Aashu Chandra

The Journey : Early Days to How I Got Here

I initiated my career with CMC (now an element of TCS) immediately after completing my Engineering in Electronics. In CMC, I worked with Indian Railways computerization project which was one of the most thriving computerization projects of 1990s. After two years of my service in CMC, I moved to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). In TCS worked as Project leader to execute projects for some big International banks such as Deutsche bank, Standard Chartered bank etc.

After working for 5 years with TCS, then joined a US based Software Product Company and went to US to work in VoIP testing domain at Intel. Then joined Infogain, a California based US MNC. In Infogain, I was responsible for the testing of huge business critical testing engagement for HP, US. In consideration of my rich experience towards testing in my software career, I was promoted as a Head of Testing Services at Infogain.

Decisions That Mattered

When I was given the position of Project manager of my project, I decided to have a formal education and certification of Project management. I decided to pursue "Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from Project Management Institute (PMI)," US. This project management certification has helped me to manage complex and huge software projects using Industry best practices and techniques.

Two Years Down the Line

I have been actively contributing and participating in Testing community. In the next couple of years, I want to increase my involvement in the Testing domain.

What I Learnt Along the Way

The most important lesson is that one should always be ready to accept the change. In todays fast moving pace of business, one should be ready to quickly adapt to the changing business need.

Changing Days: Lessons Learnt

The recessions in the past decade has kept all the IT professionals on their toes. It is important for every professional to understand that how they can add values to their employer. Today, it is expected that professional should understand the business need and financial model of the organization apart from being well versed with the technology.

My Advice If You are Starting Out

It is expected that the IT is spending a lot in Testing domain and is expected to increase rapidly in coming years. However, there are many numbers of players in the Testing domain. A new entrant should clearly come up with a differentiation so as to have a competitive advantage over existing players.

Must Focus Areas For the Future

One should never be satisfied with manual testing. The focus should be on to make the testing process more efficient & effective by identifying areas where the testing can be automated. The focus should be on using the tools and technologies so as to increase the ROI, improve the quality of the deliverable and still reduce the testing cycle time.

Do We Need Certifications?

Testers in initial stages of their career can go for CSTE (certified Software Tester) from QAI. At management level PMP (Project Management Professional) certification from PMI (Project Management Institute) is recommended.