Archives for August 2017

The Life Of A Computer Science Major in QA Automation

Blog, Development, Interns Posted: August 28, 2017

When I accepted the opportunity to work for HCSS as a Quality Assurance Automation Intern, I really had no idea what to expect. I originally wanted to work in software development, but all of the positions were already taken. I knew a little about Quality Assurance (QA) from my previous job but nothing about test automation, so I was all for learning something new. Luckily my supervisor sent me some links, so I was able to do a little research before jumping in. The team was also very helpful if I had any questions.

HCSS also has a very in-depth training program for just about everything, including automation. The training is similar to a classroom setting, with a lecture, some practical application, assignments, and a follow-up meeting to go over what we have learned and how we applied it to our work.

I was slightly concerned about going into QA instead of development because I was worried I wouldn’t get much coding practice in — and for a Computer Science major, this is important. Fortunately I can code my own test scripts in C# or use the software tools. I didn’t have background knowledge in C#, but, like most programming languages, the main difference is syntax. This was awesome because I was learning a new language and a new skill.

Let’s Get Technical

What I learned about QA

We don’t learn about QA in school, which is unfortunate because it is important to know and not many programmers or developers like testing (unless you’re testing out a friend’s program and he dares you to break it). We would all like our code to be perfect, but it almost never is, and even on development teams there is a lot of code review to help with good coding practices. I knew there was testing done prior to releasing an application or some new software, but I didn’t realize the extent of the testing or the amount of planning that goes into it.

After a few weeks I realized just how wrong my perception was. QA is a process used in every phase of development for new software or existing software with new features. It consists of reviewing product requirements, collaborating with developers, functional testing, documenting and reproducing defects, and much more. It is one of the main processes that gives the go or no-go with a software release. In short, QA develops and executes test strategies for software before it is even software and continues to test features after release. There are many things we don’t learn in school as Computer Science majors, and QA is one of them.

Automation

For the few months I have been at HCSS, my knowledge of QA has grown, and I have realized just how important it is in the development process. But now let’s get into Automation.

One of the main differences between QA and automation is how the testing is actually performed. For starters, automation does not require anyone at the driver seat while testing is being done. You can write scripts that will test features you specifically have chosen. This makes automation a very efficient way to find bugs since it can be run at any time. It also helps by reducing man hours spent on testing, giving QA leads more time to focus on more pressing matters, like reproducing and fixing a known issue or testing around a known issue prior to release. It can also help with smoke testing after a release to ensure the product features are working properly. If an issue is found, the automation software lets you know when and where the failure occurred so it can be investigated. Automation essentially helps by testing features that testers and users work with on a day-to-day basis and narrows down failures.

Cultural Experience

HCSS has a lot of cool things going on each day, which was something I wasn’t really used to. They have a gym, a track, a slide, a game room, and we even have a game night after hours, which is pretty awesome. HCSS also provides lunch every Friday, and members of the QA department provide breakfast for the team every Wednesday. When the QA department hired a lot of new people, they decided to have a meet-and-greet BBQ, which gave a lot of us the opportunity to meet each other. Each team also has a “Team Building Budget” that allows team members to go out and do activities together. Automation went to go see War for the Planet of the Apes. There is always something fun going on, and that’s just some of the things that makes HCSS culture amazing.

My Experience With HCSS And The Automation Team

My experience here at HCSS and on the automation team has been very positive, and it has a lot to do with the culture. I don’t know if I would have enjoyed myself as much if I had taken a job somewhere else. HCSS genuinely cares about their employees, their families, and the community. It is literally the best place I have ever worked. The automation team has helped me develop new skills and a new outlook on development. I am truly grateful for the experience and I am glad that I will continue to be a part of HCSS for the fall semester. I will share more experiences in the future, and I hope you come by to check them out.

My Internship Experience

Blog, Development, Interns Posted: August 15, 2017

As someone who had just graduated from high school, interning at a software company like HCSS felt extremely intimidating. The only experience I’ve had with software development was from the courses I took in school and some personal projects I’ve done in my free time. So when I was assigned to work with the Android team, I was worried that I would hold the team back due to my inexperience.

However, my learning experience was surprisingly smooth. I was given basic tasks at first, such as adding fields to the user interface or performing simple bug fixes. Occasionally I’d run into some challenges or issues, but none that I felt was insurmountable. One of the skills I had to learn was to be willing to ask questions. Early on I would spend hours trying to solve a problem that had a simple solution, or spend time working on a feature just to realize that I had misunderstood the objective at the end. Over time, I realized that it was more efficient to ask for help once I’ve exhausted my options of figuring out the problem on my own or to clarify the details of my task if I feel there is any ambiguity.

I was also introduced to code review in HCSS, which is a system to ensure quality by having developers review each other’s code and request any changes they feel will make the code better. For me, code reviews were my primary source to learn about good coding practices and industry standards. Although I would sometimes feel disappointed in how many mistakes I made, I was able to gauge how much I needed to improve, and I was able to learn from each mistake in the code review.

