We’re proud to introduce a new feature, the Volunteer Spotlight. We wanted to shine some light on all of the people who work behind the scenes at AST, how much they help our organization, what they do for AST, and why they do it. AST runs on volunteers who are investing their time and energy on helping other testers.
Our first Volunteer spotlight features Aleksandar Simic.
Aleksandar Simic
My name is Aleksandar Simic and I’m from Croatia. For most of my life I lived in Pazin and Umag, before moving to Freiburg, Germany where I work for Kofax Development GmbH.
Before my testing career I worked as system operator and programmer. I find that my previous work experience is helpful these days in my testing career. My career as a tester began almost ten years ago. It was not a planned career move, it just happened. For a long time now I have been obsessed with testing, trying to learn as much as possible. I learned daily from colleagues, books, and blogs. Finally, I discovered the BBST courses.
After the Foundations course, I approached James Bach and asked for individual coaching sessions via Skype. I also engaged in a few coaching sessions with Anne-Marie Charrett and Michael Bolton. I had great BBST lead instructors – Cem Kaner and Douglas Hoffman, and I was amazed how everyone is so approachable. I was grateful for the quality of the feedback they provided. At that time, I wanted to attend every testing event – BBST courses, online webinars, hands-on workshops, conferences and tutorials I could find.
I decided to assist as an instructor in one of the BBST courses to see how it is to be on the other side of the interaction. I liked it, and I still like it after five courses as instructor. I am still learning about testing from the courses materials, from other testers, my students and the other instructors. I have also learned when it is the right time to interact with my students and when to step back out of the students’ way and let them explore.
Jerry Weinberg said ‘When you’re finished learning, you’re finished as a tester.’
I take that quote to heart and continue to extend my knowledge and skills, I realized it is helpful to experience and explore something new. From time to time, I attend Weekend Testing sessions and BlackOps Testing webinars. I help James with his Rapid Software Testing Applied classes as a peer advisor. These are all great places to learn about testing and different problem areas, products, technologies, and testing approaches.
My wife loves to remind me to stop the testing heuristics from time to time. She and I enjoy hiking in the Black Forest near where we live because it offers a lot of great trails. We are considering trying mountain biking, but that topic I’ll leave for another newsletter.
Aleksander Simic’s Twitter: @asimic69
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