Meet a Tester: Milos

, Managing Editor, Testlio

In Meet a Tester, we feature QA experts from our community who share their love for quality and Testlio. Milos is an adrenaline enthusiast, polyglot and Software QA Engineer from Serbia.

Tell us a bit about yourself

I am from Kragujevac, Serbia. Kragujevac is a university town located in central Serbia with a population of around 150.000 people. Known for its industrial heritage and good rock and roll music, the city has today one of the fastest growing IT industries in Serbia.
My native language is Serbian, and I also speak English, Croatian, Bosnian, Slovenian, and Macedonian. I would love to learn French next! 

What is your educational background? 

After high school, I decided to major in Software Engineering and Computer Science as I have always been drawn to programming. Unfortunately, I haven’t completed my degree yet – I started working as a QA engineer in an international company when I was 21 so my priorities shifted toward pursuing a career. But I am planning to pick up where I left and obtain my degree soon.

How did you end up testing for Testlio? 

Whenever someone asks me this question, I reply – ask Google! I was looking for a side job that I could do in my spare time, so I searched online for different opportunities. I found several crowd testing platforms, including Testlio, and registered as a freelance tester. Testlio left the greatest impression on me and that’s why I’ve been an active member for the past couple of years.

What I love about Testlio, is that I don’t have to compete with other testers – instead, I can grab a cup of coffee, listen to some good music, and concentrate on my testing tasks without haste or stress. I believe this is the best way to deliver first-rate products to clients. In addition, I really enjoy being able to work on a wide variety of interesting and challenging projects. 

What are your specialties?

My specialty is web/mobile automation testing, which includes regression, REST API, performance, and load testing. From time to time, I also do security testing. 
When it comes to apps, I mainly use JSON parsers, Postman, and Intellij.
With my regular job, I use Linux and in private, I use Mac OS. 
I have also started to learn about Python since it is the most popular language besides Java, in my opinion.

Milos’ workspace

How does Testlio’s pay compare to your market rate?

Taking into consideration that Testlio is my part-time job, I am quite satisfied. Here you can set your own working schedule and get paid for all the tasks you complete. You’re always compensated for your time – and that’s a really good deal! More importantly, you don’t feel stressed out while working and the team leaders are great professionals that are always willing to help.

How do you manage your work-life balance?

It is all about being well-organized. Of course, when my workload is more intense, it can be a bit difficult to manage that balance – but I think it is fair to sacrifice some of my free time if I can later enjoy a cold beer at the beach with my friends. 

What motivates you professionally?

As a tester, I always try to put myself in the shoes of the end-user and imagine what it would be like to use a particular app on a daily basis. So I always do my best to help provide great app experiences for the people that end up using these apps in real life. 

What’s an interesting fact about yourself?

I love doing things that get my blood pumping! I recently tried skydiving for the first time, and debated long and hard whether I should try tandem skydiving or free-flying… guess which one I chose? 😉 When I was preparing for my first jump, the dose of adrenaline mixed with fear was so great that I forgot everything I was taught before the jump. Fortunately, everything went well! Also, I am a big fan of football and beer 🙂 

Check out Milos’ skydiving and skiing video.

What are some apps you use that you can recommend?

Some of the apps I use regularly are Untapped (a social network for people who love to taste different beers and rate it), Reddit, and Pinterest. 
I mostly use Trello, Asana, and TestRail for work – they are very useful and don’t have a bunch of unnecessary features.

How would you convince a friend to join Testlio?

I have already convinced a few of my friends to join Testlio. In the beginning, some were a bit hesitant, “how I am going to do this” “It seems complicated”, but they immediately realized that Testlio functions as one big family and that you can always count on someone to give you a hand. And, of course, I will continue to recommend Testlio as a great place to work at!

If you would like to be part of Testlio’s global network of testers, join us now!