Hi Reader,

Hope you're having a great day!

This is my First Newsletter article on this platform.

Thought to share my story of getting to Software Testing role and it was not intentional.

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I joined HCL as a fresher in 2011, and I had no specific career plans at that time.

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I got trained into C# dotnet development in first 2 months at HCL and I thought that would get assigned to an development project, like every other fresher. But in Service based companies based on project needs they can assign us into any role and especially freshers do not have any choice.

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A few months later, I was assigned to a project, and it is not a C# project. Instead, it was in Informix 4GL - a technology so old that many today may not have even heard of it! My role here is Software developer, but I had done very minimal coding work.

The Project that I was assigned into is an UK based Insurance domain project, which is closed book system and existing Insurance policies are serviced. No new insurance policies are issued in closed book system, usually the regulatory changes related documentation work with minimal coding tasks, which gets applied to existing insurance policies maintained by the Insurance company.

Despite the outdated tech, the experience was invaluable. I got to work closely with Experienced colleagues, Friendly leads, and Supportive managers. I even gained hands-on experience with Unix.

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Fast forward 1.5 years, the project ended, and I was released to the bench.

That’s when the real dilemma began.

The HR team offered me two options while I was on bench:
✅ A development role in Noida, India.
✅ A testing role in Chennai, India (my current location).

At that moment, location mattered more than the role, so I chose Software Testing role.

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On my first day of the new project which is for a Credit Insurance company, we had a meeting with the Senior Project Manager who addressed all the new joiners around 5+ members.

His words still stick with me:

"This project is critical. Always think from an End User's perspective."

It was indeed correct, and Software Testers are expected to think like End User's, and we need to cover the Business functionality into our Testing approach and Test cases.

I had the privilege of learning from experienced Senior Test Engineers in my First Software Testing project, who mentored me in Testing process, drafting Testcases and various Testing terminologies, Business flows, Tools like Test Link and Bugzilla used in that project.

That project was hectic, and we were asked to work on Weekends as well.

It was like working 7 days a week for 3 months.

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I had met a Passionate Software Tester in that project, who was a Senior Test Engineer that time. Samir was our mentor in that project. He has great domain knowledge on that project End to End. He went to Mumbai location and worked with client to understand the requirements better. Now he works as Delivery manager in Ireland, and we always felt amazed by his knowledge sharing and the way he helps the junior folks in the project.

We used to perform Initial build verification testing (high level testing of important features), after every new deployment into SIT (Testing environment) and share the consolidated report in Email to the Everyone including the Senior managers and Development team sitting in the same floor. That project had a very larger team size with more than 40 developers and Testing team was more than 15 members.

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I had indeed learned a lot in terms of Functional Testing experience in that project, it was in 2013.

There was very less awareness, and we did not use the Automation Testing tools there.

I observed folks switching jobs learning Selenium Java automation during 2014 and 2015 time.

I will write another article about my Automation Testing learning journey.

I did get lot of Free advice during my other colleagues and people in my network, to learn Oracle, React and other areas. I did not have clear roadmap and no proper guidance.

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I did not feel like Software Testing role was anything less, as I saw many folks in those roles across the organization in multiple hierarchy. There were Software Test Engineers, who got onsite opportunities and worked at client locations.

There are many misconceptions and people think that Software Test Engineers get paid very less.

But any Role in the IT industry is Relative and may depend on our Skillset and our dedication to learn and evolve, to improve our profile value to switch Jobs or contribute to the existing projects.

My story might be quite long, hope you enjoyed reading this newsletter edition.

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Do reply and let me know your feedback and share your story/journey in the response.

Let's meet in the next Newsletter article.

Best wishes,

Swaroop Nadella

Test Automation Engineer, Tech Educator, YouTuber

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Swaroop Nadella Find me on LinkedIn, YouTube, SN Academy​

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