Skipton Building Society Internship

Overview

During my gap-year I took an internship at Skipton Building Society as a software tester. Initially my job was to experiment with the use of automated testing however I eventually ended up presenting this software to groups of senior developers and working to integrate it into the society's general workflow, moving between teams helping them implement it.

SBS requested that I stay after my internship and I still currently work remotely one day a week whilst at university, training testers in automation.

The Start

My initial internship was a paid 9 month role where I was given SmartBear's TestComplete system to learn. The society hadn't integrated automated testing beyond unit tests into their workflow so were hoping to learn whether it was worth using. I was paired with one other tester and we learnt the system and began using it to automate testing of the society's customer portal.

I found TestComplete a really nice system with a very user-friendly design for non-programmers and felt it would be a really good fit for the society. Within a month or so I started taking initiative to bring it to the attention of others, mentioning it to senior developers. One ended up organising a call with a larger collection of 20-30 and asking me to talk them through it.

I hosted and ran the call, showing the benefits and drawbacks of the system and getting the developers opinions and over-time we decided it was worth using. Licenses were bought and handed out and I began moving through scrum teams helping them integrate it into their work.

Additional Actions

On the side of this, I also did a number of other tasks:

• Researched Gherkin, a language designed to allow expected test outcomes to be written in a standardised manner. Which also presented to a number of developers and organised a number of meetings around, facilitating conversation around its uses.
• Co-Ran a coding club to up-skill testers and make them more familiar with coding principles.
• Produced a large quantity of documentation and educational resources learning and working with TestComplete and coding in a testing context in general.
• Pushed for the society to set-up standards for all their future automated testing.

Skills Learnt

Throughout this internship I found that my social skills developed greatly. I got a lot better at giving criticism, being willing to ask questions and admitting I didn't understand things (all things I somewhat originally struggled with).

I also:

• Learnt a large amount around Microsoft's Azure Cloud Systems
• Learnt the ins and outs of Manual and automated testing
• Gained real world experience of an Agile working environment, which I greatly enjoyed.
• Developed a much stronger understanding of APIs and back-end programming which I had never previously looked into.

Multiple times during my work there I was requested to stay as an apprentice rather than go to University, I did turn this offer down but I still currently work there one day a week remotely and full time over summers.

I found SBS an incredibly friendly and safe feeling place with a really healthy culture. Their attitude towards change was very exciting to work in. Multiple times I found I would make a mistake and be worried my teams would be annoyed or upset only to find they wouldn't even consider it an issue and with zero negative responses they would just ask how they could help to fix it and work with me to plan a solution.