​Triinu joined the forces of Reach-U nearly two years ago but her inspiring story is still worth sharing. She says that changing her career was the best thing she has done, and we couldn’t agree more – last year her colleagues voted her the star of the Alfa team.

​I started my career as a kindergarten teacher. Soon, after a few years in the education system, I felt that I can't do this my whole life. As rewarding as working with small children is, the stress to pay ratio is just not there. Our kindergarten teachers are true heroes, but as a young, ambitious girl, I felt that I couldn’t do it. So, I decided to quit teaching without any idea what to do next. It was hard saying goodbye to the kids that I had taught for almost 3 years. Leaving gave me a purpose to pull myself together and start looking for new challenges. I had to make it work, otherwise, it would all be in vain.

At first, I started doing online courses in Codecademy and various other places. They seemed interesting, but I knew that I needed something extra to get a real career. Thus I applied for an adult retraining program Vali IT, which educates junior software developers. Luckily, I was accepted to the program and my journey in the IT world started.

Vali IT program contains two parts. Six-week training in Tallinn and a two-month internship in a real IT company. I was accepted by four companies, but my decision for accepting Reach-U was quite easy. First, it was in Tartu where I live, so no commuting problem. Second, I had heard so much good about the company, as some close friends had been working there for a long time. I was very excited to start my internship as a full-stack developer in team Alfa. I was thrown headfirst into a project of developing a cargo transportation app for a Kenyan logistics company. This included the development of web and mobile app. I couldn't wait to start putting my new knowledge into practice.

As it turned out, it takes a bit more time than 1.5 months to get a grasp of what software development in reality is. The team was very supportive and included me in every step of their work. It was quite demanding at first. No more mischievous children running around, just coffee hyped programmers fixed to the screen all day. But as the months progressed, I started doing some projects in QA engineering. After a few projects, I knew that it suited my personality (nit-picking and being thorough). I knew that this was the route I wanted to pursue.

I worked hard throughout the internship as a junior developer/QA engineer; fingers crossed for an opportunity for a real job. And to my absolute surprise, I landed one. It has been such a great learning experience. I've had 3 job titles in 2 years - kindergarten teacher, junior software developer, and now a QA engineer (for about a year now). Fortunately, during my learning path, I was surrounded by supportive people, so the journey was super pleasant and enjoyable.
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Changing my career was the best thing I have done. Still can't believe my first choice has turned out so great. It is a pleasure to work with such smart people. Super grateful for Reach-U for the opportunity to work here!

Interns have always been welcome at Reach-U. They’re our full-fledged team members from day one – involved in real projects to gain valuable work experience, put into practice everything studied so far, and learn things that can never be taught in a classroom.
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You may think of a typical intern as an IT-graduate in their early 20’s. Well, you’d be surprised how different our interns’ background is here at Reach-U. Their stories are true evidence that regardless of your education or career background, what truly matters is your inner motivation and willingness to learn and grow continuously.

​Ann joined Reach-U as a QA intern a few months ago. Who would’ve thought a year ago that examining the life of bugs in nature will soon be replaced with chasing bugs in software applications!

This is her story:

Doing an internship with real work experience was my plan for testing out the idea to turn my career around once more (last time it was from a civil servant to nature conservation biologist).
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It might seem that moving from biological research to software testing is a bit of a leap, but with interest, determination, transferable experience, and a supportive team, it is actually doable! Scientific research has very much in common with testing: gathering and analyzing previous documents, evaluating used data, methods, and results, and finally, communicating found ambiguities and defects.
 
Learning resources for a background in software development and testing are abundantly available but learning does not stick without practice. So, I gathered advice from my friends in the industry and applied for apprenticeships in companies whose products and work environment appealed to me. In Reach-U we agreed on a mutually beneficial plan, and by next Monday I was one of them! Learning the ropes was intense, but that was the intention. Soon I was able to ask questions which turned into bug tasks. One of my first assignments was testing a solution that digitalizes licencing of health care providers – comparison with requirements, checking the design, assessing accessibility, and overall exploratory testing. My previous experience as a solo tester made me appreciate even more the dynamically intertwined development team in Reach-U.  
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As for testing my idea to become a tester – passed – now I am a Junior QA Specialist! Looking for bugs proves to be a transferable skill!