With this artic­le we begin a series of publi­ca­tions in which we reve­al some secrets of what a care­er path in Code­lab can look like. Let’s start with the depart­ment that is mista­ken­ly per­ce­ived as very calm. Nothing more misle­ading, just take a look.

As Quali­ty Team mem­bers we are often asked what we actu­al­ly do and why we love our job.

We would like to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to pre­sent our perspective.

JOB TITLE
Quali­ty Part­ner / Quali­ty Specialist
DIVI­SION / DEPARTMENT
Quali­ty
WOR­KING HOURS
❌ Part time
✔️ Full time
ESSEN­TIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Essen­tial Duties and Respon­si­bi­li­ties:
What we do:
- we pro­vi­de expert sup­port in quali­ty rela­ted aspects
- we imple­ment quali­ty goals defi­ned and appro­ved by the mana­ge­ment board
- we imple­ment busi­ness rele­vant norms / sys­tems / stan­dards
- we co-cre­ate pro­ces­ses, pro­ce­du­res, and instruc­tions
- we sup­port the imple­men­ta­tion and main­te­nan­ce of Auto­mo­ti­ve SPI­CE
- we are refe­re­es hel­ping in pro­cess’ and stan­dards’ com­plian­ce
- we help to deve­lop an orga­ni­za­tion (based on inde­pen­dent / objec­ti­ve obse­rva­tions)
- we help pro­ject teams under­stand quali­ty requ­ire­ments and work accor­din­gly (e.g. Auto­mo­ti­ve SPI­CE)
- we sup­port pro­jects in fin­ding and using tech­ni­qu­es or methods needed to solve pro­blems
- we sup­port the imple­men­ta­tion of impro­ve­ment and repa­ir pro­grams
- we faci­li­ta­te work­shops
- we con­duct quali­ty-rela­ted tra­inings
- we care abo­ut employ­ees’ awa­re­ness of quali­ty requ­ire­ments

What we don’t do:
- we are not Pro­ces­ses Poli­ce
- we do not ana­ly­se sour­ce code
- we do not review sour­ce code or tech­ni­cal work pro­ducts
- we are not testers
- we are not a Bar Charts Gene­ra­ting Team (or so we think 😊 )
- we do not cre­ate pro­ces­ses for pro­ces­ses sake only
- we are not pro­fes­sio­nal­ly invo­lved in drin­king cof­fee 😊. This is not our core business.
EDU­CA­TION AND/OR WORK EXPE­RIEN­CE REQUIREMENTS
Use­ful pro­fes­sio­nal back­gro­und:
- tech­ni­cal in the field of softwa­re deve­lop­ment
- know­led­ge abo­ut Pro­ject Mana­ge­ment metho­do­lo­gies, espe­cial­ly — valu­able when sup­por­ted by own expe­rien­ce
- Jack of all tra­des 😊
- psy­cho­lo­gist or may­be even pre­scho­ol teacher 😊

Use­ful com­pe­ten­ce:
On pur­po­se we don’t use the word “requ­ired”. The com­pe­ten­ce needed for this role may be lear­ned on the job. Some of the skills you will be acqu­ain­ted with are, for exam­ple:
- norms and stan­dards like ISO 9001 (Quali­ty Mana­ge­ment), ISO 14001 (Envi­ron­men­tal Mana­ge­ment), ISO 27001 (Infor­ma­tion Safe­ty), ISO 21434 (Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty)
- Auto­mo­ti­ve SPI­CE model
- faci­li­ta­tion skills
- audi­ting skills

Fur­ther deve­lop­ment pro­spects:
Based on our and our for­mer co-wor­kers expe­rien­ce we may assu­re you that gaining quali­ty expe­rien­ce may equ­ip you with com­pe­ten­cies for posi­tions such as:
- Pro­ject Mana­ger
- Scrum Master
- Team Mana­ger
- Mana­ging Direc­tor (yes, we know one or two with Quali­ty expe­rien­ce 😊)
- Exter­nal Busi­ness Con­sul­tant

The­re is a small chan­ce that, like our Head of Quali­ty, you will get addic­ted to Quali­ty and beco­me Quali­ty Part­ner for life (also known as Dead End 😊).
PHY­SI­CAL REQUIREMENTS
A gre­at sen­se of humour
SKILLS AND ABILITIES
- to faci­li­ta­te work­shop ses­sions and meetings
- to influ­en­ce others witho­ut having the autho­ri­ty
- to reso­lve con­flicts
- to con­trol the crowd 😊
- to listen and hear
- to sepa­ra­te cri­ti­cism from impro­ve­ment pro­po­sal
- not to take the mon­key (acc. to the wis­dom from “The One Minu­te Mana­ger meets the Mon­key” book)
- to absorb coun­tless amo­unts of cof­fee (during meetings and workshops) 😊
ADDI­TIO­NAL INFORMATION
Quali­ty role advan­ta­ges:
- You may play smart and say how others sho­uld work
- You may the­ori­ze
- You may work out solu­tions in a gro­up of experts
-You can always get to know a new norm or stan­dard
- You will have many oppor­tu­ni­ties of tra­ining and deve­lop­ment during wor­king hours
- Major chal­len­ge in this role:
- How to get the job done so that others think they came up with the idea 😊

Quali­ty role disa­dvan­ta­ges:
the­re is none 😊
INSPI­RA­TIO­NAL QUOTE
Our role in the orga­ni­za­tion can be sum­ma­ri­zed by para­ph­ra­sing the words of Lao Tzu:

“A quali­ty spe­cia­list / part­ner is best when people bare­ly know he exi­sts when his work is done, his aim ful­fil­led, they will say: we did it ourselves”
Ver­sionDateAuthorRevie­wed byAppro­ved byChan­ge history
1.012.04.2021Anna Michel-Makuch, Ada Olszew­ska,
Krzysz­tof Musiał		Jan Tec­ker SiegelJan Zabo­row­skiInspi­ring sto­ry abo­ut care­er in Quali­ty Team @ Codelab