This should not be a piece of writing that seems to put effort in making people understand or to justify my own decision. Since we’re definitely in different boats.
My body alarm decides to commit a crime by waking me up early on the weekend. Since today I have to move out from the North to the West while having several hours until the moving truck arrives gives me some sort of time to muse on the yesterdays.
Does it feel good to fail? No. But, it was enough to provide me with a “reality-check”. I think we can not always be good at all things. Although the term of jack of all trades exists, that does not mean never experiencing failure, right? Well, as a person who strives hard to get A’s in every matter possible, failing in a bootcamp was such an ew. The output was to be a full-stack engineer. Why did I join that program? If I am being brutally honest here, I had no choice at that time, so I left my interest in the energy sector to face reality. At least I left it only on dormant. It turned out that I did not fit into that role lol. Even my continuous staying up all night doing the codes with the fellas did not help me pass the test easily. Felt embarrassed sometimes at that time. You might say, “That was not a serious thing, eh?”. Probably. But, this overthinker does not get used to it.
The good news is that I got introduced to software testing even though I was questioning what the heck that animal was. Pardon me for not having that broad knowledge of the software development life cycle, considering I used to spend my major of time thinking about what should be implemented to make electric systems a really smart-grid. Expanding my comfort zone was a really fun journey indeed, moreover when it provides me with lots of TILs, the today-I-learn-s. Being totally unacquainted with tools and even several terms during the process gives me two contrary feelings: depressed and satisfied. What should you do when you have no idea how to work on something? You find out by yourself since there are lots of resources on the internet. What will you do when the internet eventually can not give you the answer? You ask humans. Based on my experience, some people have lost patience with me since I asked lots of q’s. It surely did not feel nice when they clicked their tongues and shook their heads, which resulted in creating the question, “Am I not that capable?”. Notwithstanding, it turns out to be satisfying when all you do not know becomes all you know. Or maybe in my case, it is still half I know.
Months passed by and so did the years. I landed in the phase where leading the team was one of some opportunities available on the table. Heck, it was surely my privilege to navigate the team in my early years in this field. Do I know a bunch about this software testing stuff? No, I do not. I genuinely feel there’s absolutely a lot of space for improvement. But still, this was a fun journey (if we exclude the anxiety when looking at the JIRA board hehe). Not to mention the Friday night deployment that could be so intense, like what would happen on the weekend? Feeling like something might take place, so on some occasions I brought my devices for testing with me while hanging out with friends in the museum or even going out of town for an exhibition with old college mates or maybe having sleepover with fellow bridesmaids for a wedding celebration the next day...
Coming to the phase where things can be so consuming. All the fun journeys eventually make me wonder, “What am I really doing here?” or “Where are the TILs?”. I suppose humans are indeed complex with all the stuff in their heads (or is it just mine? bleh). Things like: the what-ifs, pros and cons of the decision, and so on. I kid you not, it only needs less than 10 people to contribute continuing this list to be 100 rows.
Nonetheless, when I say this was fun, I mean it. YesDok provided me a broad scope of testing, including WebUI, both Android and iOS apps, APIs, and databases. That’s the whole package! While that’s a lot of work too. It totally immersed me in that particular role. Juggling between those elements to be on track during a sprint was challenging. Still and all, I do realize my skillset needs more enhancement considering the tech matters aggressively developing. I need to catch up. This workplace surely has improved my competencies and hope it does happen to the other mates there. On top of that, in this type of business, we really need to be in one frame about the term of ‘sprint’, I guess lol.
To this day, I still think the team I’ve been involved in, especially the QA team, also the smart brains in the room which I’ve got in touch with mine during the weekdays from 9–6 somehow provided me with several things to broaden my horizons. One of them is to learn that one product can contain various interests. We can not expect it to be one hundred percent bug free since putting the business’ alongside the tech’s concerns is more important which by the way somehow made me see things not only from QA’s perspective. I will totally miss the ringtone of the successful calls since it does not require me to worry about websocket connection at the very least. Uh well, that’s too specific about the product. So, parting ways seems to be the good option for each of us to grow. Yes, surely it will not always be sunshine and rainbows. But, our today will be an immense investment in our future, won’t it?
