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This month’s employee spotlight is for our Head of Quality Assurance (QA), Nidhi Jani. She leads the DevDigital QA team in Vadodara, India. Vadodara is a large-ish city in the west-central state of Gujarat.  

What is QA and why is it important? 

Quality assurance is a way of preventing mistakes and defects in products or projects and avoiding problems when delivering products or services to customers. Quality assurance is a “part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled." It gives assurance to management and stakeholders about the quality of the project developed. It yields high-quality product offerings that build trust and loyalty in customers. The standards and procedures defined by a quality assurance program help prevent product defects before they arise. 

What was your original role?  

My original role at DevDigital was heading a QA department.  

What is your educational background? 

I earned my MCA (Master of Computer Applications) from Gujarat University, Ahmedabad, India. Two years ago, I became a CSM (Certified Scrum Master). 

How long have you worked at DevDigital?  

I worked at DevDigital for about nine years in total. I joined DevDigital in March of 2011 and due to some personal reasons had to quit in December of 2017. I rejoined DevDigital in April of 2019, so this is my second inning at DevDigital.  

How did you decide to work in the information technology sector?  

I mastered in computer applications because I was always interested in working with computers. I began my career by working as a .NET developer for six months. Working with software projects, I was more interested in bringing quality to the projects, hence I chose my career as a Quality Engineer. Presently along with quality assurance, I am also working on establishing new project management processes, specifically Agile project management.   

What is a normal day on the job like?  

I work with the team on their day-to-day project work, assign resources to projects and establish priorities, and resolve any roadblocks that team members have on any projects. I make sure that all communication with the project managers and clients is transparent. I sometimes personally review the project tasks along with the QA person. I continue to coach and educate my team to be more productive and efficient and guide them towards effective time management. I help the team to upskill where needed. Part of my day is devoted to studying new requirements and doing estimations with other leads. 

What do you like best about working for DevDigital?  

There are many things I like about DevDigital, but the best of all is the supportive management team. I worked with many companies, and I can say from my experience that the management we have is very supportive. A big thank you to Peter, Neal, Brittany, Micheal, and Sanjay for developing such a positive culture.  Employees are free to ask any questions and share ideas with management. They are always there to answer those positively.  

There are two more things that I really like. The first is reachability- any person, be it at Nashville or COE (Center of Excellence), everyone from top to bottom is reachable whenever we need them. There is a special bonding apart from just being colleagues. The second is togetherness and collaboration – I love the way everyone works on projects supporting each other in their work to make each project a success. 

Where do you see yourself in five years?  

I have faith in my work and the management that they will identify my real potential and keep providing me roles I am good at. Five years down the line, I see myself heading towards developing a better process for customer experiences at DevDigital.

What do you do in your free time?   

I like to spend time with my husband (Hardik) and son (Mourya, 8). I also like to watch movies and series and hang out with friends. 

What has been your favorite accomplishment at DevDigital? 

Forming a team and becoming Head of the QA Department was my first favorite accomplishment. I joined DevDigital as a Senior QA person, handling all project work on my own. I was the key person for setting up the project development QA process at DevDigital including things like creating QA checklists, developing a bug-reporting process, writing standard operating procedures, and reporting to management. My favorite recent accomplishment was setting up an employee review process.  

Our Center of Excellence in Vadodara consists of over 100 IT professionals with training in popular project management methodologies like Scrum and Agile, in addition to the wide-ranging expertise in Web and software development tools. They have developed Android and iOS apps, learning management systems, and hundreds of websites.  

There are people that come into organizations from time to time that challenge the way your business works. They offer insight, build teams, and develop processes that benefit all those inside your organization, as well as the clients you work with. Nidhi Jani has been one of these individuals for us. We are grateful to have her as a part of our team and cannot wait to see her continue to grow and prosper in this role.