Part 2 – The Maturing Times or How I have Stepped into the big IT world

The Maturing Times inside the big IT world

If you did not check Part 1 of my story, please click HERE.

Here is the skill set I have learned so far from my young age (all the details inside Part 1):

• Turbo Pascal – Courses
• HTML – Self Learning
• MS-DOS – basic understanding
• Windows NT – basic understanding
• Windows 95 – almost all features investigated and learned
• Windows 2000 & Windows 98 – advanced experience
• Peer-to-Peer Networks – Knowledge on how to use
• Piracy – where to get the information, what to avoid
• Adobe Photoshop CS – software features and options knowledge

My story or how I name it “The Maturing Times” continues from the step when I’ve successfully passed an Interview for the Quality Assurance Engineer position. I had no clue that there are jobs where you need to click around, check all the menus, options, radio buttons, fill all possible fields with different characters in different languages, and much more. I’m in the Big IT World game now.

Luckily there were training sessions, guides, and checklists that I have to follow and later update and upgrade, there are so many different things you can do with applications, it’s is not possible to remember the first time, or I would say the first year. 

All the testing things for me were so easy to follow and understand. My colleagues noticed that I keep helping others more and more, and our productivity raised a lot, so they suggested I move to the QA Test Lead position. That was shocking, QA Test Lead, Me? Really? New list in my life. 

I was so happy because I knew everything I have now in control of. I knew the weak point and ways to improve the quality assurance scripts, and tests moreover I could use human resources and delegate things. I’ve unlocked a lot of new skills such as:

• Effectively manage a test team (25 or more)
• Understand the testing process
• Implement a testing process
• Define the scope of testing in projects
• Deploy and manage test frameworks
• Implement and record QA metrics
• Manage and select QA tools & processes

At some point, our company got a new big client, and they want us to cover Manual QA Testing and Automation.

Automation? Right, there should be a way to cover 5 different flavors of the same software in 30 languages in parallel, I have asked myself. Automation is the key.

Happiness followed me. We had several business trips to learn new Automation skills. With all this knowledge I and my colleague Project Manager started to grow a completely new field – Automation. Quickly this evolved from 2 Automated machines to a huge 100+ daily running machines with all flavors of operating systems and applications we need to cover. This is the place where my skills and knowledge of Windows paid off. 

I knew I am in my place. This is what I want and will do for my life.

Years after years, our company was growing, and new skills and knowledge were earned. And no one expected we have faced the crisis… our clients started to give us less and less work, some quit because they have to cut their expenses… That was a hard time for all my colleagues.

Kudos to our boss, he could sustain hard times, several times we have almost closed. Did not know what would happen next. Happiness evolved into some kind of scary and boring routine, without any positive vibes at some point.

After I while things changed and our company was sold to another big company who deals with Localization mainly. 

This company was established back in 1987 and got a huge potential of evolving with our Manual and Automation testing. 

For comparison, our company was like around 100 people, with only two offices. And a new company has 300+ employees and 10 offices around the world.

All our teams, environment, and resources were moved under the new company roof. A new opportunity appeared on the horizon. It’s time to evolve.

I was offered a completely new position as a Project Manager. Because I already knew our internal kitchen. Manual Testing, Automation Testing, I already knew the Project Management (timeliness, scheduling, deadline, delivery, etc.) apart of Finance, Budgeting, Invoicing, POs, and some other things I was fully qualified for the Project Management position.

After a few years of growing in the Test Lead position, I took the opportunity and moved to another level.

I am a Project Manager Now!

Now I have a vision and power to manage things and resources inside our new company and communicate and manage different side things from the client’s side. 

New skills, new knowledge. Happiness came back to me. I start developing myself more and more. So many different things to learn and understand. 

Now I am a project manager with 8+ years of experience and knowledge at least I know how to: 

• Plan projects from conception to implementation
• Map out timelines
• Assess project risks and opportunities 
• Execute each phase of the project life cycle
• Create, allocate, and manage the budget, POs, Invoices
• Communicate with all stakeholders
• Troubleshoot, solve problems and challenges
• Deliver (and often maintain) the end product or service
• Manage a team of 400+ translators and reviewers
• Work with freelancers and part-timers

To be honest first 5 years were so addictive and challenging. Because I have been faced with so many different situations where I have to find a way out with profit on both sides (our local company and client company).

But after a while, when all things become just a routine. 

Same issues, same files, same budgets. Just numbers were changing. Everything becomes boring. 

The time when a new day gives the same things around you, with just different file names, and budget numbers. 

The volume of data you need to process increases. New skills and knowledge decreases. Day after day… day after day, I start feeling like myself a hamster on the wheel.

I needed to work from 9 to 6 minimum, very often I had to stay overtime to compete for the amount of work that was growing daily.

STOP. This can not continue in this way. I do not want to suck myself into the void of personal development.

I need to change something. I need to start doing other things to avoid this “rat race” or I will be stuck forever. Since the evening times were for the brain to relax and I could not fit the new information because my brain memory was overloaded with all the daily job things. In addition to the information from social media. I have decided to wake up earlier.

To be honest, this was a big challenge for me. Wake up earlier than I need to wake before my morning routine. Uhh..

Now I wake up between 6 and 7 am, and I have a quick energy charge with basic workouts. Nothing fancy: sit-ups, pushups, and plank. Each day I add one to the count. This gives a big morning energy boost for the body. In addition to the fresh brain, I feel pumped to do things I want to do. Learn and grow. Evolve.

 So let me share the list of the knowledge I have collected so far:

• Turbo Pascal – Courses
• HTML – Self Learning
• MS-DOS – basic understanding
• Windows NT – basic understanding
• Windows 95 – almost all features investigated and learned
• Windows 2000 & Windows 98 – advanced experience
• Peer-to-Peer Networks – Knowledge on how to use
• Piracy – where to get the information, what to avoid
• Adobe Photoshop CS – software features and options knowledge
• Effectively manage a test team (25 or more)
• Understand the testing process
• Implement a testing process
• Define the scope of testing in projects
• Deploy and manage test frameworks
• Implement and record QA metrics
• Manage and select QA tools & processes
• Plan projects from conception to implementation
• Map out timelines
• Assess project risks and opportunities 
• Execute each phase of the project life cycle
• Create, allocate, and manage the budget, POs, Invoices
• Communicate with all stakeholders
• Troubleshoot, solve problems and challenges
• Deliver (and often maintain) the end product or service
• Manage a team of 400+ translators and reviewers
• Work with freelancers and part-timers

The above skills are something that will help me in the future for sure. I have them, I know them, I will use them, but I do not want to grow them anymore. This is enough to move forward and start doing other things…

In the next Part 3 post, I will share with you what I have learned from my morning developing time. Share some new skills I already learned and teach you to do the same, if you are interested.

Part 3: Morning Routine for Success