How I met QA Engineering
“I graduated from computer science faculty, so I have to be a good developer.”
That’s what I’m thinking about my future career when I was still a student. I love many subjects related to software engineering, especially in the embedded system. I love to attend many developer conferences and join much competition related to web or app development, even though I never won any competitions at all :D
Since I was in college, I started to pursue my career through student community called “Microsoft student partner” and from that community I learned a lot of things including coding, marketing and soft — skills, all at once.
Until one day, one of my colleague in the community ask me to join some training in education and technology company to be a technical trainer, and I said yes. At first I thought I will share my experience in programming to all of the audience on every single training session, but instead, I should share my experience about how to maintain a server in Microsoft Azure and how to use proper office products in company daily basics. This is far from programming life and my expectation:).
From that very moment, I finally realised that IT or computer science is not only about code and develop software. I realised that IT is much bigger and more complex. Each client has a different problem at their company and I have to help tackle them with different solutions each time. This help develops my sense in IT problem solving which also expand my career path.
After about a year working as “technical trainer”, I land a new job as a technical consultant. I worked with an overseas client in Singapore. At the very beginning of my duty as a consultant, my boss decided to give a Sharepoint developers role for me because of my strong Microsoft tech product background. I was excited because finally, I can start programming again after 1-year hiatus.
But my happiness wasn’t last very long, because my former employer is suddenly lacking consultant to be working with their BIG client in Singapore. From this moment on, my role was changed from developers to software quality assurance instantly. I never heard anything about quality assurance before. I had no idea whatsoever about testing or selenium etc. And yet somehow my former employer forced me to learn about software testing in a very short time.
Caught up between hard and rock, forced me to learn faster beyond my capacity. But somehow along the way, the more I learn about software testing the more I fell in love with the subject. It felt like love at first sight. For me, it doesn’t take too long to adapt to my new role. Not too long then I decided to move on from developers to be more focused on software engineer in testing (QA engineer) role. And these are my reasons
- need more challenge
- not so good at software engineering (backend)
- want to be unique
- Interested to learn about automated testing (main reasons)
Long story short the project didn’t go well, I decided to quit then after updated my LinkedIn Bukalapak gave me an offer. I wasn’t expecting to be moving this fast, but then I decided to give a start-up company a try. And now I haven’t regretted this decision even once.
Several reasons why moving from a multinational company to a startup company is the right thing for me:
- less pressure, because working in Bukalapak means a lot of fun. On the other hand, I still have the challenges which keep me alive
- A flexible working hour and remote working are allowed
- Practice and learn a lot about QA engineering
- Responsible for almost anything about software quality
- More room to grow, and fair performance assessment
- learn how to make a successful startup
- Working in unicorn startup :)
After all, I feel so blessed to be working at Bukalapak as QA engineer / Software Engineer in Testing role. I know this role isn’t fancier than Backend or Full — stacked dev, and this is very far from most people expectations about Information Technology or Computer Science graduate.
but I believe this role will gain more exposure in Indonesian startup culture and I can build a greater story of my life as a software engineer in testing in the future. — Aditya Mirza Bahari
