The story of how an English teacher with three children decided to become a tester

Hello! My name is Polina, I am a tester at a company that develops software for American universities. In this article I will tell you how I managed to study, collect projects in a portfolio and raise three children at the same time. My experience may be useful to those who are just starting out in the profession and are afraid that they will not have enough time to study.

Until recently, I worked as an English teacher, but I quickly realized that school was not for me. The children did not want to study, but it was important for me to see the results of my efforts. The low salary added to the determination to change profession.

My husband, a product designer with 13 years of experience, worked on the IT team, and I often dropped by his office. I was interested in the role of a tester. As a teacher, I see mistakes from afar and work a lot with documents – these are skills I could take with me. All I lacked was technical knowledge.

Then I started looking for information on testing and was the first to read Roman Savin’s book “Dot Com Testing.” At first it seemed that all this was very difficult. And then I found an article “How does a QA engineer live in Bali with a salary of 195,000 ₽” and got inspired. I thought: “This girl is my age, and she did it. Very cool!”

Testers at my husband’s work recommended Practicum courses “Testing Engineer”. I started studying on a significant date: the course started on June 8, my birthday, when I turned 33 years old. I have three children, so I chose a long format for 9 months – so that I could go through the topics at a calm pace and have time to deal with personal matters.

I made a training plan and took advantage of every chance to prove myself on the course.

In student chats there are always those who are nervous or share how quickly they completed the sprint. This makes the situation a little tense and makes you anxious. To cope with my anxiety, I decided to make a plan and strictly follow it: I looked at how many hours were given for the sprint, distributed the theory over a week and went through it at a calm pace, without reading chats or relying on the experience of freer classmates. In the end, I submitted everything on time.

The coolest part of the course was the teamwork. In the fifth sprint we tested three applications. In any study group, there are always those who are less engaged or who fall behind on tasks. This didn’t bother me—I was willing to take on more projects to hone my skills and help the team complete the sprint.

At the end of the training, we had a project month – and I tested the career tracker. We were immediately told that for those who try, there is a bonus – they will be invited to work as team leads for the project month, they will manage the educational projects of other students. I listened carefully to this part. I thought this was my chance to shine and gain experience for my resume and portfolio.

After the project, I was actually invited to the role of team lead, and I accepted the offer. This is how I developed a continuous process: I just defended my diploma and immediately received my first team.

I upgraded my resume: I read Ilyakhov’s advice, consulted with HR, watched webinars

By first education I am a secretary-assistant. I worked in the HR department and I know what resumes usually come in. Few people know how to compose them correctly. To make my resume look adequate, during the project month I simultaneously took a course on employment at the Workshop. Here's what else helped me put together a high-quality resume.

1. Listened to webinars. I liked the webinars from Alfa-Bank and Yandex. It was from them that I learned that educational projects can be placed in the “Work Experience” section, and also that you should not cross out previous experience from your resume: I am 33 years old, and it is advisable to show that I have worked for at least 5 years.

2. I asked HR for help. I didn’t hesitate to write to the HR manager from my husband’s team asking him to evaluate my resume and give advice.

3. Briefly described past experience. I indicated my experience as a teacher and in the human resources department, but I allocated only a couple of lines for this. Didn't list tasks and tools.

4. Focused on educational projects. She described her educational experience and projects in detail. She told me about working as a test lead. I described what problems I solved, what tools I can work with. In the portfolio I showed examples of testing and bug reports.

5. Got rid of the excess. Soft skills are revealed during the interview, and having a driver's license has nothing to do with testing. I only left in my resume what speaks about me as a tester.

6. Indicated the location. I didn’t want to mislead employers, so I indicated that I was now in Moldova. I know that because of this I was often filtered out, but in the end I found my place.

7. I used the advice of Maxim Ilyakhov. He has a great section on resumes in his book. He also explains well how to articulate your value to an employer.

Received only 3 test ones with 90 responses

I came to HeadHunter with a good resume and portfolio. I started responding, but did not receive any feedback or test assignments. I had only three test ones in two months with 90 responses. I saw that my classmates have a different situation – they are answered more often, even if their resume has fewer projects and experience.

I realized that there was some kind of problem in my responses. I joined the Career and Employment program. At the very first webinar, they told me that the reason for the silence was not in my resume, but in my location. I’m from Moldova, and companies are not ready to deal with my documents and bother with employment for June.

Changed the search strategy and achieved 100% conversion to the offer

I decided to register on Rabota.md – this is a Moldovan site similar to hh. There are very few vacancies for testers there; only three new ones appeared in a month.

I applied for the first vacancy and immediately received a test and then an invitation for an interview. Everything went well, but we couldn’t come to an agreement because I wasn’t ready to work from the office – my family and I were moving to Vietnam.

Then I received a test from an American company to which I sent my resume a month ago. It contained tasks on SQL and API – it was interesting to do. The interview took place in two languages: the first part was in Russian, and in the second part, in English, I was asked to solve logic problems: about three light bulbs And moral problem.

As a translator, I know that it is important to give a person time to get used to the speech, and then ask tricky questions. This was confusing. I couldn’t solve the problem, but I started a dialogue with HR and answered other questions. As a result, they offered me an offer, but I refused – I didn’t want to work in a team where they would deliberately create stressful situations for me.

At the beginning of the summer, she moved to Vietnam and continued to work on the Workshop projects. I gave myself a week to adapt to the new country, and then on June 9 I resumed my search – I saw two new vacancies on Rabota.md and sent my resume. On the same day I received an invitation for an interview without a test task. The format was unusual – without a camera. They told me about the company, asked questions about my experience and invited me to join the team. So, exactly a year after the start of the course, I got my first job as a tester.

Testing software for American campuses

Now I work remotely for an international company. My team has 9 testers: we test software for American university campuses. We have more than 150 universities, and they all want customization, so we carefully maintain documentation – it’s impossible to remember everything.

We write test cases according to the template that we studied in the Workshop. We compile bug reports in YouTrack, connect to databases through the Terminal – I also figured this out in the courses. I often return to materials on testing web applications; my knowledge of DevTools and interfaces comes in handy.

I didn’t plan to advertise the Workshop, but it turned out that this experience helped me radically change my life. I’m already looking at an automation course: our software is complex, so I want to spend a couple more months getting to know the functionality, and then I’ll go study again.