A long time ago, I promised myself that if life offered me an interesting plot twist, I would follow it. Perhaps this is why I love working in the tech industry. The pace is fast and the rate of change is exponential (or sometimes even logarithmic). Being open to learning is required for professional survival. Personally, I’ve found that the plans and dreams I had 12 months ago, are not the same plans and dreams I have today. They’ve gotten bigger and I’m feeling ambitious. (a woman with ambition…this could be dangerous.)
Atlassian has been a great place for me to get my feet wet in Agile and to work with web-based technology. I love Confluence and the rest of Atlassian product line up. It is sad to leave, but life has given me another plot twist, and I’m going for it.
I’ve gotten a job with Mozilla’s WebQA team, and expect it to be a great challenge. Although the job includes exploratory, manual testing it will also be heavy on the writing of selenium checks and test infrastructure with python.
The automation lead for the WebQA team with whom I’ll be working is David Burns. He writes the blog, The Automated Tester, and has published a book on using Selenium. We met at the Google Test Automation Conference in 2008 and have kept up with each other through blogging and twitter. This will be my first opportunity to work with someone I’ve met through blogging which blows my mind!
To join the Mozilla team, I’ll be moving to the Bay Area in California where their headquarters is located. I will miss Sydney and the people I’ve met here. Believe me, I will shed a few tears when I board the plane to leave Australia.
It is, however, a few weeks before I leave, and I’ve got some loose ends to tie up. I’m working on a retrospective of using a wiki for software testing. I also plan to facilitate a session of WTANZ on March 20. Since I’ll be in a timezone far removed from Australia AND New Zealand, this will be the last WTANZ that I facilitate.
Does this mean it’s the end for WTANZ? Although I haven’t made plans for a handover, I suspect that it is not. I’ve been quite impressed with how different groups have taken the “what” of Weekend Testing and changed the time to suit their needs. I’ve also been impressed with the community of testers I’ve found in this part of the world. They are a rollicking bunch and I’m glad I can at least keep up with them on twitter.
It’s been a pleasure, Marlena. We’ll miss you! Mozilla are a lucky bunch!
Looking forward to hearing about your continued adventures and hopefully catching up when next I find my way to the US.
So I guess I can talk now, huh (LOL!). So excited for you and really happy this turned out well for you. We’ll have to celebrate when you get into town (we could go back for tapas again if your game, I loved that place :) ).
As to Weekend Testing, there will be others to pick up the baton if it’s valuable to them, I’ve seen it here, and it’s likely the same where yo uare at… of course, if you feel a hankering to do more of it, WTA would be happy to have you throw your hat into the ring when and if you want to ;).
Again, congratulations, looking forward to seeing you at Selenium Conf :).
–MKL
Congratulations on the new adventure. We’re looking forward to having you on the web qa team at Mozilla!
Congratulations! Wishing you the very best in your new adventure :) (of course, keep writing!)
Marlena,
congratulations and welcome back to the states!
Congratulations!!
Mozilla’s WebQA team is really putting some gems together (OK hatching eggs since test infrastructure is python ;))
Really looking forward to some post like the post of Matt http://freecog.com/2011/02/a-1st-month-with-mozilla/
Or maybe something where All of you write post together.
All the very best.
Though I agree the show has very liberal use of the catch phrase but I still “This is going to be Legen.. (waiting for at mozilla posts :))”
Congratulations! It would be a great opportunity to work with David, nice guy think he is from South Africa. I have known him for sometime. He is in the UK and wondering how would you be collaborating. You probably end up facilitating WTAmericas chapter. You know Michael Larsen who runs the Americas chapter is in SF. Good luck with the new endeavour and see you around.
My last visit to Sydney was in December 1975 From Monash.
Oooh, congrats. Sounds very exciting, feeling the jealousy coming :)
The adventure continues ! Good luck with the new job, sure it will provide lots of blogging material
Congratulations! You’ll be awesome and I hope it’s great!
I know a few people affiliated with Mozilla, and they’re all rad.