Alexander D. Email & Phone Number

Nottingham City, England, United Kingdom

Cambridgeshire, England, United Kingdom

Taking ownership of the QA efforts for an internally developed title I transformed the team from QA Analysts to QA Engineers to enable higher quality testing for the core systems and features at the early stages of development. I was responsible for the smooth functioning of the team and built a QA strategy to work in line with our Stage Gate process for new titles. I worked closely with the other discipline leads to drive quality and worked especially close with our Tech Director on areas such as CI / CD and Automation. I would liaise with the Production team on the state of Quality and was our JIRA admin for the project so was able to directly realise changes / efficiencies to our workflows. Drawing from my ISTQB knowledge I implemented a hybrid test process that rigorously tested key systems whilst maintaining the overall health of the build. This allowed us to develop a lot of testware and test suites early on which will benefit the product as it grows.

Cambridge, England, United Kingdom

With a gap in the management structure I had the opportunity to take over the RuneScape QA team for 6 months whilst a replacement was recruited. This role involved steadying the team with strong leadership to get some large projects over the line and transition the team from embedded in the office to a working from home model due to Covid-19.I oversaw a team of 20 internal testers (plus external vendors) across multiple scrum teams and was responsible for testing operations within the RuneScape Product and the development needs of my department to ensure high quality updates were delivered to players each week across multiple platforms. Working with the Director of QA, Production and Product team, I created and executed a strategy to improve some of the key QA processes within the team. This resulted in an improvement of our Test Suite coverage, a reduction in our live defects, improved capabilities, increased detection of defects and a reduction in QA team being spent on tasks outside the realm of QA.

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Leading the QA effort for Jagex's Unannounced MMO, I support the team by ensuring the project is being developed to high quality standards through the use of traditional testing services, promoting bug prevention and leveraging automation efforts to enhance testing scope / coverage. I'm responsible for: Line ManagementQA StrategyProject ManagementBuild ValidationsDevelopment TestingPublishing TestingMentoringTrainingGame AnalysisRecruitmentDay to day functions of the team.

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Line Management of my team to drive quality testing of our products as well as developing and growing their skills.Lead Tester for Jagex's new game, RuneScape ChronicleSupporting the QA Manager by leading the Testing of specific projectsDesigning and implementing QA wide initiatives to drive productivity and efficiencyProvide quality testing with a focus on bug prevention

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom

In TT Games I worked within a small team that tied in closely with the development team to provide a front line testing service for new builds. My role was to assess builds via smoke tests across multiple platforms (PS3, X360, Wii and PC), conduct performance tests and monitor the latest data stream to ensure issues where identified prior to the new builds being made. As the project matured the role evolved to stress testing, assess the game design, destructive testing and give evaluation feedback.Towards the end of the project, 100% playthroughs where performed and hard to re-create crashes were investigated. I was able to find reproduction steps for many of the unique issues which ensured the product was launched to a very high standard. Working so closely with the development team allowed me to gain insight into the nuts and bolts making of the game, specifically with the design team, on a day to day basis to provide a dialogue where the development team could leverage our deep gamer knowledge of the title.

At Realtime Worlds I was part of a large team (50+) testing on the PC title APB: All Points Bulletin. With such a large complex project I performed a full range of testing functions, which include: Functionality, End User Evaluation, Destructive, Localisation, Compatibility, Build Stability, Platform Standards, Usability, 3rd Party software and Web testing.I lead groups through testing strategies ranging from small task oriented teams to larger scale stability tests and creating reports for production on our findings. When working on larger tasks I successfully organised the team and workload to aid communication and maximise testing time.I also contributed to the game design as a lot of my suggestions where approved and developed into the game and my clear user feedback helped to enhance gameplay. My ideas ranged from different modes using existing assets, balance suggestions, buisness revenue mechanisms and usability ideas. The design team evaluated and implemented many of my ideas and I feel I gained a lot of experience and knowledge by working for a leading UK developer.

Working on a Wii title for Eidos, I tested the title for a range of issues covering basic functionality, design, gameplay evaluation and Wii Compliance (Lotchecks). The project team comprised of 3 teams, each team with 3-5 people who tested the different platforms being developed. By working within the teams I took the role of cross platform liase and we were able to provide high quality bug entries that minimized duplicates and quickly found bugs that may be global to the whole project.I took on some of the Lead testers management functions where I completed and maintained Alpha/Beta milestone checklists, provided detailed feedback to the client and creating effective test cases/scripts. Day to day issues within the team tend to be resolved by myself and I performed training for the new starts on the project all of which was achieved in addition to my testing duties.

I started as a shop floor assistant in the DIY department where I developed a working knowledge of the products as well as developing my sales technique for big ticket items. Within a year, I was promoted to the showroom where I designed and sold kitchens, bathrooms and furniture. Sales side, I generated over £250k in revenue for the company and learned a great deal in the home improvement market. My main responsibility was delivering sales and giving excellent customer service where I specialized in design, negotiation, selling psychology, project management and problem solving. As a senior member I was able to put my management training into practice, as I’ve ran the department when members of staff have been on holiday or off sick. This experience has helped to fine- tune my leadership and interpersonal skills when I had to deal with property developers, customer issues, staff training and rota deployment.

Worked in a team to help sort the Christmas mail in the sorting office, the job required a cool head and flexibility to fulfill other roles within the warehouse which I achieved outstandingly

I worked around George Square, in Glasgow City Centre, where i had to sell city tours to tourists and locals. I learned a lot of sales techniques from the staff as well as how to compete and negotiate on the street level. This was a necessity as there was another firm at the same location in direct competition with the company.

Bachelor Of Arts With Honours (Ba) (Hons), Games Production Management

Computer Games Technology