my experience of studying and trying to get a job as a QA engineer
Hello everyone! I want to tell you about my experience of immersing myself in the world of IT, gaining new knowledge on courses and trying to get a job at T-Bank (at the time of my decision it was still Tinkoff). What came out of it, I will try to outline below. This text (or essay, composition, whatever you want to call it) will have quite a lot of words.
At the moment, I am finishing my third year at one of the regional universities in a highly controversial specialty. Each teacher has his own vision of what we should do, so for three years our group used the principle: in IT classes they said, “We are not programmers – we are economists,” and in economics classes – “We are not economists – we are programmers.”
Selection
In February of this year, I was faced with the question of where and how to do my industrial practice. At the university, this specialty is rather experimental (as far as I know, there was only one graduation), and the educational institution does not have any developments in assisting in finding places of practice (at most, one of the teachers can find out if there is a place somewhere to set up a 1C database or as an assistant accountant). At the department, they told me to look for a job myself, the main condition is that the company should be focused on either information technology or economics, ideally both. What you will do there does not matter (even work as a cashier in a supermarket, and then we will pull something in the reports). Of course, this option did not suit me, and I began to study where I could apply.
The database teacher advised me to monitor internship options from large IT companies and said that around April, recruitment for summer internships at Yandex, Sber, VK and others would start (she immediately warned me that the competition was big, it would be difficult to get in, but why not try). Just at that moment, recruitment for Tinkoff's Fintech courses started. After consulting with the same teacher, I decided to participate in the competition for the QA course (since we didn't have any development as such, and I wasn't yet mature enough for data analysis, I chose testing). If I get in, I'll learn something new and gain experience, and I won't have to immediately deal with dropped tasks. Plus, it was announced that after the courses there is an opportunity to become a full-time employee. I calculated that by the time the course ends, I will have a month and a half before the start of the internship according to the curriculum, and I will have time to submit documents for employment (at T-Bank or another place) to the university.
The selection itself took place in one stage, which consisted of three blocks. It was necessary to fill out a questionnaire, which asked general questions: where do you study, what do you work as, what attracted you to the direction, what do you want to achieve in the future, what technical achievements and organizational skills do you have. The questionnaire is standard, but it was difficult to evaluate yourself. According to reviews, I learned that the questionnaire plays almost the only decisive role in the selection. I collected all my few achievements and wrote in beautiful language that I passed my coursework at university with excellent marks and in my first year I organized a poker tournament in the dormitory.
Next came a test consisting of questions on general technical knowledge and problems of the life-mathematical-logical spectrum (there are plenty of them on YouTube if you search for “interview problems”). I would like to separately note the problems on logical thinking, which included paraphrased problems from Voinarovsky's test. Here, of course, I got lost, since I have a hard time with cause-and-effect relationships.
And at the end there was a programming exam. The tasks included algorithms and data structures from the simplest to the most complex. Seven tasks had to be solved within five hours. I solved three tasks in 30-40 minutes (sorting, progression, element search tasks). Then it became more difficult, but with the help of Google the tasks were solvable. I spent an hour and a half on one of the tasks, solved it, but it seems not quite correctly or did not fit into the time limit (it is difficult to judge, since the final grade only indicated the number of points without a specific scoring). I do not agree with the opinion that these were Olympiad tasks, as they write in the comments of Telegram channels after each set. Rather, these are Easy and Medium tasks with LeetCode, perhaps a couple of Hard. Another question is whether these skills are needed in the work of a tester, at least at the initial levels? But as one of the options for correspondence selection, this can quite correctly reflect the candidate's ability to find solutions.
So I completed all the tasks, sent them, and waited for an answer. I was mentally preparing myself for the fact that I would most likely not pass (considering that people try to pass the selection for years), but deep down I had a glimmer of hope: “What if I get lucky?” And I did. Less than a week later, I received an email with the message: “Congratulations! You have been accepted to the Fintech educational courses.”
The actual training
This is how my training began. I won’t go into detail about what we went through and what assignments were given, so as not to be dishonest with the organizers and teachers who really put their hearts into the course.
