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Pankaj Kumar

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Pankaj Kumar

Sr. Test Architect

Arctern

Pankaj Kumar is a member of:

Could you tell us briefly about your family background?

I come from Jammu (J and K). My father is a retired HOD, Zoology and being passionate about teaching he still continues to impart knowledge to the students in a private college. My mother is a home maker and I have two siblings.

Work Accomplishments

I joined here to lead test automation efforts with VSTS2010 as a tool of choice. VSTS was still in Beta then and it was a challenge in itself to train the teams on a new tool. With time my roles and responsibilities expanded to Sr. Test Architect. I am glad that today we have an excellent VSTS team.

Contributions

I always try my best to contribute to the field in every way possible. I actively participate in the forums(especially VSTS CodedUI on MSDN) and share my knowledge along with learning from the queries that are posted. I also aspire to write a book on test automation but that idea is still in infancy

Current Role in The Organization

Every role is equally important in an organisation. Right now I am shouldering the responsibilities of a Sr. Test Architect wherein I am responsible for the overall testing strategy of the QA department for the product I am working on, with a slight more weight towards test automation. (2.8 years)

Motivation

Challenging tasks and the faith of my seniors and peers/team-members in me is what drives me to deliver to the best of my capabilities.

Role Comparison

I started here as a Test Lead wherin I was responsible for test automation. As a Sr. Test Architect my roles and responsibilities have expanded to defining the entire test strategy for the QA department though my responsibilities are still a little more skewed towards test automation.

Winner of Top 10 QA Professionals (Bengaluru)

Sponsored by

Journey so far

I started my carrier with manual testing. My affinity towards programming pulled me towards test automation and in a quick succession I worked on many test automation tools(QTP, Sahi, Selenium, Load Runner, VSTS) which helped me build a strong foundation in automation. Currently I am working on VSTS

important career decisions

Although being inclined towards software development I decided to explore testing with a focus towards test automation as I believe that testing is equally challenging with more scope to understand and explore more about the technologies.

Boss Qualities

Boss should be a true leader who leads by example. Not only providing feedbacks about a job done well or done wrong he/she should also mentor the juniors leading with examples to show how it can be done better. A little humbleness always works great wonders in bringing up synergy in the team.

Working Preference

Although I won't refuse to work with any person (unless he/she is a criminal :-)), I won't feel comfortable working with a myopic person. Working with a challenging person is again a learning and will help in understand more about group dynamics and how to cope with it.

Work Ethics

It's always duty first. I try to keep my personal interests aside when my decisions impact a greater audience. I believe that when you are at a critical position in an organisation you should not take the management on a ransom. Give your best and align your decisions with the organisation's growth.

Success Path

As they say "Success is a relative term". We can not consider ourselves successful on the basis of one event. I have been blessed with success in most of my endeavors in my carrier. I embarked on a mammoth task of building a strong VSTS team here and till now my team and myself have been successful.

Professional Advice

For QA professionals and others at large, my only advice would be to stick to an organisation and don't rest until it is in a position where you dream yourself to be.
And for QA professionals I would like to advise not to consider it a less technical area. Learn extensively about the technologies.

Recommendation

ISTQB Foundation Level is a bare minimum for any testing professional.
Then comes the certifiications in the automation tools that they are working on.
I would also recommend doing a certification in any programming language of choice, DB of choice, an OS of choice and certifications like 6-Sigma.