Navigating My Career Journey: Alina

At Guidewire, our interns and graduates are given the opportunity to make a real impact through our Guidewire Basecamp program. Dig deeper into Alina's story to hear how she has thrived in Guidewire Malaysia's supportive environment and how she's expanded her skills since joining as a graduate.

Introduce yourself

Hi, I am Alina from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I joined Guidewire in April 2022 and I am a QA [Quality Assurance] Engineer for Cloud Assurance Production Services team (CAPS).

My role requires me to understand the logic of the products and thoroughly learn the requirements and keep updated on the current behavior of our products. I am truly grateful for the support and guidance from my team to navigate through my first experience of working professionally as a QA engineer.

Digging Deeper: The Daily Role

On an average day, I start off by checking emails. During this time, I organize my to-do list and get started on the tasks that are top priority. My typical workday consists of several repetitive tasks depending on the phase of the project sprint. Some of those tasks might include; analyzing and clarifying requirements, planning test design and writing test cases, executing manual testing, identifying bugs, and maintaining the test documentation.

Towards the end of each sprint, there is a handover session. This is my favorite part of the job because during the handover session, all QA engineers in my team explain and summarize their test documentation; therefore, I get the opportunity to learn more details about the product and dive into the different functions of the product at the same time.

The Globe Culture

The most significant advantage of my hybrid working experience and working with teams across the globe is the feeling that I have the best of both worlds. This arrangement offers flexibility in terms of convenience and productivity, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also encourages us to be more engaged with teammates across the globe with more intentional, and more meaningful, interactions.

Working from home has both pros and cons, but it has been a great experience for me as I've had adequate space and time to adjust myself while transitioning from student life to working life.

Opportunities To Leap Further

After my first month at Guidewire, I went to Dublin, Ireland, to attend my team's CAPS team Summit. I had the opportunity to meet and talk to so many different people about their experiences on different projects in CAPS. I was thrilled to hear about their successes and progress.

Professionally, I got to learn so many new things that helped start off my journey as a QA Engineer in Guidewire on the right foot, such as; the overall CAPS quality practice, our team goals and visions, testing guidelines and consistency of usage.

It was such a great learning opportunity. Here's to more CAPS Summits!

Building Critical New Skills

From something as simple as figuring out how to be on time for every meeting, to learning how to submit and deliver tasks on time and to a high standard- I would say collaboration and agility are the most critical skills needed in this fast-moving and shifting industry. It is crucial to be able to work effectively as a part of a team.

Being a graduate at Guidewire, the ability to collaborate and contribute effectively to the team through knowledge-sharing and unique perspectives is critical. Additionally, learning to be agile is an important skill in order to respond accordingly to the needs and requirements of our products. As the saying goes, 'yesterday's solutions do not solve tomorrow's problems'.

Advice To Future Graduates

Keep an open mind and be patient! In the transition from student life to working life, the new environment can be tricky to navigate. You need to start somewhere, and it won't be easy. Your workload will only increase with time, as well as your responsibilities. As this is the first step on the stairwell, it is okay to take time to absorb and learn, and find ways to improve yourself. Take the opportunity to learn everything from everyone around you.

During the first few months of joining Guidewire, my mentor (one of my teammates) was assigned to help me to navigate through work processes. So, I would say Guidewire has a supportive and positive work environment-- and this encourages me to be more proactive in collaborating with my teammates to increase our productivity.

Are you finishing up your studies and ready to Navigate What's Next? Check out the students and graduate page to see what else Guidewire Basecamp could hold for you. Read more about our Kuala Lumpur office here.