Lately, I spent three months as a QA intern and trainee in a big software company. They are a relatively big local company and they make software, the company name is ITransition. That was my first ever experience of a real world work, with the profession I chose.

At my university, we had that programme. Company employees explored young talents and invited them to participate in short courses where they explained us what a quality assurance (QA) is. We were trained to perform tasks of a QA. Some of us (those, who were interested in going further) were invited to participate in company’s projects.

I tried, and I think I failed.

Although, spoiler alert, failing as a QA, I continued my career as a young apprentice, as a software developer, under a great leadership of my new master (as in padawan-master), Alex. I’m doing programming projects with AS2/3 (Action Script 2 and 3) and Adobe Flex.

Builder Career #

Before making my thoughts on this topic, I invite you to read a short story of my very first job. That may expand the context.

My Career as a Builder

I wrote it recently, to compliment this story.

Motivation #

By that time, I’ve been living with my biological mother. I’m not close to her, because she wasn’t very active in my early life. And she was also a person, who would force me to obey, never listening to my needs.

She’s an older woman, and I’m a very late child of hers. She approached her pension age, and she wanted me to work, so she would leave her factory. She was an economist there. Unfortunately, her motivation wasn’t to help me early in life, to protect me by giving me a profession, so if there’s something with her, I’d be more ready to live in my own. Mostly, she was the opposite of that. She did her best to not let me leave her, and so I’d learn nothing of the real life.

Yet, paradoxically, she wanted me to get a job. I guess, her motivation was for me to help her transition to her pension, by providing financial support. That was fair, I thought at the moment, so I’ve been busy trying to find some job.

The issue was, I asked for more time, since I’ve been willing to pursue a software engineer career. Her position was, I should get a job at some local factory, they had some. She didn’t even try to push her factory on me. Just, any factory would do.

I’m trying to process her logic till this day. It all doesn’t make any sense to me.

I was desperate, I had this elusive feeling the solution could be a hand grab away, just around the corner.

That’s called intuition, son.

They were pushing me. I remember her twin sister visited the town, and they were pushing me with twice the power. I should get a job.

I was desperate, and I started emailing to all my internet friends, many of them older than me, having their professions and most of them being in different countries, not reachable for me at that moment. (I was jobless, remember?)

I had just one question in mind. ‘Should I abandon all my dreams, obey, and go work to a factory? Or should I follow my dreams instead?’ Fortunately, I befriended smart people. They read my emails and everyone said I should try to follow my dreams. One of them replied angrily with just a couple of words, ‘It’s slavery!’ They were my support group. At that moment, I had noone on my side in the real world.

However, somehow I managed to delay the deadline for finding the job for a couple of months. Until the opportunity arrived.

University #

I’ve been studying software engineering.

Yeah, probably they fucking wanted me to be the software engineer of some factory. Which mostly wasn’t a thing back then. No iPhones, no smartphones, no internet in everyone’s pockets. All the software engineering factories of that location needed is some pirated Windows XP copy. And anti-virus tool for it.

One day, we had some guys visiting university and explaining us, students, they have this offer to teach us some discipline, with the prospect of work for their company.

The discipline was quality assurance for software development. I was super excited about this and the future job prospect. I’ve attended all the lectures, and I naturally fit.

That was my lucky ticket. Mum wasn’t against me finding this job, if it was paid for. It was paid on par with the factory slavery, so everyone was happy.

Responsibilities #

My responsibilities were to work through software company does, click all the possible button combinations and whatever comes to my head, find the bugs, and report them to developers. Basically, all we were taught is how to properly report a bug. How to reproduce steps, so a developer would understand.

At the beginning, I was excited about this job, but after a very short time, I just couldn’t bear it, regardless of any motivation. I hated it. I got a dangerous impression that all developers are idiots, incapable of writing reliable software. I wanted to be a developer myself.

I was one, I started programming very early in life. But I wasn’t paid for doing so, it was my hobby.

I assumed this happens because developer’s time is more expensive than the time of a QA. That sounds logical, but I failed to understand why won’t developers test their own software themselves?

For me it was like analysing shit. Well, you can analyse your own, if you’re interested in some feedback from you body. But why would you want to analyse someone else’s, huh?

I’ve learned many things, and more likely, they were positive for my career. They allowed me to join a company which I like, so I’m very thankful for that. Yet, I couldn’t just bear that software testing thing. I’d love to write my own software and test it myself.

That’s how I transitioned to a software engineer position. (Yay!)

I’m starting as a Junior, not even trainee, because I have decent knowledge of Adobe Action Script language, which I’ll apply to the current tasks I’m given.

Conclusion #

I don’t want to make it too pretentious, but I would really like to say that one must believe in oneself. All of us people are in different situations in life, but if you’re priviledged enough to have this chance to choose what to do in your life, go for it. Try. Without trying, there’s nothing else left.

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

I was just too fortunate to make some internet friends, who’d support me to not even believe in myself (that’ll take me some hard work), but believe in them saying I can find something better than I think. I’m truly thankful to you guys. I do appreciate all that moral help that helped me to survive that harsh years of my life, before I left leaving on my own.