Iuliia, what key qualities have allowed you to become an expert in your field and achieve success?
First of all, it’s important to understand that the IT industry is highly competitive, and the requirements for specialists grow every year, along with the list of technologies and tools that need to be mastered. Therefore, specialists are increasingly choosing to focus on a specific domain, as it is easier to keep up with learning new tools only within the scope of their work tasks. But to occupy a truly sought-after and highly paid position, you need to possess not just technical expertise, but a unique combination of skills from many related fields. This is primarily due to the fact that real business uses a wide variety of technologies that must be integrated into the company’s business processes. In my case, that means working at an expert level at the intersection of two areas – QA and DevOps. This allows me to not only perform work tasks, but also to build processes for teams and manage product quality at a high level. It is this approach that allows me to be in the leading roles in large projects and be successful. A good example is the SberTech project, to which I was invited as an independent expert in test automation. It is worth noting that SberTech as a whole is one of the largest technology companies in the CIS, and hiring criteria of the company are high even for ordinary positions. I was faced with a far from ordinary task – to create an automated testing system. Under normal circumstances, this would require specialists with QA expertise to perform the quality assurance part and a DevOps specialist to configure test environments and integrate them into the overall project infrastructure. My level, however, allows me to combine these duties, which significantly saves the company’s resources, mainly time, since coordination between several independent specialists is not required. Thus, a unified approach to processes is ensured, and possible conflicts in the choice of software are mitigated. All this leads to obvious benefits for the business. The need for this approach became clear to me in 2023 on the Zvuk project. At that time, I was working on the implementation of automated testing and had to solve many issues related to the coordination of work streams between QA and DevOps. Then I began to take on DevOps tasks for deploying and configuring complex test environment infrastructure, subsequently taking full control of these complex integrations. This significantly reduced the time to release and increased the profit for the business, in which my approach played a pivotal role. Since then, I have been improving my skills, mastering more and more tools, and inventing my own ways to solve problems.
Can you elaborate on the topic of other areas for development? What prospects can this open up?
Expert positions involve personnel and process management, so it is important to have managerial skills and a wide range of related competencies. I started combining managerial responsibilities with my primary duties back on the Rutube project. Rutube is a video platform that is an analogue of YouTube for users from the CIS countries. The brand’s name sets high expectations from customers, and the business does everything to recruit the best players in the industry to the team. I headed the processes in the QA team, managing every aspect of my team’s work, from interviewing candidates to keeping track of technical tasks. Under my leadership, we, among other tasks, conducted a comprehensive assessment of the platform’s recommendation system, which led to its subsequent upgrade. This significantly improved the user experience, leading to an increase in user engagement metrics. To perform such a voluminous and complex task, coordinated teamwork and excellent integration between teams are required, which is possible only with expert-level management and selection of specialists. My next projects only reaffirmed this. At the end of 2023, I was hired as the head of the QA department for a project called Wink – a large video service for the CIS audience. I combined activities in managing the QA team with the role of release manager, taking full responsibility for the decision on the readiness of releasing applications to mobile stores. This required exceptional abilities in communications, resource and risk management, which are the main qualities of a talented manager.
Parallel to the Wink engagement, I held the position of an independent QA expert on a project from a customer in the Czech Republic. The position implied not only deep technical knowledge, but also management, as well as understanding the needs of the business. It was necessary to have my own view on the direction of product development and build processes that aligned with that direction. Aside from technical matters, it was crucial to possess real mastery in interpersonal interaction and soft-skills, since the project was complicated by the international composition of distributed teams and a tense atmosphere within the company. This is why it is important to develop management skills and be adept at resolving conflict situations – this opens the door to challenging, but interesting projects, and allows you to occupy key roles, influence the product at the top level, and see impressive results of your work first-hand.
Thank you for the detailed answer. In conclusion, how can an expert distinguish oneself and become noticeable in the international market? How can you confirm your expertise?
The main way to confirm one’s expertise is to possess valuable international certificates – for example, ISTQB and CKA. First, this is a guarantee that I fully possess the practical skills to work with Kubernetes and adhere to internationally recognized best practices in quality assurance. The CKA exam from the Linux Foundation portfolio is a series of hands-on tasks performed in an isolated environment with a high level of complexity and strict time frame. It is impossible to pass it without deep and extensive experience. The ISTQB exam checks your knowledge of best practices in quality assurance, the ability to apply testing methods and techniques, as well as the ability to improve product quality using the best advanced approaches. Obtaining international certificates opens up additional career opportunities in the international market. For instance, obtaining an ISTQB certificate through an American provider includes you in the Official U.S. List of Certified & Credentialed Software Testers, which makes you noticeable to potential employers in the USA.
There are other ways to be recognized as an expert. One of the most indicative is participation in international competitions and hackathons as a judge. The organizers of such competitions carefully approach the selection of judges – subject matter experts are invited to the role of judges, who have experience in large, significant projects, working with advanced technologies. At the moment, I have participated as a judge in the international competition “Quantum Hacker Cup” and the international hackathon “Raptors 2024: AI-powered Mental Health Support Chatbot”. This allowed me not only to influence the future of the industry, seeing talented specialists, and sharing my view on their work, but also to get acquainted with the opinions of other judges – representatives of leading world corporations. Another way is to conduct scientific research, which allows me to contribute to the development of the industry and stay up to date with the latest trends through contacts with other experts. I am a supporter of an interdisciplinary approach, so my scientific works combine different areas of knowledge. For example, I investigated the issue of the effectiveness of using cloud technologies in software development in the article “Cloud technologies for automating software development and testing”, analyzed the features of quality assurance in different development methodologies in the article “Features of software testing in the framework of Waterfall, Agile and DevOps development methods”, investigated examples and advantages of integrating innovative technologies – artificial intelligence in the article “Advantages of using artificial intelligence in quality assurance in software development”.
Last but not least is peer review. This demonstrates a high level of expertise and indicates the ability to analyze and evaluate complex materials, as well as authority among peers. It also requires a deep understanding of the subject and the ability to give constructive feedback, which is a key aspect of leadership and influence in the professional community. So, recently I was invited to review the book “Learn OpenShift 4”, which is not only a recognition of my expertise, but also an opportunity to influence the development of the industry, to contribute to the formation of directions for the development of cloud technologies. In addition, it allows me to be one of the first to familiarize myself with the latest developments and trends in the product. Peer review is an important part of the academic and technical fields, and I am proud to be able to participate in this process, ensuring high-quality publications and helping authors improve their work.