The most surprising aspect of HCSS for me was how much emphasis the company puts on employee health and wellness. Compared to my previous experiences in fast food, where the businesses have little regard for their employees, HCSS actually cares about the work environment and the wellbeing of its employees, which is evident through all the amenities provided. For me, this makes me motivated to work harder and give back to the company.

Overall, I definitely learned several valuable skills and lessons from my internship at HCSS, and I’m continuing to learn more each day. HCSS gave me exposure to professional software development and its practices, as well as the opportunity to work with and meet brilliant people. The experience I gained is priceless, and I couldn’t ask for more from my internship.

Credit: Photography by Josh Espinoza

What HCSS has Taught me as a Development Intern

Blog, Interns Posted: August 15, 2017

Some people may consider an internship to be a part-time job over one summer of college, with the sole purpose being to bolster the real-life experience portion of a résumé. In some minds, interning means arriving at work in a suit at some ungodly hour of the morning in a suit with a tray full of coffee, dreading the monotony of the next eight hours laboriously copying data from an Excel document into a database.

Thankfully, my internship at HCSS has proven to be much more fulfilling and worthwhile than those stereotypes. As I wrap up my fifth week and have had a good amount of time to get accustomed to the culture, I thought now would be an appropriate time to reflect upon how HCSS has empowered me as an intern.

I’ve heard time and time again how HCSS pours back into its employees to promote a healthy culture that fosters high-quality work and how employees rave about working for such a company. As such, I’ve looked at the ways HCSS has helped me grow as a software engineer.

1. Expanding knowledge and pursuing challenges

Interning at HCSS has meant being placed on a team of peers that nurtures my growth as a developer by capitalizing on my strengths, all the while helping me to pick up new skills. My first day here was exciting, but I also knew that within a couple days I would be diving into unfamiliar territory with regards to the code that I would be working. Moreover, I had no prior experience with C# and was unsure how to start working on the vast expanse of code that makes up Equipment360, our equipment maintenance software for construction companies.

But my project manager, Reji, helped me develop an understanding of C# through an array of online resources and his tutorial book, which ultimately simplified the process and eased the various concerns I had about the jobs I would undertake. HCSS has helped me pick up new technologies with ease so that I may quickly dive into getting work done. Furthermore, it has helped me understand that new materials and challenges are not something I should dread or try to avoid, but rather opportunities for growth to be tackled head-on.

2. Seeing what I’ve learned being put into practice

Interning at HCSS means working for a company that effectively contributes to and expands the toolbox of skills I’ve developed in school. It’s rewarding and, frankly, magical to see different software development methodologies you have superficially discussed within an academic setting actually getting fleshed out in the workplace. Whether that’s experiencing the different types of developer meetings that I learned about through my Software Engineering classes or visualizing sprint burndown charts, HCSS has helped reinforce my understanding of various academic disciplines by pushing them to the next level.

3. Encouragement from coworkers

Finally, HCSS has helped me develop and grow as a software engineer through the wonderful people who work here. Working with people who actively want to see you improve and care about your contributions means a great deal to anyone, especially an intern, and I’m thankful that this quality abounds in HCSS employees. My coworkers have taught me that my work has value and that I should actively seek to improve and engage in a continuous cycle of feedback and learning. HCSS truly provides the tools for anyone to succeed, and they will as long as the individual wielding them actively seeks to learn, request feedback for his or her work, and identify ways to improve.

Credit: Photography by Josh Espinoza

Construction: an industry loaded with opportunity!

Blog, Featured, Interns Posted: August 11, 2017

We always thought we’d be dressed in blazers and heels for our first business trip — not steel-toed workboots and polos.

So when HCSS President and CEO Mike Rydin initially told us on about our potential trip to Ohio, we were, at first, shocked and speechless. Mike was sending us to Ohio with the HCSS marketing team to conduct video interviews of people who work in the construction industry about their jobs. We asked them questions like:

“Tell us about your educational background.”

“What do you love about construction?”

“How did you get started in the industry?”

“What does your job role entail?”

Their answers, along with videos and photos of Ohio landmarks and construction sites, will be turned into a video for that will help high school and college students learn about construction and get pumped to join the industry. Our goal is to help recruit young people to the industry and show them that the stereotype of “hardhat-wearing strong men sweating in the sun all day while hammering things and pouring concrete” isn’t an entirely accurate view of working in construction.

We flew to Columbus, Ohio, on a Sunday afternoon and started working around Cincinnati at 3 a.m. the following morning.

During that first day, we had to interview construction workers for John R. Jurgensen Company, Eaton Asphalt Paving Co., Inc, and Kelchner. We also met instructors, volunteers, and attendees of Rosie’s Girls, a summer program through the YWCA that introduces girls ages 11 to 13 to STEM-related careers and teaches basic skills in carpentry and other trades.

