Bharat Konka got a position at Volvo Technology
Interview with Bharat Konka from India who knew almost nothing about his new country, except that his favourite bands within Death Metal were from Sweden. When the interview was made Bharat was working with software testing for embedded systems at Volvo Technology.
Bharat Konka got his position at Volvo Technology largely thanks to being able to demonstrate his skills in the master's thesis he wrote for Volvo Technology. When a job was advertised externally, Bharat applied and got the job.
What made your master's thesis useful for the position?
'The thesis was a case study on software testing methods and tools. I made a lot of interviews about what practices and methods different departments at Volvo Technology were using – and also how they weighed their different ways of testing. This is because you can never do full testing of software. The way you conclude your testing depends a lot on the many different factors such as type of project, type of requirements, resources, and experience in the team. Sometimes if there are very few people in the group and the team leader and the tester is the same person for example, you usually go for a different strategy.'
‘They wanted to improve the testing process and create some kind of synergism between the different departments at Volvo Technology’, says Bharat. ‘They also needed a knowledge base regarding what tools the other teams were using. If a tool is missing in any of the teams there is now something for people to refer to: these are the tools that the other teams are using.’
What are you working with right now?
‘I am working as a software tester for embedded systems in a group which specializes in testing and the thesis subject was a suggestion from this group.’
‘It is a completely new domain for me’, says Bharat Konka. ‘Every day there are new things to learn, it keeps me on my toes. I was lucky to find a place to work in where the rest of the people in my group are very experienced. And I am successfully able to use the knowledge that I got during my education.’
Why did you choose to do your master's in Sweden?
‘I am from Hyderabad in India, a pretty big city with 4.5 million inhabitants. I made my bachelor’s education – which is of four years in India – in information technology at Osmania University in Hyderabad. Then we usually have the choice of doing our master’s in the US, UK, or in India. But I decided to go to Sweden.’
‘I am an exploring kind of person and I wanted to see a new culture and a new people’, says Bharat. ‘One reason was also that my favourite bands in progressive/death metal are from Sweden, and now I would be able to watch them live more often! But I knew almost nothing about Sweden. Most people in India that go abroad go to the US.’
What do you think of your master’s education within Software Engineering?
‘I really do like the idea of not having exams at the programme, we have been doing assignments instead’, says Bharat. ‘The thing with exams is that we study and remember the important things only, you get your grades and then you are done. But in case of assignments we have chance of learning more and also the opportunity to put things that we have learned into practice. We had a Technical Challenge Project running in parallel with the other courses, and whatever we learnt in the courses we had to use it in the project. I also like how the BSc and MSc programmes here within Software Engineering are designed to address the industry needs.’
‘I would definitely recommend the course in Research Methods. It’s a really good course on how to collect data from various methods such as interviews, literature reviews etc. and also how to write a good scientific article. You also learn how to make intelligent judgements about research when you are reading different papers, if the research is something to believe in or not. I would like the course to be put in the beginning of the programme. It is very helpful to get this critical way of thinking already from the start.’
Any plans for the future?
‘I like it where I am now! My career is going in a fine direction, I am able to use what I have learnt during my education, and the people at Volvo Technology are happy with me. I have many friends here and for a while during my education a few students and I also had a band playing funk metal. The members were from Palestine, India and Sweden and I found two of them at the bachelor’s programme in Software Engineering and Management. There is a lot going on in Gothenburg and I get to see a lot of my favourite bands here. Almost all the major metal bands visit Gothenburg.'
Text: Catharina Jerkbrant