The Journal of a Tester: Blog about my survival escapades 🚀

2022: The Year in Review!!

Hello there!!

Thanks for being here to read this review. I hope I don’t bore you.

From last year, I am doing a yearly review. If you are interested, you can read the review of 2021 here.

So, how did your 2022 go? Was it easy, challenging, successful, or mediocre? Please, whatever your response, don’t be too hard on yourself. In fact, after two years of COVID, we were all extremely skeptical when we got in 2022. We’re adjusting to the new normal. At the same time, we had great hopes.

Personally, I would say 2022 is a year where I came out of my comfort zone and tried certain things that gave me a content feeling. I met a lot of new people, made many friends, and built my profile better.

Let’s have a look at some multiple elements of life in 2022.

Work life

I was skeptical when I accepted my promotion in December of last year. But I believe that I did well. I literally treasured every moment spent with my team. They are both my biggest critics and strongest supporters. In addition, we introduced a number of standard practices. I learned a variety of tools and technologies while also expanding my business expertise.

There were several internal and external knowledge sharing workshops. Certain days were quite difficult, and some tasks were extremely hard and draining. Overall, it was a terrific year with a lot of future lessons.

Mentoring

I had the opportunity to meet new people both online and offline and exchange insights. Those were priceless memories for me! I’ve mentored many young mothers and helped them in winning interviews after their maternity leave. Also mentored many aspiring test engineers on a variety of topics 😊

This is how my Mentoring Club dashboard looks.

Some of my dopamine doses are displayed below:

Speaking Engagements

Oh, yeah! One of the most significant things I focused on and love doing more and more in 2022 was public speaking 🎤 I gave talks at a variety of events, including webinars, conference talks, panel discussions, podcasts, and interviews.

I gave around 18 talks including 1 conference talk and API Testing Workshop in-person. My post-talk comments has been quite rewarding 🥰, driving me to do even more. You can view the details of this year’s talk along with the slide deck and recording here.

Blogging

You can make anything by writing

C.S. Lewis

Writing allows me to unwind. This helped me in redefining myself, and I’ve been writing a lot recently. I write for both guest blogs and my own website. I’ve written several articles about Software Testing, API testing, Project Management, Team Development, and Mental wellbeing.

So far, I’ve published around 29 blogs, with a few comments from my followers. My Medium posts have had over 3k views, while my personal website has received over 3.5k views in this year. My blogs may be found here. You may also find links to my guest articles here.

Collaboration

I’ve had the privilege to collaborate with many wonderful people from all around the world, for which I am grateful.

MuukTest, Postman, AWS, Testsigma, LambdaTest, QA Touch, pCloudy and ACCELQ deserve special attention. Thank you for your ongoing encouragement and support. This means a lot to me ❤️

This year, we received a lot of swag and goodies as a reward of that appreciation 🎁 My five-year-old and I get excited every time we unbox that gesture of love.

About the community contributions, I loved to continue working with the amazing testing communities.

Health

Yes, I understand. We all see this as a low priority until we get alarmed. In 2022, my health took a hit 🙃 Nothing to be concerned about. I began to concentrate on my habits and routine.

My mental health was healthy and stable, and I could accomplish anything.

Accomplishments

Heartfelt Gratitude

I would like to thank my family for being there for me throughout every tough phase. I couldn’t have done it without them. Your guidance and patience, regardless of what I was doing, helped define me into the person I am today; thank you!

Of course, Billennium follows next. In many aspects, Billennium serves as a model for other organizations. We have the best leaders who will always be there for me. I thank you and appreciate all you’ve done from the bottom of my heart. Your generosity has given me tremendous hope!

I couldn’t forget about the people who unfollowed me, humiliated me, and assumed I couldn’t do it! You have all made me a better person today.

Plans for 2023

No fancy resolutions 😁

  • To focus more on my health
  • To write more for the next year
  • To read more
  • To meet my team frequently
  • To organize more internal talks/sessions
  • To meet more new people and learn from them
  • To mentor more software testers
  • To create/produce more valuable and simple content and share it
  • To learn more on the upcoming trends in software testing

That’s all for the time being. This might be tweaked later based on my interests. I prefer to exhibit myself through my actions. So you may have them ready for my next year’s review!!

Finally

I hope you enjoyed reading it and that it had an impression on you in some sort of way! I was penning this as a self-reflection and to assist me in improving in 2023. I am optimistic that this will empower others, particularly women and mothers in tech.

Thank you so much for your time. I wish you and your dear ones a happy new year.

If you can relate to anything stated here, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Until then, I hope to meet you soon 👋 Stay Blessed!!

Pricilla Bilavendran

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