Nicky Tests Software

Next Friday is my last day at Vend . And to be honest, I'm kind of excited. You might be wondering why I'm excited about leaving Vend. Surely, leaving a company with as good a reputation that Vend has, must suck. And it does. Vend has talented people, great work perks, a work environment that empowers you, ownership of work and a JFDI (Just F***ing Do It) attitude. If you're ever given the opportunity to work for Vend, I'd say go for it! You'll learn so much, then look back and be amazed at how time has flown. But I'm leaving Vend for Sweden. While many New Zealanders in their mid to late twenties leave New Zealand for London, I was determined to set sail for a different course.

After my Google Hangout Interview with Katrina , I started to think about picking your battles - which she listed as an important quality of a tester. Below I'd like to talk about my experience and thoughts on this idea. The Girl Who Cried Wolf When I started my first (ever) project, my understanding was that the purpose of testing was to provide information with more emphasis placed on advocating for the fixing of bugs. The thing is - I took this too far.

Spent half an hour talking to Katrina about software testing. Questions include: How did you get into Context Driven Testing? Why do you speak at conferences? What advice would you give to someone who is in the first year of their testing career? What is your biggest achievement of your testing career? What’s the best thing about coaching a team of testers? And what’s the most difficult? What made you decide to start blogging about testing? What do you wish more people knew about software testing? Do you see a problem in the gender ratio in testing? If so, why? If not, why not? If so, how do you suggest we address this? What, do you believe, are the 3 most important traits in a tester? Do you think it’s possible to be a CDT but not Agile? vice versa? I am the only tester in an agile organisation with only developers and POs. How do I get mentored, because most people here do not understand testing.