My Happy Internship

High Responsibility - High Quality

Before joining Scalio, I had experience in developing informational resources for a big energy company. Among other things, I was responsible for the website, the intranet portal, and corporate television. I can say that I was already performing quality control functions back then. During my time there, our team developed a new website, and successfully launched it. The website was public for over 13 years, until January 2023. At that time, my QA responsibilities were limited to testing the "happy path" only.

A Self-Taught Tester

After the birth of my children, I spent a considerable amount of time raising them, and working on my own side projects. For example, my husband and I came up with and built several iOS applications (FYI: He is a senior iOS engineer). My favorite app that we created is "365 Montessori", which provides caring parents with daily information on child-rearing based on the Montessori methodology. One message a day, and you understand your child a little better! In this mobile project, I was able to start learning more about  testing mobile experiences.

New Life, New Challenges

Living in Finland had long been our dream - a country known for excellent education and quality of life. When we finally moved here, new challenges awaited me.

After consulting with my husband, we decided that pursuing a career in QA could be a good idea. I started taking online courses and reading books on testing. I went to libraries to study, to ensure that I wouldn't be distracted by children and household chores.

My first job as a QA tester was at a Finnish startup company that offers employers the ability to find short-term employees and allows workers to find hourly jobs as waiters, nannies, cleaning specialists, and builders. It's like Tinder for employment relationships :)

In this role, prepared test cases for smoke testing and two new features in mobile applications, and conducted regression testing before a new release. I also realized that I really enjoyed working as a quality specialist!

Dream Team

Having experience as a QA engineer, and examples of test cases with bug reports I had written, I gathered the courage to request an internship at Scalio. I'm very grateful to the top management of the company for their trust and support.

My goal for this 6-week internship was to gain as much diverse experience in quality assurance and teamwork as possible. During this time, I worked as a QA specialist on three projects and got to know the practices of two different teams. It was invaluable experience! I saw how project work could be structured differently depending on the team goals, conditions, and agreements. Thanks to Anastasia - the company’s QA Lead - and her coaching, I gained practical experience while using a wide range of testing tools.

I was fortunate to start working at Scalio under the direct management of Vitaliy Dudarevich. This was a great stroke of luck! Vitaliy is an experienced, friendly mentor who is truly an expert in both work and teaching. He introduced me to the company's project & process workflow, showing not only the big picture, but also all the important details. Thanks to this, my immersion into work was quick and effective. On one of our FinTech projects, I helped write test cases for new functionality, and also participated in regression testing. In addition to the productive and friendly team, I was also impressed by the vision of the product, and the value it brings to investors.

The next team I had the opportunity to work with was the Atomik project team. My new manager, Tatevik Harutyunyan, impressed me with her high level of organization, high documentation standards, and activity planning. Her test cases, bug reports, and tasks are impeccable, like it's taken from a masterclass textbook! Working with Tatevik's test cases was a pleasure: step-by-step actions, links to user stories, and designs allowed for quick testing. Tatevik also inspired a focus on team communication. Under her guidance, I tested new functionality on the one of Scalio’s proprietary technology solution platforms. Previously, I only interacted with CMS as a user, but now I had the opportunity to participate in the development of a real website platform builder - magical!

Communication within the company deserves special attention - This has been my first experience working remotely, and I used to think I would miss the social interaction in an office environment. However, I found that communication at Scalio is very well established - there are daily meetings with the project team, monthly All Hands meetings with the entire firm, Friday FriYay social gatherings, communication in thematic Slack channels, and colleagues are always ready for calls! I think a lot of credit for that goes to Kristina Shunkova, Head of HR, who has done an excellent job in improving corporate communication processes.

By the way, it was amazing that even the top management is actively involved in company communication, and accessible to all of the employees. Bradley Greenwood (CEO) and Joshua Lucas (COO) found time to chat with me as an intern, and that was really inspiring.

Dreams Come True

As my internship was coming to an end, I didn't expect an offer to join the team. You can imagine my happiness when the offer came for me to be converted to full time employment! Since joining the firm, I never stop learning - together with Anastasia, we are working on a development program so that over time, I can build up my skills and ownership within the QA Department.

Being an intern, and now working at Scalio has been an enriching experience. I enjoy my professional and personal growth, and look forward to contributing to the great products we are building together here.