The course covered all the main stages of software development and integration of testing into it. We studied development methodologies, testing theory (types, test design techniques, test documentation), software architecture. Frontend testing (features of testing web and mobile applications) and backend (in particular, API testing) were considered separately. Significant attention was paid to automation and DevOps practices. The course ended with a block on testing processes. There was really a lot of information, and it was presented in an interesting way. The tight deadlines, of course, limited the flow, but thanks to additional materials and with due diligence, it was impossible to leave without knowledge.
The training principle was built on the following scenario: a lecture, a bunch of additional materials, homework. I think this is the best option for online training. I am a supporter of the principle “If you want to learn, you will learn, if not, no one will teach you”, and this approach was not stressful and allowed you to plan your time. The tasks were very diverse: from tasks on understanding the general principles of testing to specific technical aspects and working with certain software. In the process of solving the tasks, I watched the lectures 2-3 times, studied all the additional materials and googled a lot. There was a little lack of coverage of the practical aspects of QA work (for example, it was said that there is a test model, but how to create it was touched on in passing, and homework had to be done), but given the deadlines, it could not be done differently. There were also test tasks on some topics, they were different: some – exactly according to the lecture slides, and some – to practice the acquired knowledge (I, of course, liked such tests more).
The skills were assessed according to an algorithm: you solve a test – you get points for correct answers, you do your homework – you get a certain number of points for completing it. If there are critical errors, you work on it based on the teacher's comments and get a smaller point (during the entire time, I was sent an assignment for revision only once). In the end, all the points were summed up. If all the homework and tests are completed, and the final grade is more than 50% of the maximum, then you are a good boy and get a certificate as a ticket to a new life. A plus is that the assignments were checked by a different curator each time, and there was no opportunity to adjust your answer model to a certain standard, as often happens at the university.
I liked the teachers on the course for the most part. It was obvious that everyone really had a lot of experience. Even if they couldn't always just convey the material, they really tried, if not to tell everything, then to inspire to delve deeper into the topic. I was hooked by the fact that there was live communication, examples from life, and not just reading notes.
Now I want to share my subjective opinion on some aspects of the course organization. Perhaps I am too picky, but a few things upset me a little.
At the start of the course, we were promised a lot of live practice (I thought that this should imply working on real problems in real time, both in groups and independently). In the end, there were three practical classes, and only one of them can be called truly live. In this class, we worked in a group and solved a problem, which was interesting. The other two practices were held according to the workshop principle: the lecturer solved the problem and broadcast the screen, and we watched and did homework based on what we saw. In one of the classes, the problem was solved live, and in the other, the teacher prepared all the source code in advance and simply explained what was done at each stage. Watching someone do something is educational, but I could not always keep my attention for two hours and missed some moments.
It was also not always possible to find out your mistakes in the tests: often only the final result was displayed without any comments or even without indicating the wrong answers. This was inconvenient, especially in tests with multiple choice answers, since I still have not found my gaps in some questions. There was no way to challenge the score given for the homework. There was a situation when the lecture said that you need to complete the tasks using a limited set of software functions. I spent an indecently long time solving a case (using the specified functions), which could have been solved quickly, but the necessary functionality was not included in the set presented in the lecture. As a result, the examiner reduced the score for a non-optimal solution, and when I objected that I followed the instructions, the answer was: “It's a pity that you were confused by the lecturer's comment, but you had to do it this way.” There were other similar cases, but this one stuck in my memory the most.
I would like to separately note the manner in which some of the lecturers conveyed information. Perhaps this is just my perception, because other listeners were very pleased. One of the lecturers really knows a lot, has a lot of experience, covers the material in detail, and knows how to hold the audience. He was almost the only one who did not have pauses, there were always questions about the material from the students and interaction. But I was confused by his excessive self-conceit: each life example looked like “When I, such a good guy, did this… it was like this…” as well as a large number of racist, homophobic and sexist jokes, which were often inappropriate. At some point, I caught myself thinking that after his lectures I remembered not the material, but only the jokes and examples from life. But I repeat, perhaps this is just my perception. The teacher is really cool, it is clear that he himself enjoys his work.
