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We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Daniel Lopez-Andrade, one of our Project Managers, to discuss his journey at PLUS QA spanning nearly eight years. Beginning as a part-time tester in 2016 and advancing to his current role, Daniel provides valuable insight into achieving success in the QA industry. Join us as we delve into Daniel's career path, his significant contributions to our team, and even discover how he likes to spend his well-deserved days off.
Can you tell us a little bit about you? (interests outside of work, where you grew up, anything!)
I have been an Oregonian my whole life and a Portlander for 8 years. I am an avid lover of beaches, wine bars, seafood (send me your restaurant recommendations please!), carpentry, and reading.
You have moved through multiple different roles at PLUS QA, can you tell us how long have you been here and what your role is today?
I started in September 2016 as a part time tester focused on a single project. As the years went by, I got curious about being exposed to different projects and, after discussing with my leadership, got switched to a new team. With this transition, I expanded my QA skills due to the variety of projects I was working on and got promoted to a QA Lead role. A year and a half later, I got promoted to my current role as a Project Manager, where I am responsible for managing a portfolio of accessibility, front-end and back-end testing projects.
What qualities do you think make a good manager for a QA testing team?
Someone who is patient, observant, curious, and has perseverance.
What are your favorite projects you have managed over the years?
One of our clients is a sports retailer and had projects that involved doing outdoor exercise activities as part of their digital experience. It was fun to give my eyes screen breaks by going on mini outdoor runs in order to QA certain test scenarios.
What's the most rewarding part of your job?
Being able to advocate to clients and their vendors on behalf of the accessibility community for users that are too often overlooked in the digital world.
What have been some of the challenges you’ve encountered in your role? How have you handled them and what have you learned through that experience?
There was a point where I felt burnout because I felt like I had been doing the same thing for so long. But when I started learning about accessibility, it opened up this whole other side of the industry where it just revamped my engagement like never before. This reaffirmed my belief in the value of curiosity and leaning into it.
What advice might you have for someone who wants to be successful in a role like yours or in the QA industry in general?
Take note of coworkers whose work you admire/respect and learn about their technical and soft skills. From there, determine which areas you could improve or expose yourself more to. The more you learn, the further you will go in your career.
What do you think sets PLUS QA apart from others in the industry?
Having a device lab with such a broad range of devices. Oftentimes what catches a client’s attention is when they learn that we use physical devices for testing and just how many we have access to (over 450 devices and only going up from there). It gives us an edge by giving us the ability to catch device specific issues, operating system version specific issues, or issues that you would not encounter by simply testing on a simulator.
Another highlight for me has been the people who work at PLUS QA. I often hear from others outside the company about how stressful it is to engage with some of their coworkers. Whenever I hear these stories, it makes me feel grateful to be working here because, from personal experience, my stress has never been due to social reasons from other coworkers. Everyone is truly a pleasure to work with and I have made some good friends along the way.
Can you share a memorable moment or achievement from your time here at PLUS QA?
Achievement - getting promoted to my current role as a project manager. Memorable - experiencing my first solar eclipse while I was at the office in 2017. Took a small break from working to watch it happen.
What are we most likely to find you doing on the weekends?
A regular weekend day would usually entail a morning visit to a coffee shop to read a book, if the weather is nice at the beach most of the day, an evening at a wine bar or restaurant for dinner and a night out dancing.
Interested working with us? Visit our Careers page to learn more.