Eka Kakalashvili, Junior Software Tester

Today, Eka Kakalashvili, Junior Software Tester at Exactpro, will share why she enjoys being in software testing, what challenges the job presents, and how one can turn them into opportunities for growth.

I started working at Exactpro in February 2020 when I was a Computer Engineering student at San Diego State University. I’ve seen Exactpro representatives at a lot of job fairs, and I was always interested in trying my luck here. So I joined the GX division as a Junior QA. It was my first job, and, since I had no experience, I was both nervous and excited. Eventually, I learned a lot about the work ethics, the company’s vision, and, of course, testing. 

Since our company has a lot of ongoing projects, we are all challenged to be more flexible and adaptive to change. I’ve been on a few projects already. The change of teams and projects is a challenge, but also a very useful experience: we need to learn something new, adopt new skills and also communicate with new team members and clients. Throughout my time here, I've been doing testing, communicating with the clients, reporting on my work, and even guiding newcomers to make their onboarding fast and easy. All of these gave me not only technical experience, but the soft skills that are useful for being a good team player.

My current focus is mostly on manual and semi-automated testing. However, I’ve had direct experience with coding in different programming languages outside of work. I’m now working towards developing these experiences into useful working skills. 

My job consists in testing large-scale trading systems, both from the GUI and the FIX sides. However, it is not that straightforward. We are looking at the systems critically and observing them to see if there is any place for improvement that can be suggested to clients. We check if there are inaccuracies in specifications or, perhaps, a feature that can be inconvenient for the users. So, the process is very dynamic and requires constant improvement from the specialist.

The best thing about our job is that there is always room for improvement and innovations. Even though one should be critical, curious and logical to succeed in this field, one also needs to be creative. There are so many technologies and types of testing that it’s almost impossible to not be able to find the one interesting for you. I look forward to engaging in testing with my new team and trying the tools I’ve had no experience with so far. The best part is that there is always someone who is willing to help and be your mentor whenever something is unclear. So there is no challenge that is too great to be handled. 

I joined Exactpro because it seemed like an improvement-oriented company, which turned out to be true. I was looking for a remote job that would give me knowledge, experience, and an ability to still concentrate on my university studies.

Outside of work, I love reading, spending time with my friends and family, and hiking. I’m planning to use the beautiful summer weekends compensating for my busy weekdays and spend some time with my loved ones. However, I’m still trying to challenge myself, and, currently, I’m on a journey to improving my skills in front-end development