Listeners
I would also like to touch upon the contingent of the course participants. This is not a minus, but simply an observation. The students are truly versatile, enthusiastic, with different backgrounds. Communication in the chat was active (mainly on homework assignments), but by the end of the course the enthusiasm had waned, which was due to fatigue from the large volume of material. Due to the active communication in the chat, it was difficult to get comments from the teachers. Some questions required structured answers, but when a question was asked in the chat, a group of students would often pounce, eager to help (after all, at the beginning of the course they said that in order to be invited to an interview, you had to be remembered). Often the message with the question was lost in the stream of answers that were off-topic or were superficial explanations from the first links of the search engine, and the teachers did not see it.
For myself, I divided the listeners into three groups:
People from other professions who wanted to change their field of activity. There were few of them, but they existed.
The bulk of the students were technical students who started looking for a job because graduation was approaching and they had to think about the future. It seems to me that many got into the QA course only because they had not passed the selection for development (maybe this is not true).
A separate group that seemed the most interesting to me were people with extensive experience in IT. There was a private programmer who decided to go into employment; a PM who “decided to become a QA” (something dubious); there were test automation specialists with significant work experience. The thirst for knowledge is commendable, but I had a question about the selection for the course, which is positioned as an introduction to the profession, and the article about the selection results said that they selected people with no experience or very little experience. Nevertheless, thanks to these listeners: they really asked interesting questions and gave useful comments.
(Not) invited to work
After three and a half months of hard work and absorbing new information, I completed the course. At the final call, we were all congratulated, told that we were great and that we could go to work tomorrow. They singled out the best students and said that not all of those who successfully completed the course would be invited to interviews, or to be more precise, everyone they wanted to see had already been invited. It was clear from the faces of the students that there were very few invitations. They also noted that they were inviting people for specific vacancies and those who were contacted would be selected under simplified conditions. Those who were not invited to interviews were advised to brush up on their knowledge and apply for winter internships (the selection for summer ones had already ended), and also to hope that some of those invited might refuse or not be suitable for the company.
I didn't make it into this elite list. I don't know what the selection criteria were: 100% of the course score (my 93% wasn't enough), or they selected those who asked the most questions during lectures or actively scribbled down answers to colleagues' questions in the chat. Of course, I was upset, but not because I didn't get to the interview, but rather because I missed the opportunity to try to pass the selection for summer internships, both at T-Bank and at other companies. Of course, I am largely to blame for this. When the selection for internships began, I asked at one of the lectures whether it was worth trying to pass the selection for an intern and whether they would consider me if I was a Fintech student. I was told that “it's not worth it, Fintech is a step above internships, and that EVERYONE who makes it to the end of the course will be invited to interviews and often such candidates are hired hand and foot. Internships are the zero stage, after which separate training is conducted for those who are invited based on their work results, and there are few such interns. Why waste six months on an internship and re-training if in two months you can already be on staff” (author's interpretation).
Reflecting on my experience, I realized that it wasn't all that bad. When I was applying for the courses, my goal was to gain knowledge, and I did. The end goal was not a guaranteed job, but to acquire new skills. Having calmed down a bit, I started planning my next steps to find an internship (this was my top priority). And then I got lucky again.
Interview
Soon after the final lecture, the Fintech curator wrote to me with an offer to try to pass an interview for the staff. Upon my consent, I was asked standard questions about the rate, salary expectations, the possibility of relocation and asked for a resume. The resume was a difficult point for me, since I had no work experience, but I collected all the background that I had and tried to adapt it to the testing area.
As it turned out, the simplified employment process after the courses consisted of three selection stages instead of four. The interview stage with the recruiter was excluded. The profile section, the testing and programming theory section, as well as meeting the teams remained the same as for regular applicants “from the street.” The success of each stage determined whether I would get through to the next one.
