graduate profiles - David Saunders

•  University Background
• University of Technology Sydney
• Bachelor of Engineering majoring in Electrical Engineering
• Role
• Test Analyst
• What have you worked on so far?
• I’ve spent most of my time at Avocado so far working on a project at one of Avocado’s larger clients. We’ve been engaged to test the development of an end to end equities trading system.
• I’ve largely been involved with test case design so have worked with Business Analysts and Business Stakeholders to make sure that our test scenarios have covered all of the requirements the business users have from the system
• After the test cases were prepared I was involved in running through the test scenarios to find any bugs or defects in the system and then worked with the development team to fix them.
• Career Goals
• I’m keen to stay at Avocado for as long as possible and really work towards building my technical skills in the testing area.
• What sort of Graduate would you recommend Avocado consulting to?
• Someone who has attention to detail is important due to the nature of testing.
• I think you also need to enjoy working in a team environment and be able to get along with a wide range of people as your team members can change frequently when working on IT projects.
• Being a consultant, a professional attitude is important but it’s still good to be social and to have some fun
• What challenges have you overcome during your time at Avocado Consulting?
• One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced was translating the Business requirements into technical test cases.
• As I studied a more technically focused degree, it took a while for me to properly understand the business area which was heavily finance focused
• What support have you had since joining Avocado?
• When we are working on a project on client site, we are always working with other experienced Avocado consultants.
• We also have lunch time workshop sessions from the experienced testers about best practice techniques and methods that they use which have also been really helpful
• I’m also going to be sitting the ISTQB testing certification (an internationally recognised testing qualification) shortly which will help to formalize some of the things I’ve learned on the job.