Meet the software tester who won test IO's World Cup game

He’s the lucky winner of the Apple Watch! Of all the football fans making predictions as part of the test IO 2018 World Cup game, Yuri made it to 7th place with 238 points. (In case you forgot, each point earned was a chance to become the winner in a random drawing.)

Yuri is a tester based in Ukraine, and he’s been a stalwart bug hunter with test IO since the end of 2014. We had the opportunity to ask Yuri a few questions about playing the World Cup game, how he came to crowdtesting, and what his advice is for prospective software testers.

In addition to winning the prize lottery, you managed to make it to the top 10 in test IO’s World Cup 2018 prediction game! Are you a big football fan?

It's funny but I'm not a big football fan. All my colleagues are football maniacs and they are very hotly discussing all football events and players. Therefore, I am always aware of all news whether I like it or not 🙂

I stopped looking at the results at the end, because I never could ever think that I can win the competition. I thought that my friends were joking when they told me that I won. It was absolutely unbelievable!

How many of the matches did you watch?

I watched very interesting playoff matches Belgium-Japan, Brazil-Belgium and of course the best match between France and Croatia. It was a brilliant final for the championship!

How did you find out about the game and about test IO?

I thought that there would be no game this year but received an email from Jan and started the game. I participated in the previous one and it was very fun and exciting. My friend, who, by the way, invited me to work at test IO, took the second place then. So we really wanted a rematch in 2018 :)).

What made you interested in software testing?

I worked as a business analyst in an IT company, but at one point things weren’t going so well. I liked the idea of freelance work, given my experience and interests. I read a lot of literature and took courses, started to brush up on German, which I had studied a long time ago. Many thanks to the team leaders’ for their patience seeing those early steps :).

When and where do you usually do your testing?

Now I mostly work at home. It can be hard but I have a good technical environment and can select and use any of my devices.

What devices do you test on and which do you prefer?

My favorite devices are a Windows 7 PC with IE9 and iPhone 4. You can get get a lot of bugs with them but customers don't think so 🙂

Of course, that’s a joke! I use current Windows and Mac PCs and several mobile devices, and am always interested in having the newest ones. It's hard to choose my most preferred device. I like all of them where bugs can be found.

What advice do you have for someone interested in becoming a crowdtester?

The most important things in testing are learning and curiosity. All you need to start is desire, language, computer, and internet and of course to register on test IO and begin to receive valuable experience under the supervision of the wisest team leads.

I am immensely grateful to all of the members of the test IO team and not only for this super prize, of course ;), but you've created a superb and very smart company. It's the best among all crowdtesting companies and it's not too much to say so. I wish you lots of success!

We wish Yuri lots of success too!

If you'd like to become a software tester with test IO and get paid for checking out the latest apps and website updates, join the test IO testing community!