Time for talent with Kamya Krishnan

Namaste 👋 I’m Kamya, pleasure to meet you! I joined Tactile’s QA team 9 months ago. Beyond playing the developed game, my role involves identifying and reporting any potential problems that could impact the game’s quality and functionality 🔦

Let me share a little bit more about what my team does at Tactile and how I ended up in QA (+ tips for successful QAs at the end!):

🚀 Before Tactile

I started my journey as a Test Engineer in a software services company back home in India. I learned a whole bunch about the software testing process, as well as how to create and execute test cases. After that, I moved into a Test Analyst role, where I focused more on test planning, analysis, and design.

💜 Joining Tactile

Taking a short break during my maternity period, I relocated to Copenhagen with my family. When I returned to work, I transitioned to a QA Engineering role at a Fintech company. This is where I first got familiar with mobile testing and working in an agile environment … which eventually lead me to my current position at Tactile 🙌

As a QA Tester at Tactile, my focus is on ensuring that the weekly releases of our hit game Lily’s Garden go seamlessly, without major crashes or performance glitches. The fact that my contributions directly enhance the overall gaming experience for players is the most fulfilling aspect of my role!

🏗️ What our team does

Within Lily’s Garden, we work in smaller scrum teams. My role as a QA is to plan, design and execute tests relating to the developments of new game features, such as our most recent Gatcha event and Piranha Rush. I am also responsible for the testing tasks related to in-game ads, which is a significant revenue source for the company! 💰

A huge part of the QA role here is having effective communication with the design and development teams from as early on in the process as possible. This helps to ensure that we help the team avoid having big problems later on!

💪 Sense of responsibility

The best thing about our team is that it is made out of exceptionally talented individuals from super diverse backgrounds. Our office culture is marked by trust, flat hierarchies and open communication. This has created a great environment for addressing critical issues. I’m genuinely impressed by the strong sense of responsibility shown by my team members, and I really appreciate that everyone is always ready to extend a helping hand during challenging moments.

📚 The keys to success

I believe that QA game testers should embody several key qualities, but the most important ones are:

👉 Robust analytical skills
👉 Effective communication and strong team collaboration
👉 Patience and an eye for detail to navigate through repetitive tasks
👉 A curious mindset for exploring various scenarios
👉 A good understanding of end-users, which helps to understand how players might engage with the game
👉 And lastly, in a QA role you’re often faced with tight deadlines, so it is key to manage time efficiently and prioritize tasks well ⏲️

Time for Talent with Martina Welander

Meet Martina Welander aka Documentina 👋 Our super talented Technical Writer, who goes beyond words to come up with creative ways to document our tools and processes. But we’ll let her do the talking – read her full story below (it’s a good one!).

Tactile: Hi Martina, could you tell us a bit more about what you do at Tactile?

Martina: I write ✨ technical documentation ✨ on a fabulous team of one. I write everything from system architecture overviews to user tutorials to API documentation. My days are spent ferreting around in codebases, hunting down precious morsels of context in the dustiest corners of Slack, and thinking up ways to make stuff like security protocols fun to read about. And pestering my fellow Core Teamsters for information, of course.

Tactile: What was your journey to becoming a Tech Writer?

Martina: It just happened – I did a history degree and never really had a plan. I wrote my first line of CSS on neopets.com in 2000 (Neopians unite) and accidentally became a backend developer because I needed to create a database for all my RPG characters. This eventually led to several Serious Jobs as a developer and technical consultant, which turned into blogging a lot about the stuff I figured out, and now I write for a living. There were probably more steps but it felt very ‘whoopsie poopsie guess I’m a writer now’.

Tactile: What do you like the most about the team you’re working with?

Martina: They are good eggs. Patient, kind, smart, a lil’ bit weird, a lil’ bit sassy.

Tactile: What is the most rewarding part of your job?

Martina: Variety. Sometimes I write songs about A/B tests, sometimes I draw cartoons about API keys, sometimes I code, 🎵 SOMETIMES I RUN, SOMETIMES I HIDE 🎵, and sometimes I actually write things down (that’s the hardest part about being a writer). It makes my day when I hear that my work helped someone or saved them time, particularly new starters.

Tactile: For people who would like to start their career, what do you think are the most important qualities that every (tech) writer should have?

Martina: Curiosity. If Tactile decided to pivot into making croissants I would go all in on explaining the chemistry of butter through the medium of dance; learning is fun, kids! If you want to write for developers, I think it really helps to have at least some experience with programming – either as a hobby, or by working as a developer or in QA. If you are starting from scratch and want to be seen, try to figure out how to do something that interests you (a recipe app, a to-do app) and blog about the challenges you encounter.

Time for talent with Ivan Aguilar

Today we’re inviting into the spotlight Ivan Aguilar – a key part of our Data Science & Analytics Team! Read more about his story below & don’t miss out on his advice for those aspiring to work in data science or analytics 🙌

Tactile: Hi Ivan, could you tell us a bit about what you do at Tactile?

Ivan: I work as a Data Scientist for the games team. My job mainly consists of supporting Product Managers and Level Designers with data insights, helping them to create and monitor experiments, interpret results, find signals to support/reject player behaviour hypothesis, and a bit of everything data related.

Tactile: What was your journey to becoming a Data Scientist?

Ivan: I studied computer science and had the luck of immediately getting involved with data analysis jobs early on in my career. Afterwards, I did a lot of data analytics consulting, which allowed me to try a lot of different industries and work cultures. More recently, I completed a master’s degree in data science which complemented well my previous experiences.

Tactile: What do you like the most about the team you’re working with?

Ivan: They are all very friendly and cooperative, but also open and honest when there are differing opinions. The team is diverse which makes it possible to have a well rounded view on any topic we work with.

Tactile: What is the most motivating part of your job?

Ivan: The most motivating for me is learning the logic behind things and then understanding how data can help you modify, predict or explain those things. It is like constantly solving puzzles. Having those “aha” moments when solving the data puzzle is very enjoyable. At times, even if you don’t get to a definitive solution or answer, the journey is an enriching experience.

Tactile: For people who would like to start their career, what do you think are the most important qualities that every data person should have?

Ivan: There are some basic things that are quite useful, such as a background that can provide exposure to programming and math concepts. On the more subjective side, I think is good to have a certain degree of discipline when approaching problem-solving, a constant self-assessment of your work to keep facts checked and an open mind to learn new things.

Tactile: When you’re not at work, you are …

Ivan: Taking photographs with my analog cameras, playing some version of Zelda and listening to music obsessively.