Get to Know: Laura Pirio, Senior Quality Assurance Engineer at Everbridge
Joined Everbridge:
January 2016
Location:
Burlington
Tell us what Everbridge does, and your role on the team.
Everbridge is a communications platform that helps governments and companies keep people informed during critical times, like a hurricane or a terror attack. As for my job, it has two sides. First, I’m an engineer for Quality Assurance, so I’m part of the team that spreads best practices and helps make sure we’re delivering a high-quality product. The second part is testing out new features for our voice platform, which delivers emergency notifications by phone. My background is in telecom, and I’ve been working on voice for more than a decade, so I’ve developed some expertise in that area. I make sure our voice features are working as designed and evaluate them for things like performance and security.
What were you doing before you joined Everbridge?
I’m originally from France, and this is my first job in the U.S. I studied communication systems in school, and started working on voice projects right after that. It’s been more than 15 years now, and I’ve never been bored! The field is always evolving. Before I came to Everbridge, I worked at Orange, one of the largest operators of mobile services in Europe and Africa. Our work there was similar to this job in some ways — just like messages have to go through in an emergency, we couldn’t afford to lose calls. That sense of purpose was part of the reason I was interested in Everbridge. I heard about this position, and when I learned how the product helps save lives, I knew I wanted to be a part of it.
I was also interested in moving toward software, so I was looking for a company where I could do that and still use my expertise in voice. I feel lucky that I found that mix. I’ve had to learn a lot, but my team is so helpful, and they’re always happy to answer my questions. I feel at home here.
It’s been more than 15 years now, and I’ve never been bored! The field is always evolving.
Was anything particularly challenging when you first joined?
I was a bit worried coming in, because I’m a little shy. Sometimes I have to push myself to ask questions when I get stuck. And my scrum team for voice is mostly in Pasadena, as are some of the other quality assurance engineers. So I wasn’t sure how connected I’d feel to the rest of the team. But within a couple of weeks of joining, I got to travel to Pasadena to visit them, and then I went again a few months later. That was a big help, because we were able to connect right away and build from there. Plus, we do a lot of audio and video conferencing, and everyone is very responsive on Slack, so it’s pretty easy to feel like a team.
We also have daily standups where we ask for help and keep each other up to date on how our projects are going. I might get some input from the developers, or have them help me set up a test. And I’ll weigh in if someone has a voice issue they want my take on. So we all stay on each other’s radar, and then we can break off after the scrum to tackle whatever comes up. I definitely feel like I have support, and as much as I worried at first, it’s actually helped me be more outgoing. I’m much more comfortable now asking people questions, which of course is how you learn.
Another challenge that isn’t just unique to Everbridge but everywhere I’ve worked on the technical side is being a woman working in technology. While I’m comfortable in this field at this point, I step back every now and then and think, “Wow, I’m one of few women in technical roles here. We still have a lot of work to do.” Sometimes we have to remind ourselves to just take our space and be confident in our roles. Regardless of gender, my teammates and I are all efficient and committed and we do work that adds value, and I definitely feel like that’s recognized at Everbridge.
We share a lot of knowledge across the team. It’s given me a global view of how integration, delivering, and testing work together.
Tell us about what you’ve learned on the technical side.
I came in with a lot of experience in testing and very little in development. I was comfortable with protocols and troubleshooting, and I do use those skills every day. But I’ve also learned a lot about the software world — especially since we transitioned to Agile, which sort of blurs the line between tester and developer. We share a lot of knowledge across the team, and that’s taught me so much about what my teammates are doing. It’s given me a global view of how integration, delivering, and testing work together. Agile can be challenging at times, but it really does help us improve. At the end of every sprint, we look at what worked and what didn’t. We always try to stay positive and just ask, “Okay, what did we miss? What can we do to make it better next time?” Whenever something fails, that’s another opportunity to learn.
We take our promise to our users very seriously, and we are constantly trying to deliver a higher-quality product.
What’s exciting about what your team is working on right now?
We’re constantly working on new features. Right now, we’re looking at ways to collect and analyze data on the quality of our voice calls. I’m really happy we’re pushing that forward, because it will be a huge help when we’re troubleshooting issues in production.
More broadly, it’s exciting to me that Everbridge has such an important mission. We take our promise to our users very seriously, and we are constantly trying to deliver a higher-quality product. There are so many areas where we can innovate, it can get overwhelming! Sometimes, I just have to write down all my ideas and tell myself, “We’ll get there.” And we will. I know how tough it can be to create change at a bigger company, but we’re empowered to do that here. It’s exciting to have that freedom and know you can make a difference.