During the first section of the interview, I was asked questions based on the course materials, concerning applications, their interaction with the Internet, knowledge of SQL, etc. (the bank has a separate article about the selection stages). There were also questions that we did not cover in lectures or in additional materials. Overall, the interview was held in a friendly atmosphere: I made some mistakes (after all, I am going to become a junior), but the interviewer gave me hints, allowed me to reason and come to decisions. As a result, he noted that I had a good knowledge base for a student after the courses and provided feedback on the same day, indicating my strengths and shortcomings that should be improved. I was especially pleased with the large number of links to additional materials.
The next interview was in two days. In this section, the questions and tasks were again based on the course materials. It was necessary to test the form in 10 minutes, offer checks, outline test design techniques and explain what to do if a bug comes through support. In the programming part, there were three tasks that were much easier than in the selection for the course, but due to the excitement, I spent more time on solving them than I could have in a calm environment. In one of the tasks, I made an error in the algorithm and for a long time I could not understand what the problem was (there were no comments from the interviewer), but in the end, with great difficulty, I solved all the tasks.
Unfortunately, the interviewer was 10 minutes late for the meeting and sat there with a stony face the entire time, which made it difficult to understand whether I was answering correctly. In some questions where I tried to develop the topic, I was interrupted and told “don't develop, just answer.” The final comment was: “You understand that successfully completing two sections does not guarantee that there will be a team willing to hire you.” Feedback came on the same day: I was told that the lack of experience in working on real projects was noticeable. Unlike the first section, where the lack of experience played as a plus for me, here it was perceived as a poke in the face. This time, the recommendations for eliminating the gaps were limited to advice to solve problems on CodeWars.
After two sections, the curator outlined the next steps: if there were any vacancies in any teams, she would show my resume and interview results, and if anyone was interested, they would schedule a meeting (which specific vacancies were discussed at the final meeting of the course remained a mystery to me). Over the next 6 days, no news came, and I contacted the university department to ask for additional time to provide an internship contract. I was offered a place in the university's R&D laboratory if I did not find another place. I agreed, since there was no choice. At the end of the waiting week, I was told that at the moment there were no teams interested in me, but they promised to continue the search. However, after the weekend, a team magically appeared.
At the meeting with the team, they told me about what they do, what technologies they use, and what tasks I would have to solve. I also met a potential mentor. I prepared questions so as not to seem like a complete layman, but during the project presentation they had already answered them, so I had to improvise. I told them a little about myself, my plans and goals. During the meeting, we discussed growth opportunities and other things. The meeting was a little cold, and it was difficult for me to understand whether they were interested in me or not. Overall, it seemed to me that everything went not so badly.
At the end of the meeting, I was told that feedback would be provided immediately, and I would learn their opinion about myself the next day (this did not apply to the offer), since the meeting ended after the end of the working day. However, I did not receive any messages the next day. Since it was Friday, I decided to wait until Monday and write to the curator. The answer came with the information that the team was currently choosing between several candidates and would definitely decide by the end of the week, after which they would write to me (there was not a word about feedback).
No answer
A month had passed since the end of the week when the decision was supposed to be made, but I had not received any comments or messages. After waiting two weeks since the last message, I wrote to the curator again, but my message remained unanswered. It seems that my path to the position of junior at T-Bank ended this way.
From what I know, one student from the “long-term experience” group was hired, which led me to believe that T-Bank may have been looking for people with significant experience. The courses were probably one way to screen such candidates. In the future, I recommend informing candidates about decisions made, including rejections, or, if the process is not complete, what stage it is at, so that candidates do not feel “blamed on” and are not left in limbo.
I would like to end on a positive note and express my deep gratitude to the T-Bank team for the opportunity to take the courses and try a new direction. The material was really relevant and rich. The teachers were excellent (my comments above do not diminish their professionalism). Also, thank you for the opportunity to go through interviews. This experience was my first, and I learned a lot from it. I do not regret at all that I took the risk of passing the selection for Fintech and completing the training.
