Testing Role 2005

I worked in the Test department in Motorola. My main duties involve testing software completely, every new functionality or device needed to be tested thoroughly. It was my duty to create these tests and run them. If any problems were found it was my job to log these problems to be fixed in the next loadline. Throughout the testing of each loadline, there was a great opertunity to automating the testing process, something which I find interesting and challenging. I created the following programs which speeded up the process:

• A unix script which ran the tests in bulk and inserted comments into the log file
• A java program which takes in the software/code to be tested and automatically preps the tests
• A java program which takes in the output logfile of tests running and highlights the tests that cause problems

Work Experience 2004

The work Placement Period lasted 24weeks, starting on the 5th of April and ending to the 17th of September. The Placement was carried out in Motorola Cork Operations in Mahon Industrial Estate. This facility is one of two Motorola facilities in Cork. It is a software development operation which employs approximately 500 plus engineers, the GTSS operation involves the design, test and support of telecoms networks for markets in over 30 countries. Motorola is leading the way in wireless data through its GPRS and EDGE solutions to meet the demands of a growing global mobile workforce. Motorola is a pioneer in emerging 3G markets of UMTS and WCDMA where its ASPIRA architecture completes the transition to IP wireless networks, providing end-to-end solutions across all markets. It specializes in developing software for the 2G/2.5G and 3G cellular network infrastructures. A wide variety of races and cultures reside in Motorola, giving each employee a great opportunity to experience and deal with many interesting people. It is a company that employees a flexible work hour system to cater for everyone's needs, depending on the employee, work can be completed early on the morning or late at night.

Work Completed

The group that the work was completed with in Motorola was the Test Group, which mostly involved automation and creating Tools. The work carried out while in the placement varied tremendously. The projects that were carried out included JavaScript WebPages, Test Estimation Databases, dynamic webpage creation, a number of presentations, automated reports and tools. Since the amount of the projects was large, so was the variety of different languages and software learned throughout the placement. Extensive knowledge of many new languages was obtained during the course of the work placement. As the number of different projects was great, the number of different aspects and languages to learn was also great. These included JavaScript, Visual Basic, and Visual Basic with Applications (including Word and Excel), PowerPoint, SQL Server and Macromedia Dream weaver. The Learning centre in Motorola provides its employees some really useful books and courses for research and learning, which were taken advantage of during this placement. Java courses were completed as well as network courses involving TCP/IP networks. Working with hard working professionals gave more of a learning opportunity than any of the courses and books read.

The business of the company

Motorola specialises in wireless, broadband and automotive communications technologies and embedded electronic products. There are six business units within the company: Broadband Communications Sector; Commercial, Government and Industrial Sector; Global Telecom Solutions Sector (Cork); Integrated Electronic systems Sector; Personal Communications Sector and Semiconductor Products Sector.

Its products or services

Motorola has many products including consumer products such as Bluetooth, mobile phones, home networking and entertainment, two-way radios and modems to mention a few. Business products, broadband communications, integrated communication systems and IP network solutions. Some of Motorola's applications and services include dispatch communications solutions; energy systems test labs, homeland security solutions and customer service request management. They also specialise in Internet and Wireless Software Solutions, providing services such as software process consulting, platform software, voice over IP, network operator services and public safety communications solutions. The organisation/structure of work area The section where the work was carried out was the Test Group. Here it was the job to test various aspects of new features being added to a product, and highlight the problems. Databases of information concerning adding these features are available, in which the time taken, the number of lines of code, number of engineers needed etc were kept. Therefore estimates could be made on a feature to be added going by previous similar features. A lot of the work carried out was automation, the process of turning lengthy laborious tasks into “one click” solutions. Quite a lot of these tasks require a lot of knowledge about the corresponding area. In that respect a longer amount of time was required to complete these tasks as the prior knowledge of the subject matter was at a bare minimum.