"To some, it seems wild: what's it like to be stuck in one place?" The story of a career takeoff for an IT specialist who has been working in the same company for 10 years and considers it lucky to have worked in IT right after graduating from university.

Everything temporary is permanent

I studied at a Kharkiv university to become a translator and really had ambitions to become one, not a teacher. In my fifth year, I was looking for a part-time job until I found a permanent job as a translator. That’s how I ended up at HOSTiQ, where I’ve been working for 10 years.

For some, this may seem strange: what is it like to be stuck in one place? I have a different perception — one company, but different positions, teams, and tasks. In general, there is an advantage in simply moving to another job within the company instead of changing companies. You can try yourself in different specializations, even if there is no vacancy at the moment, but at the same time have a stable job and income.

First job in the CS department

I know that for many it’s a similar story: after university, you go into support and gradually work your way up. Support is a valuable experience that taught me, first of all, to search for and process information on your own, not to wait for someone to «chew» it for you. At first, it’s especially difficult, because you have to learn a lot of new technical information, and before that I was more of a humanitarian.

It’s harder to accept less after you have enough experience in another field. I know several people who even took courses but never went into IT — you have to take the same few steps back while you gain experience, and you have to accept a small starting salary.

Thanks to this work, I learned to understand people better and separate their emotions from their needs. In support, we held workshops on this topic and had daily practice. Therefore, this definitely contributed to my further soft skills.

Later, I took the position of shift-lead — shift leader. In the support, which works 24/7, there are several shifts. Specialists communicate with clients, process their requests, and provide answers. There should always be a person nearby who makes decisions and is responsible. My English also came in handy. For example, there were situations when there was a failure in the operation of the sites, and it was on the side of the data center. They had to call another country, communicate in English, ask what was wrong with the server or the network — why it wasn’t working. This is one of the cases when it was necessary to communicate during the shift not with clients.

The best memories of this job are of course related to the relaxed atmosphere and communication with colleagues, this time was cool in its own way.

Retraining and starting work in QA

How did it all happen? I saw that the development team had a vacancy for a tester, and they were looking for him among their own team first. I tried a test task — finding bugs on a website page that the development team had created specifically for this. After checking, I received a positive response that I was accepted. My joy knew no bounds! Later, I found a document with the assessment of my test task, and saw how many errors there were.

My supervisor helped me get started — he was very interested in me succeeding, because his «fate» depended on it, so he could quickly move to full-time development.

At that time, I started with the QA «desktop book» — «Testing.dot.com». The book explained the «ethics» of testing in simple language. Then I listened to online courses on theory. There were also conferences and online lectures, of course. But still, the main thing for QA is the attitude to work. You can know the theory like the «Our Father», but be too lazy to spend extra time on breaking down the feature to its molecules.

Behind the scenes of the tester’s work

I worked as a tester for about four years. What I liked was thinking through different test cases and finding vulnerabilities. The satisfaction comes from the fact that my intuition worked and I found a bug exactly where it was hidden, and where it was not even thought to be looked for. There is a clear algorithm in the work: check the page in different browsers, extensions (depending on the screen size), test the logic — how and what is opened and executed.

If we are talking about sending to different groups of customers, then you have to think through all the conditions, for example, where the text changes. There is a lot of interaction with programmers when it comes to functionality and scripts. You start working with a small part, but you have to consider that a bunch of other things can be tied to it that can break. For example, sending a letter to a customer after an order — and suddenly there are already three more letters that can conflict with each other in meaning or timing.

My only advice here for predecessors is to document all projects well. The person who comes after you should see all the interdependencies. Imagine an apartment that has undergone major renovations several times — the next redevelopment will be a problem, because it is not known where the communications are, what they are, etc.

In short, the work is interesting, almost detective, but I outgrew the Middle QA position. To move to the Lead position, I lacked the courage and idea of ​​how I would develop this direction and work with the team. So I went a different path.

Why and how did you switch to business analysis, and what is it all about?

