I’m now a SDET (software development engineer in test)

Insanely passionate about learning and sharing knowledge. I’m on the board of QA at the Point and run Women Who Test – Utah County

Enjoy unplugging on the weekends and spending time hiking, painting, and just experiencing life

Mom of 3 that survives on coffee

Avid reader with a love of actual books and holding them in my hands 

I broke into QA about 7 years ago. Originally I started out in the billing department at a web hosting company. As thrilling as billing was and dealing with people upset about their money I quickly learned my job, becoming a bit of an expert, and became bored. My previous manager from the billing department had moved to QA and told me he thought I’d be great at it. I shadowed him, and decided that’s what I wanted. But, I wasn’t technical – at all.

So, I spent my lunches sitting in on the tech support training classes; just to learn enough to be eligible to even apply for a tech support position. After a few months I applied and got in. I lasted in tech support for a little over a year before I once again learned my job well, got put on a specialized team, and still wasn’t where I wanted to be.

From there I applied for a QA position, but wasn’t quite qualified. Instead, I moved internal to billing-dev-ops, where I fought to learn the skills needed for QA, helping them out whenever I had free time. Eventually I left that company and got my first official QA role.

Throughout all of that I remember how hard it was to know what to study, and where to focus my efforts. I was lucky enough to have some amazing mentors to help me, but without them I don’t think I ever would have ended up where I am at now.

Not everyone has those same opportunities, or is surrounded by people as supportive as I was. So, I’m hoping I can virtually be that for people, providing a resource to learn and grow in QA.