From intern to mentor in less than a year

Stefan's case is the perfect example of how you can make the most out of an internship program. He started as a QA (testing) intern at Qubiz and during our 6 weeks internship he convinced us that he should be part of our team with a full time contract and all. His professional development has been continuing since then, and now, after less than a year of "service", he's ready to mentor interns. He basically made a changeover from the position of being an intern to the position of mentoring interns in less than a year!

To mark this event, I sat down with him to talk about our journey together.

Hi, Stefan! First of all, why testing and not development?

Hello! As a perfectionist, I've chosen testing (QA) because it's challenging and it's just as exciting as development is.

What was your impression of the internship last year? How did a typical day look like to you?

From my point of view, an internship is the best environment to start your IT career. For me it was a great experience because I had the opportunity to work with passionate and experienced people and to learn everything from the basics of manual testing and our team's way of working, to the more advanced stuff.

How was the transition from an intern position to a full time team member status? Did your job get harder?

The transition was really easy because during the internship I've learned the basics of what I was supposed to do as a full time employee, and how to work within a SCRUM team. However, the difference between being an intern and a full time team member is that now I have more responsibilities.

What were the milestones in your professional growth so far?

For me, the fact that I became a full time member of Qubiz meant that I had to work harder the gain more knowledge so that my work has a greater impact. For my growth I've attended a lot of courses: a training in SQL and one in OOP (object-oriented programming), a training and certification from ISTQB, and last but not least, an Automation Testing course from The Informal IT School. I also benefited from the mentorship of my QA Engineer colleague, who is a senior in the field.

What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome so far?

The biggest challenge so far was to understand the business of the client with whom we work in this project, because it’s so vast and complex... The features I’m testing are impacting the finances, savings and retirement plans of hundreds of thousands of people.

What are your expectations from the new QA internship and from the interns you'll mentor?

Well, I expect the interns to be eager to learn the topics we'll present to them, and I also expect to be open for communication, to openly ask for my help whenever there's something they don't understand or want to learn.

Why and to whom would you recommend the Qubiz internship programme?

I'm recommending the Qubiz internship to everyone who studies or has studied computer science and informatics because, as I said in the beginning, it's the best way to start an IT career.

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Interview by Krisz Szűcs

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