The Interview
-   DHL
-   toptable
-   ICAP
-   RollUp Media
-   BNY Mellon
-   TC Consulting
-   MarkitSERV
-   Pinesoft
-   IDBS
-   Vertex
-   LateRooms
-   Betfair   

Without sounding too vague, I feels like I drifted into IT.  I went to University in New Zealand where I studied Electrical & Electronics Engineering, then subsequently found myself in the energy sector where my interest in IT grew.  Since a young age, I have found myself drawn to machinery old and new; I have a deep-rooted interest in how things work and find it fascinating every time a new machine/system, software or piece of equipment is released. At the age of 12 I recall clearly “assisting” my father recondition/rebuild the diesel engine of the farm’s Fordson “Super Major” tractor during the summer break from school. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wanted to study Engineering when I was halfway through secondary school.  I later chose Electrical & Electronics Engineering as it was an area of “machinery” that I did not have a lot of exposure to on the farm, and felt that I already had a good all round knowledge of mechanical and more tangible systems and tools. I also figured that I could not see electricity or electronics ever becoming obsolete in my lifetime.  My first practical engineering training was 3 months working with the Test Lab of the national electricity generation and transmission company. I got to travel the whole of the South Island of New Zealand testing transmission line and substation (electrical fault) protection systems. After a very broad work experience in power systems and telecommunications, I moved to designing and installation of power station controls. I was drawn to the flexibility and adaptability of the programmable Logic controllers (PLCs) and their application to Electricity Generation Control. That led to more general IT projects in the energy sector. Next I have only sought out IS (Information System) projects and that has been the past 15 years of my life.  Therefore, on closer inspection, I would have to say that I chose IT.

No. The only typical thing about my day is hoping that it will be a typical day!  The rate of change in the IT industry, I believe, has no rival.  It is very hard to structure your day around projects that can and do fluctuate on an hourly basis.  This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy the ‘problem solving’ parts of my job; it’s stimulating to be given a dilemma or more specifically a ‘well defined problem’ and being able to use one’s knowledge, experience and skills to be able to come up with a solutions.  I am certainly pleased to have variety in my working life; even if on occasions you crave nothing more than an ‘ordinary’ day!

I really enjoy the circa two-year life cycle of a big project; which has a beginning, a middle and an end.  The beginning being the learning and discovery stage, for both the business environment and the technologies - the middle being the implementation and application of the learning you did in the beginning stage - and the end being the delivery which of course if the most enjoyable part. There is little more rewarding than seeing your results of your work come to fruition.  As I mentioned before, learning new technologies and being able to use them is certainly a favourite part of my working life, and the beginning stage of any project is often the most exciting for this reason.  I believe I work best when I’m part of a project that can be laid out like this; there is a fairly clear structure, you understand the timeline, you’re aware of the budget and you can work accordingly.  When you are part of a large single project (as opposed to running several simultaneous projects), there is a huge sense of achievement not only for yourself but for your team when everything is completed (i.e. working) on time and on budget.  Then it’s great to be able to celebrate with the team!

It’s an obvious answer, but the opposite of my favourite things!  When a project has no set structure, when there are difficulties with timescale and budget or when the team isn’t pulling together then of course there’s challenges.  However this is unfortunately a part of life and not every project can go as planned!  As well as the technologies, equipment and environment, a huge challenge is the flow of personnel.  Getting the right mix of people to form a solid team is definitely key to success - often you can find that along with good project foundation documents, the verbal and informal information flow can make or break a project. Keeping with the documentation theme, a major challenge in most industries is getting the product people and business customers to express clearly what is needed. Usually because it is difficult to articulate or visualise the end product, it is only when the first prototype of a system or component arrives on the customers desk that the functional and technical requirements can get clearly expressed. This leads to a lot of extra rework which can be frustrating.

In my experience, very few people choose testing/QA as a career - I would say nine out of ten people land in this career by accident, or maybe it is more accurate to say, by discovery on the job.  On the whole I think people fall into it because there was either a need for it in their current company/project, and/or no one else wanted to do it. Once in the role and undertaking the tasks, they realise that they genuinely enjoy the meticulous nature of the job and the role satisfies that inner call “to get things done right!”.  I have often thought how much better the software development process would be if testers/QA people had worked as Business analysts for a year or so and also have spent some time developing systems and vice versa. I am sure this would lead to better delivery overall. We are often very quick to pass blame on to other departments/disciplines instead of working as a whole unit.  If everyone understood everyone else’s function and worked on all phases of the project, then working together would be less of a chore and more of a natural fit. So my advice would be to get interns to get significant experience in all phases of the system development lifecycle, before choosing the roles and functions they enjoy the most.

