Testers know the most
She was the first person ever to be taken on at MakoLab as a tester. That was thirteen years ago, which makes her an eye witness and living and breathing example of how her profession has changed over more than a decade! As she herself says, back then the tester’s role wasn’t any too popular. In fact, the understanding of the need to create it was still in its infancy. Nowadays, she’s part of MakoLab’s fifty-person quality assurance team, where she is involved in providing the highest possible quality products to our client in the aviation sector.
Insights is delighted to introduce Wioletta ‘Wiola’ Kowalska!
Let’s start at the beginning. What did you study at university?
I don’t have anything all that original to contribute here. I studied computer science. First, I did engineering at the University of Computer Science and Skills in Łódź and then I did my master’s at Łódź University of Technology.
What made you choose testing?
It just happened that way. But I think it might be because I’m kind of predisposed to it. And I don’t only mean in terms of background or knowledge, either. I simply like knowing how things work. And if something isn’t working, then I’m all the more driven to find out why! And that curiosity is stronger than I am.
I began my career in IT at a help desk in a pretty large distribution company. My job mainly involved finding what was going wrong with equipment or software and solving the problems and actually, I think that experience shaped me for working in the role I have today.
You’ve been involved on the aviation industry project for four years now. What were the early days like?
To be honest, the very beginning was really stressful… an international project environment, communicating in English, highly complex projects… I’m really thankful for all the support I had from my colleagues and from the client, too.
What does your day-to-day work consist of?
First and foremost, it’s about testing new functionalities or correcting bugs. Mind you, because I work on current projects more or less from the outset and I’m most familiar with them, I also provide support on them. I manage new versions, collaborate with Dev-Ops in that respect and take part in deployingtheir production. I’m also involved in onboarding new airlines and their fleets for our client.
The projects I work on are very extensive and they’re really quite interdependent, so grasping them fully can take a bit of time. Basic knowledge of a range of fields comes in handy here. Working in QA means that, really, we know the most about a product. Our role is crucial and we have to study a product from A to Z. We’re not only involved in testing. We play a part at every stage in the life cycle of an app. We plan new changes, we have access to the code repository, where we can check what’s de facto been implemented, we build apps and we deploy changes. The amount of technical knowledge you can possess in this job is vast. We have access to technologies which have been in use newly. Although I’ve been working on the aviation industry project for four years, I learn something new every day.
What does the job give you?
I get the greatest satisfaction not so much from finding bugs as from investigating what’s going wrong and working my way to the root of problems. I’m only happy once an app’s working properly, with no bugs. I have to laugh though, because I can’t always be happy. Why? Because if I were, it would mean there’d be no more work for me!!
It can happen that the core of a problem comes to mind after work. There was one time when I came up with a solution while I was peeling an orange! I checked it out at once and it turned out that I was right. Ever since, what I tend to hear at going home time is “Just don’t go peeling any oranges today, OK?!”
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
Because my work mainly taxes my brain, I try to give it a holiday in my free time and tax my muscles instead. I do Capoeira. It’s a Brazilian martial art and it’s also closely related to music. They say that Capoeira is the most dangerous form of dance and the most beautiful martial art. So it gives me both physical and artistic fulfilment. Music’s also very important to me. I’ve always been involved in dancing, playing music and singing. My mind may be scientific, but my spirit’s artistic! And that allows me to maintain my equilibrium.
Everything else aside, Wiola is an extraordinarily modest person and however much she enjoys singing, one thing she certainly dislikes is singing her own praises! So we’re going to do it for her One of the successes she’s notched up is her participation in an in-house competition run by our major aviation client… and on more than one occasion, the members of its management board have personally expressed their appreciation of her! And the scale of the projects really is massive. Congratulations, Wiola! We wish you many more successes
English translation by Caryl Swift
Kamila Braszak
Employer Branding Specialist
