Aries Systems Corporation

Tell us a little about yourself – how long have you been working for Aries? What did you do before joining Aries?

This is my 7^th year at Aries as a Software QA Analyst. Prior to joining Aries, I worked as a QA Engineer at two start-ups developing mobile applications, and at a consulting company testing insurance applications. I first started my QA career testing mobile and web components of the application developed for parents to monitor their children’s whereabouts using smartphones. Then, I tested a photo sharing and image processing application with integrated social networking features for professional and amateur photographers. Then, just before joining Aries, I tested a home and auto insurance application that was used for renewal transactions.

How have your previous roles helped you in your current position?

My previous experience helped me become more confident in analyzing software failures and making them reproducible, analyzing business and technical documentation, utilizing boundary conditions analysis and equivalence class partitioning techniques to develop test cases.

How do you stay up-to-date with trends in your field?

Staying up-to-date with industry trends is extremely important for a QA Engineer, since technology evolves so fast. Usually I find out about new trends and products coming in to technology by reading The Verge and industry experts’ posts on LinkedIn. Currently, I really enjoy reading about Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and Big Data.

Tell me about your department and the people you work most closely with.

Lead by our new QA/QE Manager, our QA Team currently consists of a strong group of quality analysts and we divide the same responsibilities and collaborate with each other. The QA Team works closely with the Engineering Department and most of the work is defect-related.

Describe your typical workday.

We usually start our workday with a stand-up meeting, where we report what we are currently working on and what we will be working on next. We also discuss our future projects and problems that we run into. Then one of our QA Analysts starts working on customer-reported issues. Depending on where we are release-wise, we test functional specifications, write or run regression tests, enter new bugs or re-test fixed bugs, run staging-specific tests or do new technology-related training.  

What do you most enjoy about your job? What do you enjoy most about working for Aries?

I really enjoy the fact that Editorial Manager® has so many areas of functionality, which gives me the opportunity to learn something new every day. I also like that we have access to learning platforms and are encouraged to learn new programming languages and automation tools and frameworks.

What are you currently reading, listening to, or watching?

As a huge fan of Mid-Century Modern style, I’m re-watching “Mad Men” and really enjoying the interior design aspect of the show. I’m currently reading Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, which is about personal growth.

Tell me about some of your hobbies/interests outside of work.

I spend most of my free time with my two sons, who always get my undivided attention. We go for bike rides, hiking and skiing in the winter. During quarantine, I got into a popular hobby of rare tropical plants. I really enjoy not only keeping alive my philodendrons, calatheas and monsteras, but also watching new growth and sometimes even blooms.