Conf in a Conf Session

From molecule to bug hunting

25-minute Talk

All levels

Timetable

3:15 p.m.-3:45 p.m.

Monday 13th

Room

Track 2

Audience

everyone, career changers, people motivated to move in a leadership position

Key-Learning

- highlighting the benefits of career changers in software testing

- explaining how to overcome (or keep in check) your self-doubts when moving into a management position

- showing important skills for a lead role

A biologist's journey into the testing world

It is important to experiment in your job as a tester as well as in a leadership position.

We often grow up assuming that the domain we got our education in will accompany us for the rest of our career. But so many software testers do not have an IT-related education and instead somehow stumbled into testing. Despite doing an excellent job, many battle with imposter syndrome.

This is also my story: I studied molecular biology and worked in research before moving into the world of software testing and test automation. Recently, the journey continued to additionally being the lead of our company’s testing team.

In this talk, I would like to reflect on my experiences and share some learnings. I am going to analyze which skills and practices from my previous job translated well into testing - because there are similar approaches in testing software and testing slimy microorganisms.

Next, I am going to illustrate how the job of a testing team lead looks like in a consulting company where team members work for different clients and products. Even though I left the lab behind, my current position still enables me to do experiments and more importantly create a space for others to experiment.

I am going to explain where and how I learned the skills needed for my position and additionally highlight why I don’t want to see certain past experiences in my working environment anymore and how this motivated me to take the step into a leadership role. And finally an aspect that should not be forgotten: Which experiments did not turn out as expected?