Mudit Kumar

The Journey : Early Days to How I Got Here

I started my IT career with a mobile network operator when telecom industry was in very early stage in India. I was overwhelmed with the nuances of the technology and acknowledged the fact that software industry had started growing exponentially. I realized that while it was important to be skilled in the software development & testing, the knowledge of domain and the industry was equally important. The combined knowledge of software testing as well as the domain helped me scale up to newer challenging roles in my career.

Decisions That Mattered

Choosing software industry as my career option was the most crucial decision which opened many rewarding avenues. Opportunities of working with customers across the globe, working on mission critical projects, setting up the test infrastructure for the customers and many other such opportunities have helped me take up different roles. Other important decision was to move into software testing. It has proven to be an important decision as it enabled me to get holistic view of end to end customer's business scenarios.

The Turning Points

Moving into testing domain was one of the inflection points in the career. Other, I would say was moving into testing consultancy domain which gave me an opportunity to meet CXOs of the organizations and understanding how companies run.

Work and Role: Then and Now

In my current role, I am responsible for the testing business growth in a particular geography of the organization. This role is different from the previous one in terms of responsibility, accountability and exposure.

What I Learnt Along the Way

For us being creative in whatever we do is extremely important and satisfying. We can bring lot of creativity in every day's work with a small change in thinking. Articulation of complex business scenarios in simpler implementable activities is extremely important when we talk to customers and internal stakeholders.

Changing Days: Lessons Learnt

Customers have become very demanding and aggressive as they too face stiff competition from others. They have become extremely cost conscious and would demand maximum efficiency in lowest possible cost.

Trends to Watch Out For

Mobile technology has been one area where newer business opportunities will always open up so one has to continuously observe the changes in various areas of the eco system - be it network operators, applications, network equipments etc. The other area is Cloud where customers are consciously moving to optimize their cost and improve their efficiency. More and more sophistication will be achieved in Cloud as we move ahead and therefore will require specialized skills and solutions.

My Advice If You are Starting Out

One has to understand various stakeholders in the eco-system and understand how each stakeholder is affected if anything in the eco-system changes. For example: how have various stakeholders affected with the introduction of LTE technology. Due to LTE, operators have to invest in new equipments, make them inter-operate with the existing network, make the mobile users seamlessly access all the services, etc. When one understands all the nuances, he/she also starts understanding various business opportunities which exists. From testing perspective, one has to understand how these changes will be tested.

Must Focus Areas For the Future

I think understanding the business requirements and mapping them onto corresponding test scenarios is very important. Combination of Business Analyst's skills with QA capabilities is an area of specialization one should strive for.

Do We Need Certifications?

Certifications help to understand industry's best practices and how one should approach certain issue if very little is known from the business context.

Books/ Websites I Recommend

People who would like to excel in QA consultancy should read McKinsey Way by Ethan Rasiel

Last But Not Least

Testing is an important area which sometimes gets ignored or side tracked due to delay in the project or budget cut. But one has to understand that in the current economic scenario when there are R&D budget cuts consolidation of products and applications, etc, testing becomes extremely important for business assurance.