Who is a curator and what does he do?
Lyrical digression. Dear readers, we continue to tell you how to work at SM Lab! Check out our previous article to learn more about our culture and work principles How the QA interview went. Stay tuned, there is still a lot of interesting things ahead!
Who is a curator and what is it all about?
Hello, Habrites!
My name is Olya Ermolaeva, I have been working in IT for over 15 years, the last couple of which I have been a QA curator at SM Lab.
When I first came to work here, I was pleasantly surprised by the structure adopted in the company, which included such a role as a curator. I have not seen this in other companies.
My colleagues and I decided to tell you who they are and why being a curator and working with curators is cool! We want to tell you a lot, so we planned a series of articles and this is the first of them. Here will be a high-level overview of “a little bit of everything”, and in the following articles we will look deeper into our tasks and challenges.
The FU of the curator has two main branches of tasks: on the one hand, this is a manager who is assigned 3-6 product teams and the curator is the head of QA engineers in these teams. As part of the curator teams, we help our product teams work more efficiently.
On the other hand, the QA curator, as part of the Core Team of his competence center, participates in the development of quality assurance processes globally throughout the SM Lab and is engaged in other useful and necessary tasks.
Below we'll go into a little more detail about everything.
Curator's tasks in product teams
Our systems are developed by product teams consisting of analysts, developers and testers, with a Product Lead (PL) at the head of the product. And next to each product team there is a curator-team consisting of a PL and curators from development, analytics and QA.
Next, we'll talk about what curators do to provide the product team with everything they need to work effectively.
Team design
The team curator designs the team, i.e. decides what profiles and what levels of people are needed in the team. They do not just decide out of thin air, but based on needs and tasks. Periodically, it is necessary to review the team design, since plans and needs change over time, and it also happens that there are drawdowns somewhere, and downtime somewhere.
Hiring
The need to hire specialists also follows from the previous point. The curator here acts as a hiring manager – conducts technical interviews and makes hiring decisions.
Onboarding and adaptation
When the right person has been found and has agreed to the offer, the curator prepares everything for his comfortable exit: orders equipment and initial access, prepares an adaptation plan, appoints a mentor in the team.
In the first days after registration, the curator helps the newcomer get settled in. Conducts initial onboarding, talking about the processes adopted in the company, about the adaptation plan, about the mentor, about what questions to come to whom, etc.
Further, throughout the probationary period, the curator holds regular meetings with the employee, monitoring the immersion process and providing feedback.
Employee development
At SM Lab, we create conditions for our employees to develop and become better, because it is beneficial for both parties – both the employees and the company. We have a system of IDPs (individual development plans) built in such a way that any employee, if desired, can draw up an IDP for themselves based on certain reference points, discuss it with a supervisor and develop their skills, moving along this plan.
The plan usually includes practical tasks, supported by theoretical training. The plan item is usually a task to apply in your team the skill that a person wants to improve, and the work plan for this item already includes books, courses (internal or external), video lectures, articles, colleagues' experience – everything that can help master the material, and then there are steps to complete the task.
Dismissal
Sometimes it happens that the hired person does not fit the team or does not hear, does not accept the feedback that is given to him. Then the task of the curator is to replace such an employee as gently and quickly as possible.
Assistance in building processes in a team
SM Lab has adopted certain processes for team work. Periodically, processes are transformed and improved – this is a continuous process. At the same time, all teams are different and are at different levels of maturity, so general processes need to be tailored to specific realities.
This is exactly what a curator does – he helps the team build processes that are most suitable for them in each specific situation, and then helps these processes gradually develop.
Administrative tasks
The curator, among other things, also deals with the routine bureaucracy necessary in a large company.
This includes any issuance/replacement of equipment, licenses, registration of business trips and vacations, coordination of all of the above and additional ones, such as training. For the same issues that the curator does not directly resolve, employees can still contact the curator and ask where to go and what to do.
Tasks of the curator in the Core Team of the Competence Center (CC)
This is the second block of tasks for the curator, which does not directly concern product teams and employees, but also influences them.
Process development and methodological development
Those same general processes and methodologies that the curator helps to implement and set up in teams must first be thought up and described in a way that is understandable to everyone. To solve such problems, we assemble working groups of 2-3 curators and gradually think through and describe what we want to bring to the teams later.
Internal specialized training
Our QA centers have departments. These are workplaces where we can hire interns, train them, and hand them over to a team in need. In 2023, we first worked with one university, where a testing course based on our program is held for interested students. We have now selected four interns from there who have successfully completed the training and interview. We will continue to train them in our practice, and gradually they will become independent QA engineers and will be useful in their teams.
We also periodically recruit interns from the market.
Our Java school deserves a special mention – a set of internal courses where manual testers can learn automation.
Organization of clubs and internal events
We call internal mini-meetups clubs. SM Lab has quite a few clubs in different areas – development of different varieties, analytics, management, soft, HR, etc. And of course, we organized a QA club, within the framework of which we share with each other and with everyone interested our practices, approaches, developments, processes. We post some of the recordings from the clubs in our youtube channel for the general public.
Anyone can perform at the club, and the person responsible for running the clubs is one of our curators.
Organization of participation in external conferences and meetups
Sharing experiences and learning from others is great. That's why in addition to internal events, we also participate in external ones – conferences and meetups.
These are mainly specialized QA events, such as SQA days and Heisenbug, where we go with our stand, with reports and participants. But we also appear at general IT conferences.
As a curator, I am responsible for participation in conferences and external meetups – I select participants from those who wish to participate, help with preparing reports and organizing activities at the stands.
Any employee can apply to speak at any conference, and if the paper is accepted, the company will help with preparation and take care of travel and accommodation if necessary.
Operational tasks
And of course, we, as curators, make sure that our Central Committee always has reserves of the necessary equipment and licenses on its balance sheet. We also issue and revoke licenses and make sure that there are enough of them for everyone who needs them.
