The Binghamton University alumnus attributes his college education to shaping his career and skill development by helping him both improve his knowledge and his problem-solving skills, allowing him to spend time with people with similar interests. He admits that this was highly beneficial to his career and skill development.

“I am a life lover and what motivates me depends on what I do. I try to maintain a balance between body, spirit and reason. For my body, I exercise. For my spirit, I engage in conversations looking for diversity and try to create new relationships. And for my reasoning, I problem solve,” says Santiago.

During school, Santiago competed in local, national, and international BMX (Bicycle Motocross Racing) events. “The demand for quick decision making, speed and the riding sensations drove me to compete in the sport for 9 years,” he chuckles.

Areas of Expertise:

Santiago packs a punch with his impeccable technical expertise. The dedicated professional is currently working on mobile testing automation, but in the past, he has contributed to projects dealing with infrastructure/tooling. His computing language of choice is Python, given how quick it is to write, the helpful community & support, and how close it is to English in the natural language.

“Python allows anybody to import from a wide variety of languages & frameworks and build on top of them, he adds. ”

Software Testing and the Qualitest Journey

Santiago says he chose testing as a career because of the immense growth opportunities presented by the industry. He always knew he wanted to be an engineer; as a little kid, he would enjoy taking things apart and had a keen interest in the latest computer advancements.

Santiago remarks that testing may sound like a specialized skill, but it is not at all so.

“Testing has many sub fields that are in very high demand, both currently and in the future and Qualitest covers them all. The technological space is evolving extremely quickly and a lot more elements from the real world are becoming digitized. Qualitest is a company full of young people and that enables us to have a high technological adoption rate.”

Having worked with clients of all dimensions, Santiago has prepared a pros and cons list brimming with observations:

“A large customer exposes you to the latest technologies and software methodologies, but your role tends to be better defined and the room for experimentation and coming up with out of the box solutions is possible but limited. However, having a smaller customer means you might not be exposed to the cutting-edge technologies, but you are freer to innovate and experiment. This oftentimes, if properly executed, turns into a fast career growth,” Santiago observes.

He claims that the most incredible perk about Qualitest is the opportunity to choose between the two.

Advice to the Future Generation of Testers

Santiago has some substantial words of wisdom for those interested in taking up a career in software testing. He advises the next-gen of testers to experiment with all areas of testing (Automated Testing, Penetration Testing, Performance Testing, etc.) and let their curiosity drive them towards the area they enjoy the most.

He believes that doing this will make it easy for testing novices to progress in their careers simply as a result of what they like and enjoy doing.

Life Beyond Testing

When Santiago is not busy with his side tech pet projects, he usually listens to Lex Friedman’s podcast on YouTube or enjoys recreational soccer and CrossFit. In addition, the curious engineer loves following space exploration and watching BMX racing highlights, a reminder of his favorite school-time activity.

Santiago is originally from Colombia, raised in a Catholic family. He mentions that his behavior is influenced by what he finds common across all religions. He also believes that his awareness of different perspectives has helped him better empathize with people and differentiate the subjective from the objective.