Meet a Tester: Svyatoslav In Meet a Tester, we feature QA experts from our community who share their love for quality and Testlio. A Ukranian native, Svyatoslav is a former accountant turned QA Engineer. Svyatoslav Where are you from? Hello, Lions! I’m Svyatoslav and I live in Odessa, Ukraine. It’s an awesome and bright city near the Black Sea. I have lived here for my whole 29 years. My native language is Russian, but I speak also Ukrainian and English. Ah, almost forgot – I also picked up several Italian and Czech phrases from my travels, but I guess that doesn’t really qualify under fluent speech. What is your educational background? I have a bachelor’s degree in Economics, Finance & Credit. Also, I have an accounting certificate –I worked in this field for 3 years, even holding the Deputy Chief Accountant position. Even though, these things weren’t related to IT and QA, but I’ve always been curious about computers and programming (I had a PC at a very young age already – I remember the times when my parents surprised me with ‘DOOM II’ on dozens of 3.5-inch floppy disks. It was a really awesome gift for Christmas 😃). I learned computing science at the STEP IT academy where I took a programming course. I also got CISCO certified – network basics and other stuff 😊. How did you end up testing for Testlio? I was at a BBQ with my colleague and he was in a ‘Testlio’ T-shirt (pretty T-shirt, I liked it from the very first sight!). So I asked him about it and he told me that there is a company with a platform for freelance testers. This got me curious and I decided to also try out my skills on other projects next to my daily job. Onboarding was tough because I wasn’t immediately able to proceed with account creation until there was at least one slot in the trial cycle (this was 3 years ago). Ultimately, I contacted the Community team and after a few days, received my first cycle invitation. What do you like about the platform? Testlio platform impressed me with its clarity and simpleness. Also, I liked the fact that it was super easy to get answers from the get-go if anything was unclear – all you have to do is just ask in the chat 🙂. And, of course, I was pleasantly surprised that Testlio values testers’ efforts and the time we spend to get the work done, not just the number of reported bugs. In addition, I really like the possibility to work remotely and on such a flexible schedule. What are your specialties? In my daily job, I lead a small team of 4 automation engineers. I test a huge product, mostly from the Web side. But since it’s also represented in Desktop and Mobile app, I work with these platforms too. Time to time I work with API platform using REST / SOAP. And, of course, DB part – many test cases are covering this huge data barrel. For ~1 year I’ve been responsible for writing and maintaining automated TCs, written on Node JS, so I’m close to the CI processes. Thanks to Testlio I’ve also got a wide horizon of different apps to test on Web / Desktop / Mobile platforms 🙂 . How does Testlio’s pay compare to your market rate? In fact, Testlio’s pay rate is very attractive when compared to other offers on the market. It’s a great benefit, but not the last – I really appreciate that Testlio values a tester’s effort, not just paying for quantitative results. How do you manage the balance between testing and personal life? Trying not to mix it (hahaha). I have a flexible schedule, so I try to use it to its full advantage. I love to travel, spend time with my wife and friends – and testing doesn’t prevent all of this 🙂. If I feel tired, I can always take a small break or go on vacation. With that said, I really like my job, so I don’t get bored or tired easily. Svyatoslav and his lovely wife What motivates you professionally? Money, power, more money, more power… just joking 😃. As I mentioned, I really enjoy my work. Being naturally skeptic, I like to question things so I’m quite good at finding imperfections in the software under test. Also, it’s an amazing feeling when you see that your work is valuable and it helps make things better. What’s an interesting fact about yourself? I really love to ride my bicycle (I own cross-country bike, I don’t like thin wheels 😃). When the weather is good, I usually ride to my work and back home – for the past 3 years I’ve been meaning to keep up this habit even when it gets cold… I believe this winter I’ll finally do it! I live near the sea, so I ride through a track near to the seashore. This ride helps me clear my mind and feel more awake before (and after) work. Svyatoslav, his wife and their bicycles What are some apps you like to use? Well, I often use Mobizen Mirroring tool to interact with my Android devices on PC. It’s a useful tool for me and I think it provides enough of a positive UX 😊 Recently, I discovered a great app for sports tracking – Strava. I use it when riding my bike. It shows the route on the map, different KPIs (e.g. velocity, elevation gain, etc.) and also, there are different cycling leaderboards where I can compare my position and such. How would you convince a friend to join Testlio? I already recommended Testlio to several fellas – they were looking for some additional work, so I told them about the great community, remote work and flexible schedule. They tried it out and I think they’re quite happy 😊 Do you like software testing? You too can join our amazing community and become a TestLion!