I responded to a job advertisement on the internet :-) From University where I studied Electrical & Electronics Engineering, I progressed into the utilities sector (Energy), then telecommunications and more recently into the Financial sector.  I was introduced to QA and testing principles and practise firstly while on a summer job that was part of the practical requirements for my degree. In the classic engineering areas, (civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical, etc) it was always taken as a given that there would be clear QA inspection points in any project with “witnessed” tests. The test phases were scheduled at the inception of the project and the senior engineers and clients to the project would make special trips to the site office to witness the tests. The role of test engineer was as “glamourous” as the design engineer’s role.  It is a stark contrast to my early experience as an IT contractor (in some sectors, not all). Testing was considered as a ‘necessary evil’ and an appendage to IT projects that was to start as late as possible in the SDLC and always it was to “make sure everything (still) worked”. The main problem being that whatever “everything” was meant to be was not documented and depending who you talked to, the “everything” morphed. During a ‘natural break’ in my career when I could see the world of IT was changing, I saw a niche in the market appear involving the automation of test scripts. I had researched and learnt enough about test automation to become an intermediate level user of the tools. Enough to do a very basic proof of concept over the space of a week on an ex colleague’s project. The demo was far from perfect but it was much better than the initial attempt by his development team. Two and a half years later the project had reached completion and I was out searching for my second contract. And now, 13 years on from my first IT project outside the energy sector I find myself in the finance sector. After moving to London from NZ I figured I should try my hand at finance as I had never worked in the sector before.  Another chance to learn something new... or maybe it was just a case of “When in Rome...”

I would like to recount two items/events. Firstly, from my power engineering days. The item was not a big high profile project, of which I have had many. It is the design, build and install of a personal invention. It consisted of small simple (and elegant in my view of course) device and the electronics around it that measure near-zero speeds on large machinery. It could measure down to a level of one degree of movement even if it took the machine a year to drift by that amount.  The device is still used today as far as I know, and replaced a more costly, to buy and maintain, mechanical switch technology - so knowing that there’s something out there in the world that you have created and is being used, is very rewarding!

With regards to IT and the type of role I now have, there is definitely a project that sticks in my mind.  It was a two-year project and there was a very clear business requirement. The completion date was not movable for regulatory reasons.  As I’ve mentioned previously, I like this kind of configuration where you know the end goal and the end date and everything is geared and structured around that. What makes this particular project stand out for me is that we realised there was a skills shortage in a particular discipline that we needed for the project. So we sought out some people with good learning skills and attitude and organised the training. With a real application on which the new team members could apply their new knowledge we were able to develop the skill and as it was a group of three and the training provider was available on call to assist during the project, it turned out to be a very effective learning opportunity and critical to the success of the project. The system worked, was delivered on time, and quality and time are looked after the cost takes care of itself.

Analytical skills, a natural inquisitiveness and lots of patience balanced with sense of urgency at the right times. If you find yourself saying “Why does this not work?” when you go to use some product or go online to do some transaction, you should consider a career in IT. If you often say to yourself or others, “This would work/be better if...” then you should consider a career in IT.  On the other hand, if you are someone who says “I am not exactly sure what the system needs or should do, but regardless I want it yesterday and I don’t want to pay anything for it” then keep on walking. Go get a job as a salesperson at the £1 shop or similar.

This is a tough question. I would see this as a question that applies to most engineering and science disciplines. I think it has to start at the secondary school stage of people’s lives. A commitment by employers to hire post graduation and a solid 2 year training programme for graduates would also help. I think that IT will attract more graduates as it matures to sit alongside the classic engineering disciplines, the graduates will see it as an option similar to mechanical or civil engineering. The boom and bust cycles in the economy and in particular the IT sector do not help. In my experience the best time to enter an industry is actually in the “bust” years of the economic cycle as one is well trained by the time the good times return.

As more helpful advice, I would point out to students considering IT as a career option, that the global portability of the knowledge and skills is second to none. It opens the opportunity to travel while working in many parts of the globe. Another advantage of IT now is that the tools needed to learn and practise the skills needs are not very expensive. Compared to the time when students required access to mainframes to run and test their programmes.

In the end science and engineering choose You, and One has the chance to select IT, in particular if you would like to be able to move more easily around the globe and between industries.

Testing Circle would like to thank Chris Poff and the MarkitSERV team for allowing us to conduct this interview. Interviewed by Ashleigh Ace, Testing Circle Marketing Manager.