Question: Today, we have Iuliia Kozlova as our guest—an ISTQB and CKA-certified specialist whose expertise has been recognized by the American Software Testing Qualifications Board. Iuliia, could you tell us about your unique role in the QA team and how your knowledge helps the team overcome challenges? Can you share a case where your contribution was crucial to the project's success?
Answer: I can elaborate using the Wink project as an example. Wink is one of the largest digital video services in the CIS, combining the functions of an online cinema and interactive TV, providing users with access to an impressive collection of films, series, and TV channels. In 2023, the number of paying Wink users alone approached 10 million, and the company's profit was in the tens of billions. In terms of concept and provided offerings, Wink can be compared to Hulu. Quality assurance is a priority on such projects due to high competition in the field, so winning user trust and expanding the audience can only be achieved by providing a stable and high-quality product. In 2023, Wink began developing a completely new direction for itself—a music service, for which development of its own application for Android and iOS platforms was initiated. On that project, I was appointed the leader of the QA engineering team. I faced a complex task—building quality assurance processes for two mobile applications in parallel and, additionally, taking on full support for the release of new applications in the AppStore and Google Play. I acted as a liaison between business representatives and development teams, initiating a risk assessment process for accurate prioritization of the project backlog. Risk assessment was necessary, as the work was carried out in record time, and it was necessary to correctly prioritize tasks and establish the workflow. This project required strong and rare technical skills from me in related areas, for example, knowledge of development guidelines for iOS and Android platforms to determine the readiness criteria for products for release in mobile stores. In addition, my experience in team management played a key role in the success of the project, as I managed the QA team's resources and participated in all stages of selecting team members—from initial interviews to onboarding. Thanks to my leadership and the coordinated work of the team, we were able to successfully launch applications on the market in record time, already in the spring of 2024, while ensuring high product quality. This was important for Wink, as the release of an unfinished product would carry reputational risks for the company's existing products, and it would be very difficult to gain trust in new products in the future. I am glad that I was able to apply my expertise and acquire many new useful skills that no doubt will be useful to me in the future.
Question: What role do you play in product development after the product is released on the market? Do you maintain a leadership role in ensuring product quality after its release, or do you only support it during the development phase?
Answer: The role changes from project to project, but it's important to understand that there's always room for improvement and development in a product, often depending on business requests and allocated budget. For example, in Wink's case, the main task in the first six months after the app's release was to analyze user experience application stability and identify bottlenecks that could be fixed with limited resources. To ensure the quality of these goals, I created a system that allowed me to monitor numerous product and performance metrics. For this, I used the Kibana metric visualization panel—I set up a system of dashboards to track key indicators such as system response time, the number of processed requests, and error frequency. This allowed us to see in real time how the system copes with the load and identify anomalies. For example, we noticed that the response time increased at certain times, indicating performance issues. Thanks to my deep experience working with the product during its development phase, we were able to quickly identify the root cause of the problem—insufficient optimization of database queries. I organized joint work with the development team to review the query architecture and implement necessary solutions for optimization. By improving some aspects of the architecture, we managed to reduce response time by 40% during peak load hours and significantly improve user experience. Using dashboards with selected and finely tuned performance indicators not only allowed us to respond promptly to problems but also became a critical tool for making informed decisions based on live operational data. This emphasized the importance of quality assurance not only during active development but also during support and building future development plans for the product. Such a proactive position and the involvement of QA in the development process are always highly valued and yield results. I built a similar system for another project I was involved in—Zvuk. For visualization, however, I used a different tool—Sentry. Metric visualization is of paramount importance for large projects, as it exposes relevant information to people with different levels of technical expertise, including non-technical stakeholders.
Question: Could you elaborate on the Zvuk project? What were the complexities of this project, and where was your expertise indispensable?
Answer: Zvuk is the largest multifunctional streaming service, offering users music, podcasts, and audiobooks in hi-fi quality. In terms of the scale and provided services, Zvuk can be compared to industry giants like Spotify and Apple Music. Zvuk develops and continuously improves several applications at once—a web application, applications for iOS and Android, applications for Android Auto and CarPlay, integration for playback on Sber devices and TV. Given the scale and diversity of development areas, the company collaborates only with highly qualified specialists capable of ensuring high product quality. On the project, I headed the testing team, implemented changes in the automated testing process on one of the streaming projects—this allowed us to double the number of releases and significantly reduce the time to market, which positively impacted the business. After the first releases with the introduction of automated testing on this project, the effectiveness of the strategy I proposed became clear, after which I began consulting on process configuration for teams from related projects. The most challenging task was the need to change existing processes for creating and managing test environments—this was necessary to optimize the use of both machine and human resources. It was not easy to convince some team members to completely rebuild processes, change the distribution of responsibilities within the team, track certain metrics, and master new tools. However, my decision ultimately allowed us to complete the task ahead of schedule and without compromising quality. This also led to my involvement in the process of hiring new employees to form teams that could support new processes and continue to improve the characteristics of the released product. My significant experience in expanding the team, which I gained on another project, Rutube, played a leading role here. This was a serious test not only of my technical skills and leadership qualities but also of hard work, which is always rewarded when you see the results of your efforts and recognition from colleagues.
Question: Regarding Rutube, what challenges did this project pose for you as a high-level specialist?
