Sep 12, 2023 | Inside Thomson Reuters

Have you ever wondered what it’s like being a technologist at Thomson Reuters? We sat down with Shamna, an Associate Technical Lead – QA in India, to learn about her career journey.

What inspired you to work in technology, and why did you choose Thomson Reuters? 

I started working at Thomson Reuters in 2010 and I heard about the opportunity through a friend whose brother worked here. He spoke highly about the Thomson Reuters culture and commitment to diversity and inclusion. The advancement in technology over the past several years has been immense. Technologies like artificial intelligence and machine/deep learning are opportunities for organizations to innovate for their customers. Contributing to this innovation and informing the way forward inspired me to work in technology.

How did you move from a non-technical to a technical role?  

Before I started my career journey at Thomson Reuters, I worked as a Business Analyst. Although I enjoyed my role, I always aspired to work in technology. I discovered automation testing and realized it could be my way of shifting my career from business to technology. I decided to enroll in a software testing course, which included automation. This course gave me hands-on experience working on several projects for different organizations. Upon completing the course, I finally had the confidence to look for a technical role and applied for an Associate Quality Analyst opening at Thomson Reuters.  

Making such a significant career shift has brought a steep learning curve, but my transferrable skills and the Thomson Reuters commitment to learning and development have helped me transition smoothly. My manager, who has become my mentor, has been a consistent pillar of support and always encourages me to upskill my technical skills in areas such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, and cybersecurity. He has had a significant influence on my professional development. Thomson Reuters also has a variety of tools available to support with this including online learning courses and dedicated global learning days quarterly.

Tell us about a typical day in your role.

My day starts with a quick scan of my inbox before attending the daily status call. Here, I connect with other local team members and discuss the recently completed tasks and the open items for the current day.

As a Quality Analyst Lead, I focus on testing activities for the day. We work with Azure Boards, which provide software development teams with the interactive and customizable tools they need to manage their software projects. Within the Azure DevOps Boards, I check the work items assigned to me and those I need to delegate to the team.

Once I understand the requirements of my tasks, I create test plans and test cases. I create and modify test cases/automation scripts and execute them. Next, I update the test execution results and send the test summary report to the team. In the evening, we have another standup with the business team based in the United States and update them on the progress/completion of the tasks and work on next steps.

What technologies do you work with and what problems are you solving?

As an Associate Technical Lead – Quality Analyst, I use Java and C# for creating and modifying automation scripts, application programming interface (API) testing, and test environment setup.

I work mainly on functional, regression, automation, and API testing of the new features/enhancements added to different Thomson Reuters applications. In my role, I ensure that the final product meets the customer’s expectations. I also work on fixing enhancement-related defects, product environment issues, and data issues within the database. One of my favorite parts of my role is working with junior team members and helping them grow and develop their technical skills. 

Thank you to Shamna for sharing her career story! We look forward to sharing other teammates’ stories about their career development.