Tester Spotlight - February

At test IO, we’re able to do what we do because of our incredible Team Leads and diverse community of testers. They help monitor tests and find the bugs that our customers look forward to receiving.

This “episode” of Tester Spotlight, I want to introduce Hans, one of our most experienced Team Leads in the United States. He has been testing with test IO for a little over a year, during which time he has helped send customers over 4000 bugs!

Q: What is your background in QA?

I worked in localization and internationalization engineering roles for over two decades. This generally included some QA-related work (filing, triaging, and fixing bugs).

Q: What started your interest in the tech field to begin with?

The curiosity that came with a Commodore C64, if I remember correctly.

Q: Why QA in particular?

For me, the question really never came up. When QA work was part of the job, it was fun and a good opportunity to try and automate some of it.

Q: Why did you join test IO in the first place?

When I decided to move back to the U.S., I started to look for work that could help make the transition easier, and the main criteria were: use existing skills, have flexible hours, and be able to work from home. test IO was very responsive and seemed to fulfill these needs.

Q: Why did you become a Team Lead? What was the process to become one?

I figured this would be a good fit based on my experience and the area in which I could make the biggest contribution. Onboarding is a straightforward hands-on affair: sign up as a tester, accept invitations to some test cycles, and start filing valid bugs. After that, becoming a Team Lead is a matter of asking nicely, showing experience, and passing a one-on-one bug triage test in which you: 1) evaluate bug reports and justify why an observed issue is a bug or not, 2) whether it is in the correct bucket (functional, visual, etc.), and 3) stating its level of severity.

Q: What do you most enjoy about being a Team Lead at test IO?

I enjoy the many test cycles in which we really make a difference for the customer. Examples can range from the testers finding a serious script loading issue that escaped the customer’s in-house efforts to a live shopping site accepting gift cards with a negative value.

Q: What have you learned working with test IO?

The effort customers put into writing test descriptions and test cases varies. The same is true for the reasons they give for rejecting bugs.

Q: What is your favorite part about working with test IO?

I really enjoy the collaborative attitude at test IO and like seeing testers help each other out in the project chat.

Q: Do you have a fun fact about yourself?

I began work at a new company in the US and, as is customary, introduced myself with, “Hi, I’m Hans.” I was very surprised by how exceedingly welcoming everybody was until, one day, someone said: “Oh, yes, I’ve heard about you.” That sounded very odd, so I told my manager, who laughed out loud, “Oh, they must think you are Hans K., the director, who is on a sabbatical.” From then on out, I introduced myself to people with “Hi, I’m the other Hans.”