The document provides tips for advancing an agile QA career, emphasizing the importance of continuous learning, networking, and personal branding. Key suggestions include staying updated with QA tools, attending meetups, enhancing LinkedIn profiles, and engaging in community work. It also highlights the value of preparation for job interviews through tailored presentations showcasing relevant skills.

1. How to Have an Agile
QA Career
Mary Ann May-Pumphrey
mam_p@yahoo.com
August 6, 2015

2. About Me
• I’m “older”
• I’m not that smart
• I’m not easy to get along with

3. So….
How have I managed to still have a full-time QA
engineering job?

4. Mindset Tip
Worry about your next job as least as much as
about your current one! Jobs can disappear in a
heartbeat!

5. Learning Tips

6. Learning Tip #1
Keep learning new QA tools! Almost every testing
tool has a free trial of some length these days--take
advantage of these to build breadth into your QA
skill set.

7. Learning Tip #2
Find a blog on a relevant/interesting technical topic
and read it every time it is updated. Sauce Labs
has a very helpful blog, but there are lots of others.

8. Learning Tip #3
Join a Meetup in a relevant/interesting technical
topic--one on Selenium, Appium, Testing, Agile, etc.
There are lots of them in the Bay Area. Attend
regularly! Talk to other attendees about what they
do at work.

9. Learning Tip #4
If you find yourself without work and can afford to
take a couple months off, do so! Spend at least
part of the time improving your skills. If you're self-
disciplined, a period of unemployment or
underemployment can be a much better time to
learn new things than when you have a job.

10. Learning Tip #5
Look at QA job openings in your geographical area
often, even if you aren't "looking" at present, in
order to keep abreast of what skills are needed to
obtain and/or keep QA employment.

11. Learning Tip #6
Sign up with Utest, take some of their courses, and
look for work on their Paid Projects Board.

12. Learning Tip #7
Become as familiar as possible with your iPhone
and/or your Android, and several apps for it; mobile
app testing is a very hot field right now.

13. Learning Tip #8
Look into online course offerings of udemy, udacity,
coursera, and lynda.

14. Learning Tip #9
Make a resolution to do something to improve your
QA status every day or every other day or every
week, and stick to it!

15. Marketing Tips

16. Marketing Tip #1
Completely fill out your LinkedIn profile--photo,
education, job experience, volunteer experience,
everything!

17. Marketing Tip #2
Build out your LinkedIn Connections with people
you meet in class, at Meetups, etc.

18. Marketing Tip #3
Join an open-source team, as a tester, writer (on
the docs), or developer.

19. Marketing Tip #4
Locate some QA or related (web page
maintenance) work for a non-profit, that will help
build your resumé, your confidence, your skill set,
and your LinkedIn profile.

20. Marketing Tip #5
Keep your resumé up to date at all times! No more
than two pages! No more than 10 years' worth of
experience!

21. Marketing Tip #6
Join a Toastmasters Club! Nothing will improve
your oral communication as much as a year in a
Toastmasters club, and you'll have an incredible
amount of fun doing so. Your resumé and LinkedIn
profile will both look great with a Toastmasters
Competent Communicator Award and/or a
Toastmasters Competent Leadership Award on
them.

22. Marketing Tip #7
Start a blog on a QA topic of your choice. The
posts don’t have to be about your rocket-science
test automation projects! They can be reviews of
books, Meetups, conferences, courses, etc.

23. Marketing Tip #8
Add technical "stuff" to your GitHub repo! This will
show up on Google searches AND in recruiter
searches.

24. Marketing Tip #9
Volunteer with Mozilla.

25. Marketing Tip #10
Do a Google "vanity search" and see how much
you look like a QA professional to anyone who
might be checking you out. Take steps to improve
your "QA look."

26. Job-Hunting Tip
Whenever you are asked to do an on-site interview
for a QA position, be sure to prepare a presentation
in advance that shows off what you can do for that
specific company. Bug reports about their product,
test cases for their product, screen videos of
automated tests for their product, etc., can make a
hugely positive impression.