1. Anastasia, what’s your role at SCD Company and when did you join the team?

Currently, I’m the QA lead at SCD Company. I joined SCD Company two years ago, in 2022.

2. How has your role evolved since you joined the company?

I have gone from a middle QA engineer to a lead QA engineer. Before I joined the team, I had extensive experience in the financial sphere and two years of QA engineer experience in the IT sphere. Once I joined SCD Company, I had a real opportunity for growth, and I still have it. It's all thanks to the company.

3. Can you tell us about the working processes and overall experience with the team at SCD?

We have many different projects in the company. The working process is individual for each project so it fits the projects' demands and clients' preferences. We try to make it clear and comfortable for the team and clients. Generally, we build a team for each project, define a working process using some of the best approaches (Agile, Scrum, Kanban) and tools, and work mostly remotely with daily meetings.

I've been involved in several projects and I can say for sure that we have great teammates! As a QA engineer, I always have many questions and my teammates are always ready to answer and help each other out. It’s easy to communicate within the team, everybody does their best to reach our common goal and build high-quality applications for the client.

4. What types of projects or tasks do you find the most fulfilling in your role?

I think it's my current project. It's a web application. It made me grow a lot and I still see areas where I can grow further.

I like it when we implement new features and find it interesting when we explore new functionalities, review requirements, and perform test analyses. It's rewarding to observe how an idea grows into a completed product. It's always a pleasure to see features after they are released on production and observe that they work as expected, bringing results to the clients. Also, I enjoy investigating different issues that sometimes happen in the application, finding the root of the problem, and fixing it.

5. Is there a specific project where you feel you grew the most, personally or professionally? Or any standout projects you want to mention?

It’s my current project. I have grown a lot from it. I faced some difficulties in the early steps, but overcoming those difficulties made me stronger and more skillful. It also helped to build better working processes with the team and the company. Most importantly, we achieved great results that were highly appreciated by customers.

6. What new skills or technologies have you learned while working here?

It will take a long time to list all the technologies that I began using for the first time while working here. I've learned a lot of things that help me in the daily work process. For example, running applications locally and deploying different versions on the QA host. I had little experience running apps locally at my previous job and none in deploying versions on a QA host. Here we do it on a daily basis.

Moreover, each project has its own requirements and to run it locally we need to set up different technologies and tools for each project (Node.js, npm, Yarn, Docker, and so on). It’s especially relevant when you are setting up an environment for a new project for the first time. My first attempt to run a new app took about 2 days to learn and set up all that was needed. In comparison, the last time I set up a new project, it took about 1-2 hours without any assistance). Here I also began using new tools such as TestRail, BrowserStack, Swagger, DBeaver, Track.js, GTM, and Hotjar.

I've deepened my skills, knowledge, and mastery of different tools (test analysis, defining test policy and strategy, testing frontend/backend, various types of testing, using DevTools, Fiddler, and more.

Currently, I’m learning how to manage the QA department as a QA lead. It’s also a new challenge for me as I'm currently gaining management skills.

7. What does your daily life as a QA lead look like?

I’m the only QA engineer on my current project. As a QA engineer and a QA lead, I analyze tasks daily, define priorities. I make decisions on what to test and what not to test, in what priority, what the acceptance criteria are to move a task further or return it to development, and, ultimately, if we are ready for the release. Every day, I communicate with different teams: with teammates inside our small team, with other teams that develop other parts of our big project, and with other external teams when we implement different integrations.

I have daily meetings with other QA engineers in the company. As a lead, I need to make sure that our QA processes are running smoothly on every project. We update statuses on each project, share news, and help each other.

8. What’s your favorite part about working at SCD?

I like that we work remotely and have a flexible working policy. I can work from different locations and at times and days that suit me the most. This way, I can not only focus on work but also have time to live, learn, do sports, or solve personal issues. Overall, I like our corporate events and communicating with colleagues.

9. How does the company support your professional growth and learning?

The company supports us at every step and appreciates all learning opportunities that help improve our skills and work processes. The company pays for learning courses, buys tools on demand, encourages us when we meet difficulties, and helps us overcome them. Also, as I mentioned earlier, we have great teammates! They are always ready to support and share their expertise.

10. Anything you wish to add?

I feel very grateful to our company and my colleagues, and I wish success and growth to the company and everybody in it :)