We sat down to speak with QA Engineer at eduMe, Zoe Clegg, to find out more about her path into the role, a day in the life as an engineer at eduMe, and what she looks out for when interviewing candidates.
If you’re looking for a new role and you’re interested in what eduMe has to offer, head over to our careers page to see our open engineering roles and learn more about our team.
What’s your role at eduMe and what does a typical day look like for you?
I work as a QA Engineer in the Core Learning tribe here at eduMe. Our focus is to give our admins and learners the best end-to-end experience when using the product.
On any given day I could be working on several different tasks including: testing new features or bug fixes for our upcoming releases; collaborating with the engineers, designers and product managers in my tribe; attending project meetings; contributing to our test automation suite; conducting code reviews; and the list goes on!
Each week I also get to block out some time to focus on my personal development - which I’ve used to listen to webinars, take some online courses and study for a QA certification.
How did you get into QA?
I started off my career in a product role which would occasionally involve me helping out with various QA activities. I enjoyed working collaboratively with engineers and being able to see the value that I was contributing to the team and to the product. I then pursued several ISTQB certifications to build up a good foundation of knowledge around software testing before I specialised as a QA Analyst.
With my background being in Maths, I was keen to get involved in the more technical side of QA, particularly test automation. In my spare time I started learning everything I could about automation and took several online courses covering different frameworks - which allowed me to build up a portfolio on Github.
Now that I’ve joined eduMe as a QA Engineer I’ve been able to put into practice everything I’ve learnt over the last few years which feels so fulfilling.
Why did you join eduMe?
I first saw the role being advertised on LinkedIn and the job description matched everything that I was looking for (a mix of manual and automated testing; working with both a web product and an app; and a strong sense of team collaboration).
During the application process I spoke to several different team members across the different engineering squads. Everyone was so friendly and enthusiastic about eduMe, and the conversations flowed so naturally.
The questions I was asked gave me an insight into the maturity of the engineering team and their processes as well as demonstrating that eduMe understood the importance of QA in the software development lifecycle.
Accepting the offer was a no-brainer!
What was your onboarding experience like?
Before starting, I was given access to the eduMe app which featured several lessons and quizzes about eduMe and what to expect from my first few weeks. It was a great way to gain some insights into the company and to get first-hand experience with the product itself.
Upon joining I was provided with a QA onboarding checklist which included everything I needed to know about the QA team and their processes. There was no pressure to tick everything off the list as quickly as possible - I was able to learn at my own pace in a way that worked best for me and take my time to experiment and play around with the product.
Over the first few weeks I also had introductory sessions with every team across the business which was a great way to meet everyone (even if it was done virtually!) and get an understanding of how everyone works together.
What kind of technical challenges are you and your team working through right now?
We’re currently working on increasing our automation test coverage to relieve some of the burden off of our manual regression testing - but at the same time want to ensure that we’re creating automated testing suites that are efficient, scalable and maintainable.
We catch up regularly as a team to strategise about our next steps and everyone is encouraged to share their ideas. We’ve made recent improvements to help increase the execution speed of our automated tests and to improve their readability. As we expand the QA team, we want to make sure new starters can jump right in and make valuable contributions with ease.
What do you look for when interviewing QA Engineers?
Someone who has a keen eye for detail, excellent communication skills and a genuine interest in collaborating with a team.
A positive attitude is also key! I’d love to hear about why you chose to get into QA and what you enjoy most about it.
eduMe is a great environment for personal growth - so you’d be a perfect fit if you’re open to learning new things but are also willing to share your knowledge with the rest of us too!
What do you love most about working at eduMe and why should someone consider joining the Engineering team?
eduMe has such a welcoming and unique culture - I felt a part of the team straight away! I’m never worried or scared about asking a question or admitting I don’t know something - there’s always someone there to support me. There’s also no micromanaging going on - we’re all trusted to manage our own time.
We’re encouraged to develop ourselves and our skills - which is evident by the generous annual learning budget we each receive. There’s a whole bunch of other perks too, including flexible working hours - so if you need to start a bit later or take an extended lunch break you can!
If you’ve enjoyed reading about Zoe's experience at eduMe, why not have a look at our open engineering roles?
