Harry's Work Experience Week at tiQtoQ

tiQtoQ is a firm believer in supporting young people as they make their first steps into the world of work. Recently we welcomed fifteen year old Harry to join us for a week’s work experience to get a taste of what it’s like to be a software tester. Here are his thoughts on his time with us.Before Christmas I did my week’s work experience with a company called tiQtoQ that tests software for other companies.On my first day of work experience I worked with David on project management and learned all about the different software that tiQtoQ uses to manage their projects. I also sat in on a product demonstration with a company called PractiTest which is a test management platform. It was really serious. On the second day I was shown some of the reporting tools for the managers and I learned how to do pivot tables in Excel which is a really useful thing.Later on the second day I looked at how the tiQtoQ website and social media was managed. I saw the content management system behind the website and learned how new content is put together and then approved to go out. Once that’s done all the social media channels are updated. This was all very interesting, and I found it all very intriguing.Wednesday I was with Sarah, and it was all about manual testing. Manual testing is when a real person checks the software. First I learned about how you figure out what needs to be tested and how you write a script so you can accurately repeat the test. When you run a test and find a bug you fill out a report so that it can be fixed. I had a go at doing this on a test website and finding some bugs by using the aforementioned test scripts. I also learned about Sprints.Thursday I was working with Marcus and learned all about automation, which is when a computer tests itself to find bugs. This is a lot faster and more reliable than manual testing. There are many different types of automation depending on what part of the system you need to test. Like manual testing you have a script, but the computer runs the script and produces a report of any errors it finds.  This can speed things up considerably.On Friday I spent the day with the CEO, understanding how the workings of the business operate, with things like paying people, charging clients and working on getting new customers. I also saw how things can change in an instant with lots of emails and messages coming in that he had to deal with straight away.In conclusion this experience was very beneficial and more importantly fun. Work is different to school where you do the same stuff every week. In work you have to change what you are doing all the time depending on what is happening. Choosing tiQtoQ for your work experience would be very good especially if that is the business path that you want to go down.It was a pleasure to have Harry with us for the week and he certainly seemed to have an aptitude for the industry. Our Head of Automation, Marcus Smith said "It was a delight to acquaint Harry with automated testing, along with its related concepts and technologies. Possessing a distinctly technical mindset, Harry quickly mastered the fundamental principles, even those of greater complexity, and exhibited a profound comprehension and technical prowess."