A day in the life of an Agile Test Analyst at Code

In a series of blogs about what life as a Computerlover is like, we caught up with our Professional Agile Test Analyst Shilpa to find out what she gets up to in her day-to-day. 

Hey Shilpa, can you start by telling us about yourself and your role?

I'm a software tester and I've been at Code for nearly a year now. I'm responsible for testing the products we build so that they are accessible, usable and performant. I'm also a mum of two very active schoolchildren!

Can you tell us a bit about your background, and what attracted you to Code?

I started my career in IT after my University degree in Computer Science. I worked in different fields like retail and e-commerce until I was granted the initial opportunity to start my career as a QA. After a few years working there, I wanted a change and started looking for a new role.

As well as the role itself, I was attracted by the benefits that Code provides such as dedicated personal development time on Friday afternoons, a £500 annual training budget and £25 monthly well-being allowance.

Could you describe a typical day either in the office or from home?

My typical day starts with dropping my kids off at school and starting work with a daily stand-up with my product team. Then it gets busy with testing the work that developers have done, raising any bugs found and discussing them with the team. 

We have weekly planning and prioritisation sessions and WIP calls with clients. This can sometimes get challenging as we deal with several clients, and sometimes we even have multiple streams of WIP for each client. 

Code is very flexible with their working times. I usually take my lunch break around school pick-up time. At the end of the day, I finish off any priorities set for the day and update our Kanban board. 

Working remotely has helped me a lot being a working mum. I've been given more time in my day not having to commute. Nonetheless, I do enjoy going to the office when I'm able to!

What have you recently been working on?

I have recently been working on products for both LightSpeed, a new broadband start-up, and car dealership JCT600. We are improving their live sites constantly with different functionalities and features. 

Another exciting thing I worked on a few months ago was a Tetris-style game called Car Boot Carnage for JCT600. This was a really fun project to be a part of as I was able to test many different levels of the game. 

Is there any part of your work you are particularly proud of?

I'm particularly proud of the fact I get called the eagle eye, which reflects my attention to detail across all my work. Recently, I have also done a course on accessibility which I can apply to my day-to-day testing. 

Do you have a favourite part of your job?

The best part of my job is that I am heavily involved in the whole end-to-end process, from design to delivery. 

I also enjoy that I have the opportunity to closely interact with my team for all the technicalities, and also with our clients for any requirements they have for delivery purposes. 

It's always a good feeling to deploy work to live environments, no matter how big or small the work is.