Our BCAPS Star for September 2021 | Arjun Menon - Neebal technologies

Table of Content

    Arjun has always projected a great work ethic and is always keen to help team members. Here is more about his qualities on the BCAPS parameters:   

    Being Curious:

    Arjun is always keen to know the in and out of the CCP system. While working for Multilingual CR in Dataflow, the team was stuck on how they could translate a Captcha to Arabic. Being a non-technical person, he researched the same, went through various articles available online and proposed a solution to the technical team. He provided the developers with a readily available API that helps with the Captcha translation, the same worked in favour of the team and they could thus save a lot of time. By this time he has gained a lot of technical knowledge in Data Flow, especially the knowledge on API's used in the project and debugging issues.

    Customer Centricity:

    Arjun is never restricted to just testing all that is being told. Over the period of time by thorough impact analysis he has come up with a lot of bugs in the existing portal and believes in keeping the client updated on how severe these bugs are and what impact can they have on an end-user if left open. This has helped him gain the trust of the client. Though the Dataflow team has their own QA, the client team does not proceed with the Go Live activity until a confirmation on the build quality is provided by Arjun. He is the one who is closely interacting with the client for all the support tickets, analysis of those tickets and prioritizing the tickets before the development team is involved. When any client-side development activity is initiated or a change has to be made in a micro-service created by Neebal for Digital consent, Arjun always pitches in to explain to them, how the change can impact the other stand-alone portals in Dataflow.

    Accountability:

    While working on Multilingual and Digital LOA CR from analyzing the impact to testing out of the box scenarios to frequently coordinating with the teammates for criticality and severity of bugs to assisting in developer testing(to reduce the test iterations), Arjun has done it all. He has worked late nights and on weekends to ensure that a quality build is deployed on prod. There was a scenario where Arjun found some issue on Beta release, though it was a rare case scenario, he followed up with the team to get the defect fixed and stayed awake late at night the next day to thoroughly test the build. He believes that providing a Quality build to the end-user is his job and responsibility. Even if a developer is being asked to work on weekends for a deliverable Arjun makes sure that he is available on a call with the developer for any support that is required.

    Perseverance: 

    The scope of testing Multilingual CR was huge. Though the Arabic translations were provided, Arjun made an effort to deep dive into the CCP Portal to check the areas in the portal which were not considered when providing the translations.
    He was not restricted to validating translations only in modules provided to him, instead of making tremendous untiring efforts to find 1,600 words in the portal for which the translations were missing. Also, did he not just rely on the translations provided by the translator, instead made an effort to check the correctness of Arabic translations provided by using an online translator. This way he was able to highlight a lot of words in the portal for which incorrect translations were provided. Multilingual seemed to be difficult at the start but with his never giving up attitude he was able to provide justice to the task.

    Stewardship:

    Arjun has gained in-depth knowledge of the Dataflow CCP Portal. He is always open to conducting a Knowledge sharing session for any new team member on-boarded to the team as well as the existing team members who lack clarity on the business workflow. He has taken the sole responsibility to functionally onboard the Dataflow support team.
    He has prepared a Document highlighting the field level differences in SCFHS and CCP Portal which serves as a reference document for Migrating the SCFHS portal to CCP.

    Arjun shared his experience, interests, and more in an interview we recently conducted with him. This is what he had to say after becoming the BCAPS Star  

    How did you get your start in <engineering/sales/programming>
    After working as an Analyst heard about Software testing, so started exploring the same and applied for a software testing course. Post learning tried implementing the same on some of the applications available and participated in the Hike Bug Bounty contest which helped me in learning and connecting to many other testers.


    How did you start your journey at Neebal?

    I was supposed to be interviewed in netball on December 29th 2014. But due to a meeting with the client of Neebal, the interview was cancelled and I was flying abroad for 15 days. I was informed that will be getting a call from HR post 15 days for rescheduling the interview, which didn't happen. Post that when I applied in Piramal for the IT post then they recommended I join Neebal and asked to schedule a meeting with Neebal. That's how I started my journey with Neebal and connecting with lots of great colleagues.

    What would you say has been your greatest accomplishment?
    To get Testink for the tester where we are able to manage all the test cases written according to the build and help in generating reports required.

    What motivates you? OR What motivates you to go above and beyond at work?
    Well, it has something to do with "responsibility" and effective working. Working with the team who works as if it's their application rather than just thinking it's not ours. Working with such a team and colleagues who spend their time trying to find out effective ways to reduce time in getting optimal results in testing keeps me motivated and lets me help them.

    Who inspires you? Who are your role models or mentors?
    Pranali inspired me a lot. Working with her made me feel that every small task is important and should be equally considered with the achievements.

    What are the activities/value systems that made you achieve this great milestone?
    Effective working and taking responsibility are the key values that made me achieve this milestone.

    How do you deal with stress in life and at work?
    It might be funny but I think "How much worst it can be?" and then accordingly manage things so as everyone around is satisfied.

    What advice would you give someone that is just starting out?
    Never worry about the future as time goes everything comes to its correct place as you plan and act.

    What is one characteristic that you believe every <engineer/sales personnel/programmer> should possess?
    Integrity and Honesty

    What has your experience at Neebal been like so far?
    Working with Neebal for the last 6 years has let me see the different phases we have been through, overall it helped in learning a lot of things in terms of management, technologies and many other aspects of the organization.

    What are the 3 most played songs in your playlist?
    1. Unstoppable - The Score
    2. Safarnama - Lucky Ali
    3. Khudi - The Local Train

    What’s the best book you’ve read this year?
    Ikigai

    Your all-time favourite series/movie?
    F.R.I.E.N.D.S

    How do you relate your responsibilities to Neebal’s goals?
    Getting better customer satisfaction

    What is your relationship with your team and how do they affect your work? OR How important is being a part of a team?
    Working with the team and understanding them is important as it will help in improving the morale and discussing things helps in getting better solutions for the problems faced while working.

    What do you like most about working at Neebal?
    The people

    What's your proudest professional accomplishment?
    Easing the work of testers and train them for things which helps them in growing.

    Topics: Life at Neebal, BCAPS, Neebal Celebrates