Answer: Rutube is the leading video platform in the CIS, with over 30 million unique visitors per month, and is an analogue of YouTube, providing users with the ability to create and view a wide range of video content. On the Rutube project, I headed the team of quality assurance engineers and became a key player in the content moderation and recommendation stream. Under my leadership, we discovered numerous critical vulnerabilities in the web application related to the loss of user data. This not only saved the company from multi-million dollar financial losses but also proved to stakeholders the importance of quality testing in the development process. During the work, I significantly expanded the team, increasing it by 50%, which significantly improved the quality of the developed products. As part of the work on the moderation system, I tested the results of machine learning model training. This turned out to be a complex task, as it required deep immersion and analysis of a large amount of data on the conducted training, but my ability to quickly navigate large data sets and notice patterns allowed me to get the job done. In addition to my primary responsibilities, I also conducted onboarding for new employees, which ensured their quick and efficient integration into the work and contributed to the transfer of expertise within the team. I was a logical choice for this position, as I was the only one on the team with a global vision of the product. This is especially important for large projects, where dependence on the knowledge of one employee can mean the loss of valuable time when they leave the company, and consequently, profits and possibly competitive advantage. As further practice has shown, it was thanks to my close involvement in these processes that our team was able to cope with the tasks set by the business.
Question: You are a certified ISTQB and CKA specialist—a very unusual combination of skills and definitely not found among ordinary engineers. Could you tell us how you managed to acquire competencies in such different areas and how you use them in your work?
Answer: First of all, the combination of these skills gives me a unique opportunity to integrate automated testing into CI/CD processes without involving DevOps engineers. This significantly speeds up the development cycle and improves the quality of the final product, which is especially useful in cases where skills in building an automated testing system are required on a project. For example, this is the case on a project from SberTech, where I act as an independent expert. I owe my deep understanding of the project's architecture primarily to the fact that my knowledge goes beyond the field of quality assurance. This gives me an understanding of how best to integrate new automated testing processes into existing development processes, which helps avoid many problems—suboptimal resource utilization multiple conflicts in the infrastructure during integration. And as a result, companies are usually forced to involve DevOps specialists to solve these problems, which significantly increases development costs and leads to delays in delivering the finished product to the user. By hiring a specialist with my knowledge and skills, companies gain confidence that they will not encounter these problems and will be able to use their resources wisely, receiving a quality product in a short time. In addition, confirmation of my expertise in the form of international certificates allows me to effectively consult members of the development team, as they are confident that my advice can be trusted.
Question: Could you share a story from your work practice that reveals your role well?
Answer: For example, my current engagement with Zvuk. Since the fall of 2024, I have been the only QA on the team developing a new critical feature in applications for iOS and Android platforms for integration with devices from the Sber device family. Development is carried out in a very short time, and the team faces new requirements, conditions, and unforeseen problems in the process, which often happens in the processes of integration with third-party services, so it is especially important that the team has a subject matter expert and a kind of knowledge holder about the product. I was invited to join the project and take on these roles, as I have the necessary competencies and I have previously worked with Zvuk applications, so I have a systemic vision of the product and am deeply immersed in the company's release processes. In my current team, I am fully and solely responsible for the quality of integration, which serves as a recognition from colleagues and business and a high appreciation of my previous activities, as integrations are always especially important for business, and all participants understand the importance of successful implementation. Performing such a critical role on a project is a task that requires significant effort and responsibility, a high level of expertise in several aspects of development, and constant involvement in work and communications that go far beyond working hours. However, it is precisely such complexities that contribute to my professional growth and development, forcing me to master new skills and expand my horizons, which ultimately benefits not only me but the entire team. I quickly adapt to changing conditions and find solutions in difficult situations, which makes me a particularly valuable member of the project. Such complex and dynamic projects are always a catalyst for further development.
Question: A specialist of your level probably receives many offers for various forms of cooperation. Could you tell us about your contribution to the industry outside of your primary responsibilities?
Answer: In addition to project work, there are indeed other activities in which I participate. For example, in the summer of 2024, I was invited as a judge for the "AI-Powered Mental Wellness Support Chatbot" hackathon, the goal of which was to create an AI-based solution to help people with psychological problems. One of the main criteria for selection was the presence of a wide specialization and a systemic vision of the project, as well as knowledge of modern AI trends and problems in the subject area, which distinguished me from other candidates. Later, I was included in the jury of another competition dedicated to general programming tasks. In addition, my scientific articles are published in major Russian and Eastern European publications such as the Eastern European Scientific Journal, Scientific Aspect, as well as Science and Education Today. As an example of one of my latest publications, I can cite an article on the application of LSTM neural networks for load forecasting and resource management in Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure—a topic that I became interested in relatively recently while studying various AWS services. Earlier, I had already published another article on the topic of cloud technologies, specifically on the application of hybrid clouds in the IT infrastructure of enterprises. Given my extensive experience as a mentor and my interest in the education process as a whole, I also co-authored an article on the use of cloud technologies to improve the effectiveness of the educational process. At the time of this conversation, another article is in the works, which is planned for release in early 2025. In parallel, I am also conducting the technical review of a book on OpenShift 4—a Kubernetes-based platform with full-cycle development support. The invitation came from Packt, one of the world's largest IT literature publishers. They needed a person with extensive experience with Kubernetes who could share their vision of how useful the book would be for those who have never worked with OpenShift. Unfortunately, a large volume of tasks and my critical role on the current project do not always allow me to accept all offers.
