Meet a Tester: Nikolay

In Meet a Tester, we feature QA experts from our community who share their love for quality and Testlio. Nikolay is a software QA Lead and tester from Ukraine.

Tell us a bit about yourself

I am from Ukraine. I was born and have lived all my life in a small town called Boryspil, where the country’s largest airport is located. My native languages are Ukrainian and Russian. Also, I have been learning Polish and want to start studying Chinese.

What is your educational background? 

I graduated from the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute with a degree in Electrical Engineering. This taught me the fundamentals of higher mathematics and the basics of programming languages such as Basic, Pascal, etc. My educational background coupled with my interest in new technologies and new mobile devices are what eventually led me to a career in QA.

How did you end up testing for Testlio?

I had a job spotting issues and vulnerabilities in VoIP-software but I was looking for new challenges. So back in 2016, I joined a known crowd testing platform where I quickly became a “gold” tester with 1,500 cycles completed. A friend told me about Testlio and recommended I try the platform, which I did. After several months of paid cycles, I completely switched over to working with Testlio and haven’t regretted it ever since. Testlio provides an absolutely different tester experience compared to the other crowdsourced testing platforms I had tried. In my opinion, the main pros are simple and clear rules: quality above quantity and teamwork above rivalry. I feel that clients and testers who are fed up with other crowdsourcing platforms are attracted by these fundamentals. And, luckily, I am among them and proud to be here.

What are your specialties?

Currently, I am working as a QA Lead in a small product-oriented company. I have 6 members in my team and we work on improving our web-based application that focuses on e-learning. With that said, I started to test mobile apps earlier than web apps, and it still is my favorite platform as far as testing is concerned. I especially like working on iOS and macOS applications. 

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

I would say that the pay rate offered by Testlio could be compared to that of a QA professional’s onsite working rate in my country. It’s definitely better than that of the other crowdsourcing platforms. Having said that, I am absolutely sure, that only Testlio gives testers that incredible feeling of contentment and accomplishment – and that is invaluable.

How do you balance work and personal life?

I must admit that since getting a promotion at my full-time job, allocating some free time has become trickier. But as time goes on, I’m able to create a better work-life balance to enjoy life more. Thanks to Testlio’s flexible scheduling, I can easily take a holiday or pursue other personal activities.

What motivates you professionally?

First and foremost, my cats – taking care of two cats is a great responsibility. Incomprehensibly, they are always underfed so approximately half of my income goes to keeping them happy (and not angry with me). 
On a more serious note, I’m not the type of person of needs to be motivated per se. Testing has been a big part of my life for the past 4 years and it’s something that I not only enjoy but feel is my responsibility.

What’s an interesting fact about yourself?

Back when I was still studying at the university, I worked as a debt collector – I spent about 3 years of my student life arguing and urging other people to find and return the money they owed. And yes, it’s still a legal way of doing business in many European countries. 
That was quite the job, and now I just can’t believe that I was doing something like that!

What are some of your favorite apps?

I absolutely love working with Screenflow on macOS. This magic app is of tremendous help to me and I don’t know any other alternative that could provide so many functionalities for screen-recording, audio, and video editing. 
For QAs and DevOps who are currently using Jenkins as a CI tool for deployments and development processes, I would strongly recommend switching to the Butler– the best Jenkins CI client for iOS– to keep all the builds in the pocket.
For fun, since I really enjoy listening to music, I’ve found that using Spotify from my Apple Watch provides a great user experience.

How would you convince a friend to join Testlio?

I have already invited a crowd of people to join our family, they didn’t need much convincing  🙂

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