Navigating Careers in Tech: Quality Engineering

In my favorite e-commerce class for my master’s in computer information systems, I was constantly sparring with a classmate who turned out to be a client partner in a consulting firm. His referral got me my first job out of grad school as a business analyst, which involved talking to clients about their technology and business needs and documenting these business requirements in a way that our software developers could understand and then implement. 

On one such project for a big bank, I not only wrote the requirements but I was also asked to validate that the software the development team had built satisfied those requirements. That is how I got into software testing and quality engineering.

Over the years, I have worked on projects across many industries, on teams both large and small. You know the jumping fries and proximity sensor for pickup orders in that fast food company’s mobile app? Or that beverage company’s digital soda machines that allow you to mix strawberry soda, cherry cola and lemonade to make your very own concoction? Or the interactive vivid pink map that tells you whether you can get 5G service where you live? Chances are I’ve worked on some part of those and many other exciting digital projects over the years.

Along the way, I’ve had managers and mentors who have encouraged me to speak my mind when I had a different approach, to let my voice be heard, to not be afraid to question authority when I felt strongly about something and to always put people first, whether they are clients, teammates or direct reports.

PS is also good about offering free classes, certifications, online courses through learning partners and platforms and giving us growth opportunities in support of our current or future roles. Want to learn more about generative AI, get certified as an agile product manager or become an AWS architect? At PS, there is a class, learning path, online training session, live class on our learning platform or a digital partner in-person training for that—and for almost anything tech- or business-related that you might be curious about or interested in pursuing.

Why should you pursue a career in tech?

Tech is such a broad and interesting field, so the opportunities for finding that thing that brings you joy are only limited by your imagination. Whether you like to draw and design, organize people and things, are good with numbers, enjoy gaming, love to write code, love creating content and thinking of ways to grow your followers or like to break and fix things—there is a job in tech that’ll allow you to do any of those things and more.

I am a woman from Zimbabwe who didn’t use a computer until I came to the U.S. for college. If I could learn and go on to be successful in tech, then anyone can do this.