We toured Messer Construction Company’s new headquarters, currently under construction, visited the University of Cincinnati to interview a professor and more construction workers, stopped by the Great American Ballpark (home of the Cincinnati Reds), and did a little bit of sightseeing.

Looking back on it, it’s surreal that we fit two states (we went into Kentucky) and so many site visits into one day. We’re the type of interns that enjoy having important tasks to accomplish, so the busy schedule was perfect for us. As Josephine De La Baume put it, “you can really only enjoy life when you’re extremely busy.” Any idle seconds we spent in Ohio would equate to missed interviews, sites, pictures, experiences, and memories.

Jackie Alf, Executive Vice President of John R. Jurgensen Co., HCSS intern Jackie Rosenthal, HCSS Project Manager Karen Hall, and HCSS intern Leona Ellankil stand in front of the Roebling Suspension Bridge, which spans the Ohio River between Cincinnat, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky.

During our second day, we met with employees at The Jurgensen Companies’ headquarters and also interviewed workers at a road construction site in Middletown, Ohio, before watching a blast at Melvin Stone Company’s limestone quarry in Wilmington. The purpose of the blast was to harvest some limestone rock from the quarry wall to use as aggregate in different construction jobs, and it was a real treat seeing that explosion.We also toured the quarry and saw the tracks on which the carts of limestone travel.

Jackie and Leona pose in front of the blast site at the limestone quarry in Wilmington, Ohio.

On the third day, we interviewed The Beaver Excavating Co. workers at the Harrison Hills High School construction site in Cadiz, Ohio. The site was a learning experience for both of us, as we learned about dynamic compaction, which features a crane dropping a weight to compact dirt on the ground so that the building on top of the ground won’t cave in once it’s built. We were even lucky enough to see the process in action at the job site. It was also interesting to see how proud the employees and students were of the site — a school at which they would soon teach and learn, respectively. Later in the day we shot some B-roll, or extra footage, at Piedmont Lake before interviewing tradesmen at Ohio CAT Construction Equipment in Columbus.
On our final day in Ohio, we interviewed employees at Kokosing Construction Company, Inc., in Westerville before returning home to Houston. The people we interviewed at Kokosing expressed stories about themselves or people they know who were able to move up in roles in the construction industry, like being promoted from laborer to estimator.
We came back from Ohio with such a deep appreciation and excitement for construction. We met more than 50 people in the industry and had experiences we never even imagined. The state of Ohio and its construction companies treated us well, and we hope we can give back to them with successful videos.

Jackie’s Thoughts

I was honored to be invited to Ohio on behalf on I Build America. It was one of the most eye-opening events I’ve experienced. One of the trip’s highlights was getting to know the stories and passions of so many people, all of whom I would have never even met if it wasn’t for this opportunity.

I was even somewhat envious of the young construction workers I met: many of them were around 20 years old, with a house, a wife or husband, kids, cars, fun vacations, tradeskills, no college debt, and jobs they thoroughly enjoyed. You can bet that I’ll be doing my part to let my friends in high school and college know what a great career choice the construction industry is. In fact, I’ve already begun doing so.

I think it’s time we realize the trades and construction are just as important, if not more so, than other industries that require college degrees. Without roads, how would an ambulance get from an emergency scene to the hospital? Without buildings, where would businessmen be officed? The construction industry should no longer be overlooked by so many young people.

The trip also helped me realize four things I want in my own career: a job that includes travel, a job that is well paying, a job that enables me to meet and get to know many interesting people on a personal level, and a job that stirs up a strong passion within me.

Jackie interviewing Jim Rocchi, Eastern Ohio Director of Outreach for the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio

Leona’s Thoughts

Prior to this internship and trip, I always had this mindset that the construction industry revolved around hard hats and working outdoors. But in reality, there is so much more to it.

Going on this trip helped me to realize there are numerous jobs for people in this industry, including estimators, foremen, project managers, laborers, supervisors, and much more! The jobs can vary from working either outdoors or indoors, or both.

I was honored to have the ability to interview people in this industry for our ‘I Build America’ video, during which I was able to see each person’s passion for their job, and and I enjoyed every second of it.

Something interesting that I noticed on this trip was the number of women working in the construction industry. They were truly inspiring, and each one of them showed how much confidence, power, and knowledge they bring to the table. On our visit to Rosie’s Girls, we met a woman who was pregnant with a baby due just two weeks later. Yet she still continued to work as a carpenter and to show the young girls how awesome her job is. This situation gave me a new perspective on life, that I or any women can do anything we set our minds to.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to go on this trip. It had a huge impact on how I view the construction industry. To all high school or college students looking for a career path to follow, look into the construction industry.

Leona listens to an interview at a John R. Jurgensen site and completing a checklist.

The Life Of A Computer Science Major in QA Automation