Ofir Shalom began his professional career working for insurance carriers as a QA engineer and progressed from there to become the manager of a large scale project and 50 employees.  Following his desire to continue to grow, he moved to Qualitest, where he was given the opportunity to run a significant FinTech project at one of Israel’s largest banks. Ofir has been working at Qualitest for almost three years.

Did you fear the challenge?

I knew Qualitest is the world’s largest testing and quality engineering company and realized I’ll have heavy responsibilities on my shoulders. There aren’t as many software testing projects in the Israeli market that are as big and significant as the projects at Qualitest, so I was excited when I got the opportunity to prove myself in such a company.

What was the biggest challenge you faced?

I think one of the biggest challenges of any manager is to motivate their employees to succeed, encourage their creativity and make them realize what great potential they have. When I look at my Qualitesters, I see very talented engineers with endless abilities and great hunger to be the best. This hunger, in my opinion, makes them the best team in the QA market.

What is the client partnership all about?

We conduct QA testing on large, high profile projects for one of the largest banks in Israel. We deal with mobile testing, information systems, financial systems, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, telephony systems and more.

How important is QA testing in the Fintech industry?

Quality is critical, especially when it comes to a large bank with very strong credibility.  A very high percentage of the Israeli public’s money is held bythe  bank we work with, so there is no room for mistakes. An error can make people lose their money and impact the bank’s brand image. In this era, even a small bug can easily catch media headlines and get shared by consumers on social networks. Due to our great success in such sensitive work, we now see competitors trying to copy some of our work processes. It’s a very big compliment we get from the market.

What is your flagship project?

We are responsible for testing the bank’s mobile app. This is an app that is used by hundreds of thousands of people today and will be used by millions in the coming years.

What systems do you work with?

We work with a wide range of systems, including Salesforce, Jira, Selenium, ReadyAPI, Siebel CRM, Internal systems and more.

What can you tell us about your team?

We have a diverse team of Qualitesters who will do anything for one another. In my opinion, the project speaks for itself and it wouldn’t have been such a success without the team’s talent and unity.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I like to travel abroad and especially love to go to music festivals. In addition, about five years ago I started learning to play the saxophone and since then I can’t stop. I love the sax and feel relaxed when I play it. And yes, my employees must hear me play from time to time. I want to believe they aren’t suffering as much as they say they are.

Tell me something only a few people know about you

My wife has called me “Chukul” since the day we met. She has never called me Ofir since.

What inspires you?

My wife and children. They are the greatest achievement of my life.