Friday w/ Testers - #004 - Horea Mihut

In Friday with Testers, we feature QA experts from our community who share their love for quality. This episode is about Horea Mihut, whom I met at XTestathon where in the name and for the love of testing, he and his team got the 1st prize🥇

1. Tell me a bit about your job as a tester

In my first years of testing I remember all I wanted to do was exploratory testing all day, but I learned that testing has much more to it. In order for me to deliver the highest value for clients (implicitly for the company, implicitly for me), now I am working close with the whole team (devs, BA, PM, PO – these are the core/regular stakeholders in most of our projects) and help them with analysis and maybe use/test cases even from the POC, or trying to get all the acceptance criteria agreed upon with the PO.

My technical skills (computer science, then data bases master) helped me help the devs a lot, because when finding a bug, I will always try to find more backend details about the cause so their work is easier.

Other things I do as a tester: constantly reading/learning/sketching new ideas/processes/WOWs (way of working), go to conferences, go to trainings (not only technical, but also soft skills, negotiation skills that help me in bug advocacy, consultant skills, or english/german lessons), workshops (also trying to organize them if I have something interesting to say/show).  

2. The last cool thing that you’ve read

My big boss: “hey Horea, I just had a talk with the Project Manager of the project where you had an exploratory testing trial yesterday, and he told me that he sleeps much better at night after you tested the app. My top performer, big up!” 😊 Oh you mean book related? 😊 “27 de pasi” by Tibi Useriu – the most humble human/hero I ever saw, motivates me in the darkest times.  

3. How would you describe your job to your grandma?

I would explain it by comparing it with a product factory line which has a final quality assurance guy that checks the products and gives his OK or not.  

4. What do you work toward in your free time?

Testing is a passions not just a job for me, so a lot of testing: testing over a glass of wine in the evening often gives me a different perspective that helps all the time.

Working on my car and driving, working on my remote controlled car and driving it (100km/h tops), anything art-creation related: stencils and spray can paintings on canvas, street installations, diy projects, music listening (it’s actually really just music listening, like closing your eyes and listening), next thing on the list I would like to try a Flotation Tank experience.

And the most pregnant passion throughout these years was the cars – so I am working towards becoming a rally/drift car pilot. In 2019 I planned to walk at least half of the El Camino de Santiago de Compostela – a spiritual/pilgrimage path that you walk by foot (total of aprox 700km).  

5. How would you convince a friend to become a software tester?

I wouldn’t, more money for me 😃(well actually this is only partially a joke, because in the last years in Cluj, a tester’s job got very popular because everyone heard that it’s good pay and not very complicated and you don’t need to be an IT/technical graduate – and this overpopulated the market with poor performance testers, making it hard for companies to find someone reliable – so, if someone’s real call would be to be a tester, he doesn’t need me convincing him or her 😊

6. If you were a pie, what flavour would you be?

Sour&sweet, (maybe sour cherry / cranberry / something in that area).

7. Favourite brands.

I had a period of a few years during+after university when I loved big brands like Tommy, Gant, Massimo, but somehow naturally & willingly I “matured” in a person that doesn’t care about the social status and wealth and about what car people see me driving in, so I settled for more affordable clothes like H&M, Reserved – which allow me to focus on important things, not on what I will wear today.

Regarding gadgets, I’m using an iPhone (not a declared Apple fan, that android/iOS battle is so useless...), and it would be a bit harder to live without my Chromecast. Or some external batteries for the iPhone 😃

8. What is the next book you recommend me to read and why?

“27 pasi” by Tibi Useriu, for 2 reasons: I was on the same page with the guy and it helped me a lot. And second, shamefully, it’s the only book I’ve read in the last year 🙁

9. A world ruled by testers would be…

A world ruled by obsessive compulsive control freaks that need to have every single thing in its right place – pretty sad I imagine 😊