As the complexity of software grows, so does the need for more Quality Assurance (QA) methods. While QA at ShowClix focuses widely around testing our products thoroughly before they are released, we are also focused on a higher goal: ensuring that every product that we deliver is of its finest quality possible. Today we are excited to chat with our Quality Assurance Engineer, Marissa Morgan. Everything that is developed at ShowClix (new features, products, applications, etc.) must first be tested by Marissa.
Originally from Kalamazoo, Michigan, Marissa graduated from Western Michigan University in 2015 with bachelor’s degrees in both Computer Science and Fine Arts. While in college, she worked at Carnegie Mellon doing social media and graphic design for the Robotics Institute’s CREATE Lab. Marissa landed her first full-time job out of college at ShowClix in 2016 as our Quality Assurance Engineer.
Today, Marissa tests all updates to our platform before they are released. Marissa fills an extremely important role in our team, as she not only tests products and features, but also finds ways to improve them.
As a Quality Assurance Engineer, you test new features of our system to ensure a smooth experience for our partners and their customers. What is the most rewarding aspect about being in this role?
I love puzzles, so the most rewarding part for me is recreating and patching bugs that we find in our pre-release testing. The process is a bit like going on a treasure hunt while playing Whack-a-Mole. You are given a map in the form of a bug report and you dig around the codebase to recreate the issue and find the code that’s causing the bug. Once found, you create a fix that doesn’t affect anything else (that’s the Whack-a-Mole part). It can be challenging, but once the solution is found, it’s a satisfying experience.
ShowClix is a fast-paced event technology company with infinite opportunities to learn and grow. How would you say your time here has helped you grow and improve as a Quality Assurance Engineer?
I have learned a lot since starting at ShowClix. As my first job out of college, I wasn’t sure what to expect. College computer science classes don’t often fully cover continuous development and testing/quality assurance. It is always on to the next programming problem, no chance to go back and improve your code. At ShowClix, I have been able to improve our development process by emphasizing quality assurance. The opportunity to work on a large program with a team has been a very rewarding learning experience.
A lot of your work involves putting yourself in our partners’ shoes – trying out combinations of settings, events, and actions in our system. Can you tell us your favorite feature in our system and why?
I really enjoy Segments because of how you can take a huge dataset of customers and whittle it down to a small target group. It is cool that you can keep adding search conditions to find that one person who lives in some city, that has been to your event twice, and buys an average of three tickets. I also like that it surfaces a lot of customer data that wouldn’t be easily accessible otherwise. Segments was also very fun to test before its release.
What’s one piece of technology you couldn’t live without?
I couldn’t live without my computer. I grew up around computers in various states of disassembly and I’m pretty certain it was love at first sight. There is a great photo of me as a toddler, too young to even read, sitting in front of a computer with my hands on the keyboard and the biggest look of joy and awe on my face. These days, I am practically surgically attached to it.
On a typical weekend, what would we find you doing around Pittsburgh?
I love to cook different cuisines. On the weekends, I typically go to the Strip District neighborhood for ingredients. It is the best place to go in Pittsburgh for ethnic grocery stores and fresh produce and meat. When not in the kitchen, I am at whatever local bar is serving the most interesting cocktails.