Five Questions With Alvaro Peon-Sanchez

Alvaro Peon-Sanchez is a self-described end-to-end tester. Microsoft found him during his computer systems engineering studies at Mexico's Tec de Monterrey. After an internship testing PowerPoint addins Alvaro hired on full-time. He spent a stint on a product call information bridge framework, moved to a project which was ultimately canceled, and now works on Office PerformancePoint Server.

Here is what Alvaro has to say:

DDJ: What was your first introduction to testing?
AP: I’ve always been intrigued by how things work. As a kid and teen I wanted to be a chemist so I would spend a lot of time running tests on things. But my first real life introduction to software testing was when I got an internship at Microsoft. Before that my friends that had had internships there explained me the process of how “real” testing works.

DDJ: What did that leave you thinking about the act and/or concept of testing?
AP: Testing left me thinking of how much power testers have (and at the same time don’t) for controlling the quality of the product. Also it left me with a great feeling of getting to know everybody on the product, which you might not get being a developer.

DDJ: What is the most interesting bug you have seen?
AP: Better not talk about this in public :)

DDJ: How would you describe your testing philosophy?
AP: Code doesn’t work until proven otherwise. It makes me really mad when I see a product that doesn’t meet a certain bar. At the same time I keep in mind two things: there will always be bugs, and change happens, so be ready for both.

DDJ: What do you think is the most important thing for a tester to know?
AP: 1) Know what need your product solves. 2) Know your customer. 3) Know your technology.

DDJ: For developers to know and do about testing?
AP: For developers I would inverse the order. For a tester's relationship with your developer I would highly recommend: 1) Earn their respect. 2) Be friendly to them. 3) Bring them cookies every Friday.

DDJ: Is there something which is typically emphasized as important regarding testing that you think can be ignored, is unimportant?
AP: I think that there are things that are not mentioned regarding testing that we are ignoring. We focus so much on functional testing that we can miss the big picture. For example a part of my job is to create opportunities for the team to have the big picture and make sure we test real customer scenarios. Doing this helps developers understand what they are building, testers what we should be building and designers how to improve what we are building.

DDJ: What do you see as the biggest challenge for testers/the test discipline for the next five years?
AP: I think there are two big things that will happen in the next 5 years. The first is the technology of testing: The discipline started by doing manual tests, then moved to automation. I think the next big challenge is how to balance both and make full customer scenarios automated. Also products have become extremely interdependent on other products. Getting everything to work under one single, simple to use, and robust testing environment is going to be challenging. The second: We need to move from functional testing to more customer scenarios.

[See my Table Of Contents post for more details about this interview series.]

Posted by The Braidy Tester at 07:30 AM  Permalink