Savina Savova, QA Manager at Anakatech, believes that it is the difference and diversity in the workplace that is the secret to complementing each other so well and being so good at what we do as professionals. What inspires Savina the most at the moment is her team. She describes her professional path in one word, which is “perseverance”. 

Meet Savina Savova, the QA Manager at Anakatech, who believes that diversity at the workplace is the secret to completing each other and being good at what we do as professionals. Savina shares that she is happy to be working for a company that offers such a good work-life balance and she does her best to develop relationships with her teammates. As a QA Manager, Savina says that her work in Anaketech is very dynamic. The typical duties of a QA Manager, such as “establishing metrics for quality, increasing the quality of the products, managing releases and hot-fixes, prioritizing tasks, weekly reports, developing QAs, relocating, delegating, etc” are just a small part of her responsibilities. Savina is currently leading five teams and is responsible for the communication between them. According to Savina, her bachelor and master’s degree in the sphere of Physics, as well as her internship in CERN have taught her to develop an “out of the box” way of thinking and have also helped her gain huge technical knowledge, which suits one QA Engineer in the world of high technologies. What inspires her the most is her team. She shares that she has faced several challenges because of the fact that she is a woman, which in most cases happened due to the competitive work environment. She described her professional experience with one word and that is ‘perseverance”.

I’m happy to work for a company that gives me a good work-life balance. Together with my colleagues, we are doing our best to establish communication in the team, based on friendship

Favourite clothing? 

A sweatshirt.

High heels or flat shoes? 

Flat shoes – sneakers.

Which is the essential thing in your bag you never go out without? 

Lip balm.

Your favourite lipstick colour? 

Pink.

Which quality that is typical for women is foreign to you? 

Mysteriousness.

Which cause are you currently supporting? 

Sharo and Sharethemeal.

Have you ever faced any challenges in your career regarding the fact that you are a woman? 

Yes, I’ve experienced a few unpleasant moments. I think that they came out of envy and the competitive working environment.

Are you aware of how many women have the same job as yours? 

When talking about QA Managers, in Anakatech there is only one 🙂 To be honest, I don’t know anything about statistics outside the company I’m working with at the moment.

In your opinion, does the issue of gender inequality still exist in Bulgaria and around the world? 

I haven’t experienced such issues in years, knowing software companies in Bulgaria.

When I was accepted into the University of Physics, I was imagining myself working for NASA… Too ambitious.

What kind of policy does your company follow when it comes to encouraging diversity? 

We support diversity and differences between people as that’s the secret to completing each other so well and being so good in what we do! We work with people from different countries and cultures, and what’s important to us are their qualities that contribute to our success. I think everyone in Anaketech feels calm, accepted and free to express themselves.

How do your male colleagues treat you? Is their attitude towards you different? 

There is no difference in their approach towards me. We all respect each other, despite the hierarchy.

Do your feminine appearance and charm help you be more successful in a professional way? (for example, does it make communication easier?)

Yes, but the opposite happens too, don’t you think?

How do you balance your personal life from your professional one? Is there any rule that you follow? 

I’m happy to work for a company that gives me a good work-life balance. Together with my colleagues, we are doing our best to establish communication in the team, based on friendship, which helps a lot but can also be negative. I often don’t manage to establish the necessary boundaries.

Can you share something specific about yourself that we cannot learn from LinkedIn? 

When I was accepted into the University of Physics, I was imagining myself working for NASA… Too ambitious 🙂

Read More Inspiring Stories for Women in Tech in WRTech here.

Which sources do you follow and want to recommend to our audience? (podcasts, webpages, influencers, YouTubers, etc) 

Recently I’ve been following more standup comedians in order to relax 🙂 But I follow different leaders and motivators such as Mel Robbins, Simon Sinek, Ray Dalio, Warren Buffett, Elon Musk. I could also recommend an author – Kim Scott, who shared her leading experience in the book “Radical Candor”.

Which are the main duties of one QA Manager? 

My work at Anaketech is very diverse and dynamic, so the typical QA Manager duties are “establishing metrics for quality, increasing the quality of the product, managing releases and hotfixes, prioritizing tasks, weekly reports, developing QA-s, relocating, delegating, etc*. I manage five teams – Platform Admin, Player’s Application, Games, Automation and Marketing/Affiliates and they all have team leaders too. The communication and collaboration here are very good as we often share ideas with similar aims – to improve the internal processes and the way we work among the teams.

You are a Physics graduate. How does that integrate with your current working status? 

One of my bachelor’s degrees is in Theoretical Physics and the other is about teaching Physics and Mathematics, while my masters is “Physics of the nucleus and elementary particles’’. All these together with a summer internship at CERN (where the existence of the Higgs boson was proved) gave me a different way of thinking, and I gained technical skills that suit well the role of a QA Engineer in the “high technology world”.

What inspires you professionally? 

Maybe what inspires me now is my team.

Can you describe your professional experience in one sentence? 

I’ll even do it with one word – Perseverance.

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