TestLion Pride Meet a Tester: Marko In Meet a Tester, we feature QA experts from our community who share their love for quality and Testlio. Marko is a tech-enthusiast from Finland. Where are you from? I’m originally from a small town that sits next to the border of Finland and Russia, but I’ve been moving around Finland and Europe since then. For now, I’ve settled near the border of Finland and Sweden in the twin city of Tornio. My native language is Finnish, but I’m also fluent in English and I’ve fiddled around a bit with Java, Python, and HTML. My second language is actually Swedish but I don’t feel too confident about my skills with that language. What is your educational background? I studied at HUMAK University of Applied Sciences. The education is focused on NGO and youth work but my specialization was in international work and project managing. My passion is in game education and digital youth work with interests in coding / AI / Maker. Marko playing Overwatch with bananas, wearing a tinfoil hat. This was part of a project about using the Makey Makey kit and creating different controllers for different purposes. How did you end up testing for Testlio? I found Testlio through an ad from Reddit. I’ve had some experience in QA stuff with alpha and beta testing apps and games. Testlio seemed like an interesting opportunity mostly because of the stable payments and interesting projects to work on. What are your specialties? I’ve been a PC and Android guy for my whole life. I fell in love with these platforms’ possibilities for optimization and customization, but I’m not afraid of testing new platforms and operating systems. Apple OS and Linux are interesting platforms to fiddle around with but the first is way too strict and the other needs way too much tweaking for me to love them as much as I love my main platforms. How does Testlio’s pay compare to your market rate? I’ve done a lot of voluntary testing with games so getting paid for testing different apps/software is a huge upgrade. Compared to most other projects I’ve worked with, the payment is more than worth the time! How do you balance testing and personal life? I have a tendency of bringing work home. Testlio projects aren’t really a problem. Most of my hobbies and work are combined anyway so testing new builds helps keep my mind agile even in my personal life. What motivates you professionally? In a nutshell, here are my top 3 motivators: self-development, learning new skills and helping people. What’s an interesting fact about yourself? I (accidentally) ended up competing in the Finnish championship of whitewater rafting. And our team actually managed to get second place! Marko enjoying sports as always 🙂 What are some of your favorite apps? Slack / Discord / Trello. All have clean good UI and a large variety of features – the possibility to add different services and bots inside these tools is a lifesaver. I use them mostly for communication and organizing stuff. How would you convince a friend to join Testlio? The pay rates are usually more than enough to convince new joiners! If that doesn’t work, then telling about the Testlio community should do the trick! Do you like software testing? Join our freelance app testing community today!