Tester Spotlight - Alex Che

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

Today we'd like to introduce Alex Che. Alex was one of our best testers from Ukraine. In his two years testing with test IO he found over 3500 bugs and with the experience gained found a job as a full-time QA Engineer at Smart Solutions.

Tell me a little bit about yourself, Alex?

I’ve just started to work with a product company. It has only been two weeks so I cannot say more because I do not have enough experience working with a real office company. But I can explain when I began / where I was before starting test IO. I worked in the police and was a Policeman. I worked specifically as a District Inspector, it is something like Sherriff for the first two years, then next I started work as the HR Manager, basically, just office work in the police and then I found test IO on youtube. There were some people speaking about it and they said test IO, try it! Do it! So I used google and found the site.

Before test IO did you have any QA experience?

Before starting with test IO I found some free courses and completed them. I had tried to go speak with HRs in real life but they said I did not have the experience to work even as a junior professional so I tried to find another way. One course was free, the second course was not, but I had won it. I sent a video with my explanation which they thought was good and the founder of the course sent me an invitation to start it free. So I completed the 2 courses. Then I tried for some time to start with test IO. It was hard because finding real bugs is something else entirely than what they teach you in the courses and real projects were not the same as my experiences.

That’s a great point, so then what was the biggest challenge when you first started testing?

In the beginning, it was “find three bugs” which means I can become a tester. Basically you need to complete answers for some questions and then find three bugs. Two from the three should be approved and it was the main requirement for starting with test IO. I tried for some time. Three times with two out of the three bugs rejected and then I tried again and again and again until I did it.

With all these difficulties what was it that convinced you to be a tester full time instead of continuing to work in the police station?

At this time, I was stressed. I had a newborn daughter, a wife, a family and I should be the head of my family! So I wanted to find a way which could help me and my family be together for more time while earning more money. Also, I was searching for a new experience, new job that could make me stay a professional and be interesting for me and make me work to improve every day, no, every month, every year so that in 30 or 40 years I could go back to the beginning behind me and see the path I made. So I already thought about testing. 

Alex later asked me to mention that he was inspired by conversations he had seen and had on the internet with someone we will call Anton. In a forum, Anton had been talking to someone who said that "life is so hard," "people aren’t kind," and "he did not have enough money to live life as he wanted." Anton said that he should find a new job, take courses, gain knowledge, and do anything to change this unfair situation. While other people joked and wrote things like “it’s not possible” and “funny advice man," Alex took it to heart. He wanted to change his life, he didn’t like his job, and didn’t know what to do so he reached out to Anton. Through their many discussions, an interest in testing was born and Alex attended his first full free online course for people who wanted to start their software careers as testers.

I heard that you were able to do some cool things with the money that you made as a tester? Can you tell me about that?

The coolest thing I could do is wake up when I wanted, make anything with my free time, and organize my time as I wanted. Not all the time of course but in the beginning, it was really my superpower. Lots of free time.

Tell us a little bit about how testing with test IO helped you get your current job.

test IO provides a lot of experience if you want to work with a lot of interesting projects and customers, but if you want to find a new job you have no experience with management, managing your time, evaluating some tasks which you need to know, but I think it’s not a problem if you have real experience in testing. Because if you know how to test, why you unit test, and what you need to prepare for testing, even if you know you do not have enough experience you can improve it in the next month or months.

So, I talked with a lot of HRs and when you mention test IO not lots of people know what it is. I explain that it is a platform for testers and you work with some interesting projects and they have their own bug checking system and I grew my experience in these projects. Providing better light for HRs and for other interviewers who want to check your skills and eventually getting me a job.

What advice would you give to aspiring testers, who are looking for a freelance job, exploring their options, etc…?

I think for beginners test IO is a great platform because test IO can provide projects and tasks for you like user stories and reproductions. Or you can start with finding low bugs, or visual and other simple bugs that you can find within the apps. Of course, you should be prepared for some difficulties. It is negative testing, and while not explicitly a part of test IO you should always think like a typical user. Those are the results that are most valuable to companies.

If you want to read other stories like Alex's, check out this interview with another tester, Charlie. If you want to be like them, sign up to become a tester, here.