Introducing Oleksandr Strukov

Oleksandr Strukov – QA Lead at GlobalLogic, USA.

Career start: June 2010. Eleks ( Naukova St, 7G, Lviv, Oblast, Ukraine, 79000 ) as QA engineer.

Oleksandr let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

First and foremost, I am a dedicated family man, cherishing my family as my greatest accomplishment. My wife plays the main part in supporting my ideas and growth. Don’t know where I would be without her. My kid’s support and love fuel my drive for success.

Following closely behind is my passion for quality assurance and management. My work in this field is not just a job; it’s a commitment to ensuring that end-users receive the seamless experiences they expect.

I am deeply passionate about my work because, with each iteration, I contribute to enhancing the customer experience.

In addition to my professional endeavors, I am proud to identify as Ukrainian, having moved to the USA in January 2022. When Ukraine faced the devastating impact of russia invading Ukraine and the start of the full-scale war, I felt compelled to take action. I established the first community of Ukrainians in Los Angeles, recognizing the urgent need to support those fleeing conflict and seeking refuge in unfamiliar surroundings.

Organizing IT events focused on quality assurance, project management, and development fields, alongside my co-host Lev Maltsev, we offered invaluable support to newcomers navigating the job market in the USA. From resume-building to connecting with recruiters, we provide these services free of charge, empowering individuals to secure employment opportunities and rebuild their lives.

Tell us more about your path to quality assurance. What was the reason

In my childhood, I was passionate about computers. My father was able to get me a PC when it only appeared. Somehow, he knew that it would be a game-changer in the future. It was a great deal for me. I played lots of games, woke up my parents because I was playing Doom found a new gun, and got too excited. Step by step, when the computer needed fixes as I did something wrong, or a program needed to be removed my Dad asked a professional guy who was good with software and hardware. That is probably the time I learned that using PC is good but knowing all the specifics is a good skill I should learn.

Throughout my journey, I started by learning software development in CAD designs, where I received my first skills in designing motherboards, creating drivers, and other software in support. Hard time for learning but a great time to learn that I do not want to work as a developer, but I love finding defects in code and tuning to be perfect. Some part of perfectionism with OCD was a part of my life. So when I saw a development code that was not perfect, it kinda made me tick. That is probably the time I understood I needed to go into QA. Sadly, I was not fully confident in that still. So I was able to finally make the decision only after a few attempts into development work.

Please share some details where are you from and some details about your family:

I was born in Lviv, a western town in Ukraine. I love it with all my heart. I was born into a family of 2 engineers. My Dad was working on military projects and my Mother was working as an EOM engineer tuning and fixing issues with the first computers. Those were like buildings that had only 10 kb of memory and if you wanted something counted you had to give the machine a special paper card that it reads and then after the counting is complete it prints a new card as an answer. It is funny to understand that all this huge building and processor speed is now can be found in a simple Tamagotchi, or the simplest of watches for kids.

I am happily married and have 2 kids from my previous wife. I love them with all my heart and try to spoil them whenever I have a chance. Trying my best to teach them whatever I know so that they become more successful than I did.

Oleksandr, When did you relocate and what was the reason?

I relocated to the USA at the beginning of 2022. I visited USA a couple of times but never wanted to live there. It all changed when I came for a business trip to LA in 2018. At first glance, I loved the city. It was like love at first sight. I knew it would be a challenge to live there and the cost would be enormous. But I had to try. So I started preparations and confirmed my relocation with the client, but Covid hit us all. It was a disaster as all promotions same as any trips were put on hold.

I was still continuing to push forward and remind people around me about my plans and eventually, at the end of 2021 when the Covid limitations were partially taken out, my relocation happened. At that time I did not know that I was jumping on the last train and I would not be able to come back to Ukraine for a long time. It was a huge challenge for me as the first 2 months I was fully consumed by creating documents in government institutions that did not work because of COVID limitations and as soon as I saw some light at the end of the tunnel, russians attacked Ukraine.

Then I created a Ukrainian community and IT community as there was nothing here for only Ukrainians. Became a part of SWU foundation and helped with the organization of rallies in support of Ukraine.

When did you understand you have the skills to teach?

It was the year 2016, I just started working as QA Coordinator / Director in ABTO software. Great company. It was a big challenge for me to be responsible for the whole company's quality assurance processes. I wanted to get my team a way to learn new things through conferences but at that moment I could not get a budget for that. So as an entrepreneur, I came up with an idea I attend a conference as a speaker and grab 2 people with me on a budget of just one person. And it penned out just right. I secured a budget for 1 person and 2 people went to the conference. ( BAQ Daikiri Conference )

But when I was preparing and then started explaining my theory about soft skills playing a more critical role than technical skills, this idea was not met with lots of support. In 2015 -2017 usually hiring process was usually focused on tech skills, and soft skills were not so popular. It changed so much within the next 5 years. Now having perfect tech skills does not grant you the job. But having perfect soft skills gives you a very good score for comparison, playing in most cases more important role than technical skills. (there are exceptions in the rule but still.)

At that time I understood that I had the skills needed for teaching people, and in addition to starting a few training courses in ABTO that I created, I understood that I have the skill to explain difficult things simply.

In such a tight schedule do you have any hobby?

I am fond of great photos. I enjoy amazing paintings and my favourite artist is Aivazovskiy. His paintings of the sea are stunning and magnificent.

I was learning to dance for a couple of years. Have some knowledge of Argentinian Tango, Salsa, Kizomba. Though can not say I love it. The thing that amazes me is the cosmos. The vast space around and the magnificence of the creation. I think this stays on the top of all my interests.

If you forget about Cosmos, I was a Huge Marvel fan, until Disney. Same as I was a huge Star Wars fan before Disney. I love board games, And am thrilled to play finance games.

In conclusion: I think there are fewer things that I am not interested in than things I am interested in. I simply love to learn new things.

Oleksandr,have you felt any difference in QA work in USA from what you experiencesd in Ukraine?

I feel like in USA and Ukraine we have a very different perspective in work. The difference lies in the vision of the process.

In Ukraine we work as an offshore center, we help with operations and some hard-on-time tasks that were delegated to us. So in Ukraine, your focus is to prioritize quality over quantity same as focus on making the work on time. But usually, releases are not dependent on our team (from the perspective releases happen at the time where the main team is based. So they have the final responsibility to release or not. )

In USA, the companies are mostly focused on the product, not a project. So to clarify the vision- they OWN the release and deployment. The difference is that in USA you make the decision, the call to release or not. To clarify why not to or why do. So in USA it is more stressful to gather all things in together and then be sure to defend your decision. Because of that all the focus is on collecting all data together and making the call. If you make the wrong call, all testing efforts offshore are wasted. On the flipside, if you release when it is not ready the company stock can drop down and that will impact further job cuts for the company.

With all that in mind, QA processes here are mostly focused on verifying we did not miss anything and quickly confirming the right decision. Or find some issue that we need more data on and properly delegate it over to offshore. After all in place combine the results together and make the call. In the offshore office, the focus is getting the tasks splitting it up in parts that can be completed on time and making the best effort to complete on time and with the best testing quality and coverage.

Sometimes if USA team messes up with the task, the offshore team has ti figure out what was the goal of the task and find out how to make it. Some detective skills are a MUST in these situations.

More about Oleksandr: Youtube video

Published: August 19, 2024

Interviewer: Marianna Nechypor

Author: Marianna Nechypor