Not All Who Wander Are Lost: A Career Experience Report
21st February 2018
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Locked
Hilary Weaver
Sr. Quality Engineer

Talk Description
We’re led to believe that our careers should take us in a certain direction, that we’ll all end up in leadership or management at some point, and that’s the end of the road, the apex of our careers. Even with the relatively new role of Software Quality Architect in most organizations, it seemed like just one more stop on the way to leadership. Nobody in their right mind would step backwards and demote themselves, right?
Sometimes, your career path leads you in unexpected directions, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of! Hilary Weaver-Robb shares her journey that took her from QA Lead to QA Engineer, to Quality Architect, and back to Engineer. This journey took time and a lot of introspection - be prepared to do some of your own!
In this Masterclass, HIlary encourages you to rethink career paths (and how they’re not one-size-fits-all. She then goes on to explore the pros and cons of various roles in the tester’s career path and shares her lessons learned from taking a wonky career path.
Sometimes, your career path leads you in unexpected directions, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of! Hilary Weaver-Robb shares her journey that took her from QA Lead to QA Engineer, to Quality Architect, and back to Engineer. This journey took time and a lot of introspection - be prepared to do some of your own!
In this Masterclass, HIlary encourages you to rethink career paths (and how they’re not one-size-fits-all. She then goes on to explore the pros and cons of various roles in the tester’s career path and shares her lessons learned from taking a wonky career path.
What you’ll learn
By the end of this masterclass, you'll be able to:
- Realise career paths are complex and not linear
- Explore the pros and cons of various roles in the tester’s career path
- Recognise the potential benefits of taking a wonky career path
Hilary Weaver
Sr. Quality Engineer
Hilary Weaver is a Sr. Quality Engineer near Detroit. She is a mentor to her fellow testers, makes friends with developers, and focuses a lot on API testing, and diving into the code as a tester. Hilary has always been passionate about improving the relationships between developers and testers, and evangelizes software testing as a rewarding, viable career. She runs the Motor City Software Testers user group, working to build a community of quality advocates. Hilary tweets (a lot) as @g33klady, and you can find her thoughts and experiences in the testing world, at g33klady.com.
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