and to look far. Actually, I believe that simple thinking and looking at what’s under your nose can be surprising and take us to unexpected places. I am a fan of minimalism and small details. Maybe that’s why I work in QA :)
What’s unique to eko that you didn’t see anywhere else?
Definitely the people at eko. I haven’t yet encountered such a collection of people elsewhere. Each person is a world in their fullness; intriguing and creative people, with a sense of humor, and very smart. They are recruited and picked by hand. Eko is very serious about recruiting. It is not easy to be accepted, but anyone once hired should be proud of themselves.
Thanks, Diana! Now, can we please get some of these apple-cinnamon muffins you mentioned?
Want to join our team and work with Diana? Learn about our many open positions here!
And since you made it all the way to the end of this article, you might also enjoy our Developer Spotlight with Louai Ghalia.
