Hello World is the first phrase learned by any IT career aspirant who is first introduced to a programming language. This article would be perfect for someone looking for an international Dev career, but today I’m bringing 5 tips from my career path as a QA and my interest in taking bigger flights, namely Europe.
My journey in the QA world began when I was aiming for a career as a developer. Yes, I once wanted to become a backend developer, but along the way, I discovered the Testing field during my first internship, around 2018. I had to deal with various tools, stacks, and fundamental computer science concepts.
By 2020, I faced a new challenge that required working with technologies ranging from API testing to mobile application testing (both iOS and Android).
Lastly – and certainly not least – my final position before moving to Portugal, in 2021, was at a company fully focused on manual and automated testing, where I found myself writing code and applying computer science and programming knowledge.
Up next, I’ll share my tips for IT professionals – especially QAs – in Brazil who are looking to start an international career.
I don’t have any statistical data to say that the stack X or Y are determinants for getting an international job, but I guarantee you that the more skills you gather during your career, the better for the competitive and diversified QA market, whether it is focused on Manual, Automated or Hybrid Testing.
This is how I opened my doors to jobs abroad, having had experiences with manual testing (Desktop, API, Web, and Mobile) and automated testing (Web, API). When you are willing to learn new tools and approaches, the chance of finding positions that match your skills is higher.
Here is another tip for those who are studying or preparing to enter the QA field: always try to understand how IT positions work and deal with the relevant application and/or service. This understanding meets two of the most important skills in Quality Assurance: the ability to abstract and detail, for example, business rules, what the modules of the application look like (even if only superficially), and what is the role of each team member.
As mentioned in the first tip, the more diverse your stacks are, the better your chances of getting an international QA job. Therefore, manual and automated testing skills are very welcome; and what helped me a lot, in the beginning, was having participated in bootcamps, programming marathons, Software Engineering courses in college, and online courses (in programming and QA).
In the marathons, I developed the creativity to test edge cases, input types, and negative flows in order to pass the online judge (a system developed in programming marathons and competitions to determine if the code generates the expected outputs for certain inputs, in other words, if the code is right based on an algorithm). All this shaped my thinking in both QA and Programming. In the courses, I got up to date and was able to understand the roadmap to becoming a QA Analyst.
Some of the platforms and websites I used to prepare myself:
Test Automation University – a very good website for those who want to improve their technical skills related to QA and Test Automation.
How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Interactive Edition – a very complete platform when it comes to learning Computer Science and algorithms through Python.
Hackerrank – a great way to sharpen and challenge your understanding of Data Structure to algorithms.
Stacks from my path:
Good professionals are not only made of technical skills; regardless of your career path, soft skills matter a lot! In terms of QA, you should try to work and improve on the following soft skills:
If you want to know more about the important soft skills to master in the tech industry, take a look at this article.
Knowing English is a must-have for any international career — and QA is no exception. My tip here is to do everything you can to make your daily life immersed in the English language; in other words, try to fully switch your mindset to the language. Start by changing your phone’s language settings, and consider joining a language course or conversation group.
Personally, I saw my English level improve significantly once I started listening to English podcasts (I recommend these two: All Ears English and English Across The Pond) and participating actively in an English group with people from different countries. Even though I studied English for four years in high school and university — which helped me with writing and reading — my listening and speaking skills only evolved after that.
When it comes to using English in a QA career, my advice is to take courses and watch technical videos in English. This helps your mind get comfortable with the language in a professional context. A good strategy is to start watching videos with Portuguese subtitles, then switch to English subtitles, and finally, try watching without any subtitles.
Another important step is to practice job interviews in English, so you can start recognizing common patterns and recruiter questions. Something that really helped me was creating a list of frequently asked interview questions in English and practicing my answers — both written and spoken.
This tip is of utmost importance. You should have a CV or resume aligned with what is requested in the European context. It is important to have a resume in English, as it will be a good indicator of your language level and may also facilitate the recruiter’s work in case you come across companies that use it during the whole application process.
Another suggestion is to find or ask for a resume template from someone who has already been in the international market and can pick up valuable tips on positioning information, best practices, key terms, useful information, etc.
If you don’t have one yet, create a LinkedIn account. It is the recruiter’s gateway for understanding the projects you worked on and the stacks that you know, so always keep it updated with links to your projects and repositories. Based on my processes, I realized that the challenges that are required for a certain position can add value to your portfolio, for example, through projects on GitHub, as well as personal challenges where you implement a new technology.
If you are considering starting this journey, I strongly recommend applying to KWAN.
If you’ve read about my career path, at the beginning of the article, here’s a final bonus: during 2019, I tried to apply for a position through KWAN’s website and got my first international interview; however, due to the negative result, I realized that I should reinforce my knowledge before applying to a new international job vacancy. Three years later, with more technical and linguistic experience, I got the long-dreamed-of position from that same company.
Today I work in one of the companies that belongs to the same group as KWAN, InvoiceXpress.
After a few months of living and working abroad, I couldn’t be happier!
I wish you good luck in your preparation and application; you will see that all the work will be worthwhile… and who knows we might even be colleagues! Learn more about KWAN here.