FDM Sponsors Ministry of Testing Events in Leeds

Since becoming the Product Owner for our Testing Service 18 months ago, I’ve been keen for FDM to get more involved with the diverse and exciting test community that exists in the UK. If we are active in the community we can get a better understanding of the test industry from a skillset and technology perspective, which in turn can help us to provide better services to our clients. After a conversation with a senior tester at one of our clients, I discovered that she had recently started to run testing meetups in Leeds for the Ministry of Testing (MOT) and wanted to get FDM involved as an event sponsor.

The MOT is one of the biggest software communities in the world, running events all over the globe and throughout the year. Each event covers a different topic including test automation, performance testing and security testing. These events are open to software test professionals and anyone with an interest in testing.

The first FDM sponsored MOT meetup in Leeds took place earlier this month. The attendees ranged from senior testers with years of experience, to aspiring testers looking to break into the industry. It was great to see several FDMers in attendance who are keen to learn more about the tech world.

At the start of the event, sponsors were able to give a brief introduction to their organisations as well as the services and opportunities available to aspiring testers. This overview led to conversations with budding testers about their career progression and how FDM could support them with that process. An event like this gave FDM a platform to reach out to people who are keen to get into this line of work and hopefully our debut session has encouraged several attendees to consider opportunities in testing.

The first talk at the event was a technical talk about monitoring performance metrics for an application using a range of tools include Lighthouse, influxDB and Grafana. We were able to talk about how open source tools can be used to support a type of testing that doesn’t get the attention and investment it deserves. Understanding easy to implement solutions in this space is good knowledge to have.

The second talk discussed how soft skills (e.g. communication, problem-solving etc.) can be used to become a better tester. As part of this, the attendees worked in groups to identify soft skills from both their work and academic histories. From these skills, we discussed how they can be applied to the role of a tester. This section was particularly interesting for the FDM recruitment team attendees as they were able to understand how skills developed by people from non-technology backgrounds can be applied to IT roles.

Overall the event was fantastic and a great starting point for developing the FDM presence within the test community. These MOT meetup events in Leeds are scheduled to run every two months so the next event is scheduled for early January 2019. I will be there again and hopefully; we can increase the number of FDM attendees at each event throughout our year of sponsorship. I look forward to seeing you there.

To find out more about the next MOT event email Daniel.Horan@fdmgroup.com