Let’s start with the fact that business analytics is a very interconnected field with QA. Such a transition from one role to another is usually called switchmanship. I disagree here, because for me it is more like gliding. The most transitions to BA are from QA, because both professions require similar skills.

Our company did not have a person specially trained to set technical requirements. Most often, project managers skillfully set the tasks, but still, their focus of work is oriented to something else. Sometimes issues arose that could have been identified at an earlier stage if it had been clearly stated in the technical requirements. It was this understanding that the requirements could be more understandable and structured that motivated me to look towards business analysis, although I did not even know what this position was called at the time.

My desire coincided with the vision of the manager and he helped me develop this role in the team. At first, I simply adjusted the TOR, and then I completely moved to a separate position of business analyst. To do this, I took courses with practical tasks for 3 months and generally attended thematic online training.

Now I am involved in all new tasks that come to the Development department: I adjust the description of the tasks, clarify the requirements, and prepare additional documents — business requirements documents, which describe the multi-level goals of the project. In large-scale or medium-sized projects, I interact with the architect.

Pregrooming is also an important stage in my work. How does it happen? I hold meetings with programmers and testers to explain the purpose of a new task and ask what pitfalls or options they see for implementing this task.

Then I discuss it with the customers, and when the vision converges among all participants, I detail the technical task, divide it into separate Jira-increments, and pass it on for further grooming and evaluation. Even when the task has already entered the sprint, I monitor it, because additional issues may arise that require coordination. In general, I am involved in the task until I am convinced that everything is fine with it at the production stage.

What skills and tools acquired while working in QA were useful in business analysis?

The good news is: there are quite a few! So keep a verified list of core skills that are valuable for both QA and BA:

• Root cause analysis — in business analytics, like QA, you need to be able to dig, like a dachshund on the beach, to the cause of the error and disassemble the feature to the core;
• Ability to clearly present technical documentation;
• Strong domain knowledge;
• Test design techniques help at the stage of writing the requirements;
• Critical thinking. I am convinced that questioning what is written is not a bad trait at all;
• You should not be afraid to ask questions and provide what you think is the right solution;
• Ability to work with gray-box and communicate with programmers so that they can explain the logic behind a particular feature.

Difficulties when transitioning to a new position

As I already said, the company had no BA position before. Therefore, I had no one to orient myself to. There was theoretical knowledge from courses: how it should be, and the real processes of the company, into which it all had to be integrated. The boundaries of the responsibilities of a business analyst with the same project manager and even an architect were not immediately clear, which was also not easy.

There were and remain questions about how detailed the technical features of the implementation should be in the requirements — everyone is different and has their own habits or preferences regarding clarifications. You won’t learn this in a course, only in practice and by communicating.

That’s why for me, one of the main tasks of a VA is to balance the wishes of the customers and the capabilities of the development team. It is important to understand the value and correlate development time with technical limitations, and then successfully communicate all these things to all participants.

Advice for people planning to move from one position to another

To all millennials who are planning a transition, I advise you to believe in yourself more. If you want to calibrate your internal reference point, contact your mentors. It is also important to record project meetings in one place so that when you return to the task even a year later, you have notes, including the reasons why you abandoned it earlier.

Try yourself in what arouses desire and opportunities for growth. Without trying, it is impossible to achieve success in any niche.

«We will make you happy with an offer to work for us for free, and then maybe we will hire you.» Aitov residents share stories about finding work from frontline cities

On the topic

«We will make you happy with an offer to work for us for free, and then maybe we will hire you.» Aitov residents share stories about finding work from frontline cities

Who do you become if you work for the same company for 10+ years? Here are 10 stories of professionals who grew from juniors to top-level managers with one employer. Spoiler: careers develop faster in product

On the topic

Who do you become if you work for the same company for 10+ years? Here are 10 stories of professionals who grew from juniors to top-level managers with one employer. Spoiler: careers develop faster in product

Read the country’s main IT news in our Telegram

On the topic

Read the country’s main IT news in our Telegram