Begüm, the official bug finder of Anarky Labs, is originally from Turkey. After a master’s degree, she moved directly to Poland, where she got her first gigs in the IT industry. She’s been living in Finland for one and a half year and is continuing her career as a test engineer for AirHUD. How did it all happen?
”I heard about the IT industry from my friends, it started to feel more and more interesting every day. But! There was a problem… This field was so vast that I wondered: ‘Where should I start?’. Thanks to the information I gathered, I started to like the idea of being a tester (since I had no clue about coding). Well, I’m generally a person who pays A LOT of attention to details, so I started to think that this job would be perfect for me. Then I found an internship in a big media company – of course remotely, you know, pandemic…- and it all began :).
Because I joined the team at the very beginning of the project and during the pandemic, there were just a few people in the team during my internship period; therefore, I worked a lot. It was an extensive experience where I could learn about many aspects of software development, including Scrum methodology, and preparing feature specifications documents -Yup! I prepared them. Such a tester role, isn’t it? -, and many more.
As part of my duties, I was also supposed to establish the test processes, so I could execute the tests following some standards we together defined. Then, that day came and I got my very first full-time job as a Software Test Engineer! As the team grew, we had the system fully settled, so I spent a year and a half there and learned a lot.”
Learning Finnish and job culture in Helsinki
After all this hard working, Begüm finally made another dream of her childhood come true and she moved to Finland.
”I started the integration course in Galimatias Oy, which is supported by the Finnish government. Although almost everyone in Finland speaks English, it was very important for me to be able to understand the language of the country where I live, so I wanted to learn the language without even thinking about looking for a job.
My favourite phrase in Finnish is definitely: “Totta kai!”, in English it means “Of course!” It’s also sound cute and that’s why I use it a lot when I talk. 🙂
We also received training on Finnish culture and business life. At the end of approximately one year of training, we were asked to do an internship. Our instructor suggested some websites and I discovered Anarky Labs through thehub.io.”
An internship that led to a full time position a Test Engineer
“I usually review the websites of the places I will apply and the work they do. When I looked at Anarky Labs, I thought: “There are interesting things going on there and I should definitely apply here!’ Then we met and they accepted me for an internship. In the first days, frankly, I was a little panicked because I didn’t know much about drones and I thought maybe I might be technically incompetent. (For this reason, I can be a complete pain in the neck for asking a bunch of questions :)) However, from the first day, I felt as if I had been there for a long time. The team always helped and encouraged me. Everything felt so natural but still, I was shocked at first when they asked me: “Do you want to work with us?”.”
From tester to drone pilot?
”I am now officially a Test Engineer at Anarky Labs and I really love my job. My job here is to find bugs and problems in the application in general and help improve the quality of our product. In addition to these, I continue to write documentation at Anarky Labs. In this way, since I have more detailed information about the product, I can prepare test cases better.
As a tester, yes, you must see details very well, but the second most important thing is communication skills. In order to perform the tests properly, it is very important to understand the features of the product, and to bear in mind the business strategy of the product so I can be of help not only to find obvious problems but also potential problems that need to be taken care of. Basically, I, sometimes, have to play ping-pong with all the team members to gather as much information as possible.
During the work, we talk about practice in general and what we can do to make it better. That’s why everyone’s opinion is valued at Anarky Labs, and I felt this since the first day of the internship. The most fun part for me was the tests with drones. It was scary at first because I had no experience, but now I can do the little tests on my own. I hope I will be an official drone pilot soon.”
AirHUD testing at the office
Anni holds MA in cultural history and has a wide ranging background from customer service in the industrial markets, and records manager for the Finnish government institution. She handles research and data management, marketing, PR, event management and assists the CEO and sales team in her role as an executive assistant at Anarky Labs.
