Five Questions With Dmitri Klementiev

Dmitri Klementiev tests software at Microsoft. No, he develops software for Microsoft. No, he tests software for Microsoft. I'm confused.

Oh, I get it: Dmitri is the type of tester for whom Microsoft originally coined the title Software Development Engineer in Test: he spends his days developing software to help other testers better do their job. In Dmitri's case this has largely meant putting massive amounts of time into developing the tool many Microsoft testers use to automate their drive-my-application's-user-interface test cases. Dmitri's Doctorate Of Mathematics and experience in mathematical and computer modeling seems to be holding him in good stead as he navigates the intricacies of automating the user interfaces of Microsoft's many different applications and operating systems.

Here is what Dmitri has to say:

DDJ: What was your first introduction to testing? What did that leave you thinking about the act and/or concept of testing?
DK: When I joined Microsoft in June 1998. Automation that can be greatly improved and increase the efficiency of testing.

DDJ: How would you describe your testing philosophy?
DK: We have to deliver high quality products and our customers should love our products which means an elegant and "comfortable" (for users, not for us) design. Testing is a "quality gate keeping" in this process.

DDJ: What do you think is the most important thing for a tester to know? To do? For developers to know and do about testing?
DK: Testers - their product, technologies that are used in the products, customer expectations, industry standards, other related products on the market. Programming skills to write automation. Should drive the quality of the products we ship.

Devs - how the products are tested: test plans, approaches, automation. Also know and support requirements to make the tester’s job (including automation) more efficient.

DDJ: What do you see as the biggest challenge for testers/the test discipline for the next five years?
DK: Keep up with new technologies. Make automation much more efficient.

DDJ: Going meta (to channel Jerry Weinberg), what else should I ask you? What would you answer?
DK: What’s the difference between a porcupine and a hedgehog. And I would answer "I don’t know" :)

DDJ: Is there anything else you would like to say?
DK: Since I am in UI automation world I would say that we are still pretty much in the beginning of the game - a lot of very complex and at the same time very interesting problems ahead. Let's be those who find good solutions for them.

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

Posted by The Braidy Tester at 07:30 AM  Permalink