Hi there! I am Kate, a QA engineer and test architect at FlowUp.
Quality Assurance for me isn't just about testing - it is a mindset. Although quality means different things for different people, I believe that there are three main areas to optimise for - User Experience, Developer Experience (sadly often overlooked) and processes. Therefore, I help cultivate this quality mindset on my projects towards a shared ownership of quality among the whole team.
From a technical point of view, I develop a suitable testing strategy on a project and make sure that test quality is prioritised over quantity. I introduce and encourage good practices and principles towards maintainable product.
From a process perspective, I am an advocate for shifting left. Prevention and informed decisions in face of risks saves time and therefore money. So I aim to assess and communicate potential risks to the team in order to minimise refactoring in the future.
Here is a list of technologies and tools I use regularly. However, I am not a specialist and believe that it is important to learn about new technologies and use the right tool for the job, not the one I am most familiar with.
You might have noticed I have quite a long list of documentation tools. That is because I believe that documentation is one of the most important factors of a successful product. And by that I don't mean that investing weeks into writing (and later maintaining) an extensive documentation is the right way.
I simply believe that there should be a single source of truth. Good issue definition with a user story, clear test case descriptions that help understand a functionality and helps deduce test coverage and wiki with links and architectural diagrams are key to a successful product. It is always a bad sign when onboarding takes too long and developers are expected to hold all the product information in their memory.
