Tech Talk: Day in the life of a QA

This podcast discusses a day in the life of a QA and the career journey of Mark Denes, a quality assurance engineer, more specifically in desk automation. Throughout the discussion, Mark and Adrian touch upon ways of overcoming barriers to entry, the benefits of mentorship and what responsibilities you might face day to day in a QA role.

An introduction to Mark:

Mark originally started his career in a chemistry background. He gained hands on experience in a laboratory internship, which led him to a passion for automation. This passion eventually guided him to pursue a career in software development. At the beginning of his career, Mark had a mentor who played a significant role in shaping his journey. His mentor helped him to refine the skills necessary for his industry, build a positive mindset suitable for long term success, and emphasised how important upskilling is, especially in the ever changing work landscape.

Lessons in professional growth:

Patience in fostering growth –

Recognising collective effort in project success fosters collaboration and growth as a team. Management should be patient and avoid rushing results to ensure a team moves forward collectively.

Creating a foundation for adaptability –

Creating a foundation of core concepts helps to accelerate abilities within your career. Mark spent the first 6 years dedicating himself to learning the basics of his industry. To grow in technical literacy and better his problem solving skills. As a result of these efforts, adaptability became more natural to Mark, giving him confidence in taking on new challenges.

Quality assurance and its contributions to success:

Mark sees quality assurance as a critical part of the software development process. When software goes wrong, consequences can have an awful impact on the company. QA ensures mistakes are caught early and creates more reliable high quality products. However, QA is a costly and time-consuming part of development, but Mark believes that the benefits far outweigh the costs. Given the profitability of the tech industry, many companies can afford to invest in quality assurance and additional features.

Mark’s perspective on the future of software development is shaped by the evolving role of automation and the growing impact of AI. While some manual roles are becoming less common, there will always be a need for a balance between automation and human oversight.

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