Personal Development Featured

My Story on How I Improved My Presentation Skills

💡Did you know that public speaking is one of the biggest fears people have? For many of us, before giving a presentation to a group of people, our limbic system is deciding if we have to "fight or flight". I'm showing you in this article how I manage to keep

Personal Development Featured

What Leadership And Parenting Have In Common (Part 2)

Part 1 can be read here. You'lll find my thoughts about empathy, providing safety, patience, and active listening. Show vulnerability. And don't be afraid of apologies Of course, there will be situations when you're decision is wrong or you hurt someone with a piece of feedback not ideally delivered. It's

Story

For The Sake Of Black Coffee ☕Home Setup

This is not my usual kind of posting, no software testing tips, and no leadership discussion involved, today is just about coffee. And about our long love relationship. A lot of coffee is going to be involved in this post together with exciting tools we have discovered along the way.

Personal Development Featured

Fake It 'Til You Make It, No Thanks. Visualization, Yes Please.

If you have never heard about the phrase "fake it 'til you make it" then imagine the following scenario - you're having a 9 to 5 job, a family with a toddler and after you're finishing up your working hours you have to spend another three hours being a trainer

Personal Development

Personal development books I recommend

Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. 🎖️Rating: 4/5⭐️ Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones 🎖️Rating: 4/5⭐️ Contagious: Why Things Catch On 🎖️Rating: 5/5⭐️ Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability 🎖️Rating: 3/

Personal Development

15 Smart Questions to Ask Your Interviewer

📌 I am writing this article from the interviewer position for you, the one looking for a new job and being involved in several interviews. There's no surprise that the current IT market is fast-evolving, with lots of opportunities, and lots of big and small companies creating software products, and nowadays,

Story

My 2022 in Pictures

It's been three years since I haven't created and posted "My 20xx in Pictures" and somehow I missed it. It's a good reminder that another year is almost close to its end and an even greater reminder that good things had happened this year too. I have made sort of

Personal Development

The One With The "Team Didn't Want You Anymore"

This post is based on a real story. There's no secret I'm reading a lot of literature on how to be a good manager, how to be a good leader, and how to be "a human" at work, like many of us are doing these days, right? And while reading

Personal Development Featured

The Easiest Way To Get Into a Leadership Role

Before revealing the secret recipe, please accept my apologies - the title of this post is a big buzzword placed there with the intent to draw your attention. Why? Because I know many of you are seeking to get into a leadership role and I truly believe that sharing my

Personal Development

7 things I have learned in one year after returning to work from maternity leave

I am celebrating one year since I am back to work after my maternity leave! That's a sign that my baby is now a toddler, a toddler with a great personality and the prettiest smile I have ever seen, but hey, that's a completely different story, a story that every

Personal Development

4 Tips For Staying Engaged With Your Professional Self During Maternity Leave

Oh well, my beloved moms and "moms to be" readers, this one is for you. I'm sorry, gentlemen. For many women, maternity leave is the best time of their lives as you're spending your whole time pampering, caring, loving, snuggling your little human. And the feelings that come with these

Personal Development

7 Things I Have Learned In The Past Year

In 2018 I've written a blog post illustrating all the good things the previous year (2017) had taught me. Yeah, I know, it's been a while, here we are in the first day of 2021 and meanwhile a whole pandemic thing hit us. But, looking back and reading again that

Personal Development

Things NOT To Do When An Employee Resigns

"How do you know when is the time to resign and leave from a company?" was someone asking in a tweet recently and I left a reply saying that "is similar to knowing when to leave from a relationship". Because in many aspects, I do believe that these two relations

Software Testing

More Than Interviewing For Testers

I took part in a bunch of interviews in the past years and during this time, I've worked on polishing my set of questions to be addressed to our candidates. For a long period, being a candidate to an interview was like a nightmare for me, and have tried to

Software Testing

I Wish I Knew More About...

Picking the right battles. Or picking the right areas to focus on. Why? Well, because in software testing you can easily get assaulted by a tone of technologies, methodologies, frameworks, tools you are required to master and to learn this or that and might become scary as you get to

Software Testing

How Does DEVOPS See Testers?

This is a series of blog post interviews, aiming to help testers understand how different IT departments see the role of a tester. Every tester wants to become a better version of itself, yet not everyone has all the missing pieces in doing that. Hopefully, these interviews will give you

Personal Development

How Does a DEVELOPER See Testers

This is a series of blog post interviews, aiming to help testers understand how different IT departments see the role of a tester. Every tester wants to become a better version of itself, yet not everyone has all the missing pieces in doing that. Hopefully, these interviews will give you

Community

How Does a RECRUITER See Testers

This is a series of blog post interviews, aiming to help testers understand how different IT departments see the role of a tester. Every tester wants to become a better version of itself, yet not everyone has all the missing pieces in doing that. Hopefully, these interviews will give you

Software Testing

Letter to my fellow tester.

🔵 The text below was published in "Around the World with 80 Software Testers" book. The book draws upon the knowledge and experience from both experts and new voices from around the world involved in software testing. Don't be shy. Let your voice be heard. Why? Because your voice is valuable

Personal Development

What Leadership And Parenting Have In Common

I've read a tweet a while ago about this topic, what leadership and parenting have in common, but back then I could barely get my head out from the sand to see what all this parenting is about. One thing got clear though: You were not born a leader as

Personal Development

5 Things to Remember When You’re Feeling Stuck

Humankind is now living the biggest crisis of our generation, fighting an invisible enemy, the coronavirus. Our government, as many already did, imposed emergency measures, placing the Romanian citizens on a police-enforced lockdown. In other words, we are stuck in our homes to protect ourselves and others too. While living

Personal Development

So You Want to Become a Manager

If you have read some of my previous articles, you already got used to the fact that I'm usually writing a blog post based on a discussion had with someone, an idea that came into my mind or an event that happened to me. So, one day, I was talking

Software Testing

Tester Or Developer - Which One Is Better?

It was 14 years ago, I was in the second year at college. True story. A group of students organized a trip in the Romanian mountains, in the heart of Transylvania. After we got there, being young and restless, we all ordered some beers and started chatting about various topics,

Story

4 Things To Pass Over The Generations

If you know me, you know that I'm a "family first" kind of person and that I rarely share online things about my family. And I don't do it because family is a private thing for me and it should remain private. Parents are our first role models and even

Personal Development

Adaptability Is The New Capability

There are two kinds of people. The ones that like the challenges, to have a thrilling life and who embraces the unpredictable changes in their lives and the ones who get scared and anxious whenever something is not going according to the plan. Well, I'm in the second category. I