Eight Months, One Opportunity, A Lot of Learning — Amita Sharma’s Journey from QA to Development
Dev Journey | CoderLegion
Starting your first job can be both exciting and intimidating.
You have spent years studying, learning technologies, completing projects, and preparing for that first opportunity. But when you finally walk into a real workplace, everything can suddenly feel different.
Will I be able to do the work?
Will I understand what everyone is talking about?
What happens when I make a mistake?
For Amita Sharma, her first opportunity came through a college placement drive during her final year.
She went into the process without knowing exactly where it would lead. After an assignment test and two rounds of interviews, she was offered a six-month internship as a QA.
What started as her first corporate experience eventually became much more than that.
Over the next eight months, Amita worked on a real product, learned the fundamentals of quality assurance, discovered the importance of thinking beyond obvious test cases, and eventually got the opportunity to contribute to the development side of the same product.
Today, her experience spans QA, testing, development, and an increasing interest in AI-driven testing.
This is the story of how one opportunity helped her discover that she could do more than she initially thought.
Getting the First Opportunity
Eight months ago, I walked into a college placement drive with honestly no idea where it would take me.
There was an assignment test, followed by two interview rounds. I cleared them and was eventually offered a six-month internship as a QA.
Since it was my final year of college, getting a job before graduating was already a big thing for me.
But getting the offer was one thing, and actually starting was another.
It was my first corporate experience, so I was nervous.
I had so many questions in my head.
Would I be able to do the work?
Would I understand everything?
How would I fit into a completely new environment?
Thankfully, the first few days made things much easier.
Everyone was really welcoming, the team was approachable, and I never felt like I had to figure everything out on my own.
Once the training started and I began working on an actual product, the real learning began.
Discovering What QA Really Involves
When I joined, I had a pretty basic understanding of QA.
Test the feature, find bugs, report them.
But working on QAlity showed me how much more there was to it.
I started working on different features and workflows, reporting and retesting bugs, doing regression testing, and slowly learning to think beyond the obvious scenarios.
I began to understand that testing isn't simply about finding something that doesn't work.
It's about thinking about how people might actually use a product.
What happens if someone takes an unexpected path?
What happens if they enter something you didn't anticipate?
What happens when a new feature interacts with something that was already working?
Those questions gradually became part of the way I approached testing.
The Excitement of Finding My First Bug
I still remember finding my first bug.
It was honestly such a small thing, but I was so happy when I found it.
I don't even know why I was that excited, but I think it was because it made everything feel real.
I was actually testing a product.
I had found something that wasn't working as expected.
And I knew what to do with it.
It was a small moment, but for me it was an important one.
It made me feel like I was no longer just learning about QA.
I was actually doing it.
Learning From a Mentor
My mentor had a big part in helping me get there.
Whenever I got stuck, I had someone to ask, but I was also encouraged to think things through myself.
A simple question like:
"What about this scenario?"
would sometimes send me back to the feature and make me look at it differently.
At first, I needed guidance to figure things out.
Gradually, I became more confident in figuring things out on my own.
That was one of the biggest changes I noticed in myself.
The goal wasn't simply to have someone give me the answer.
It was learning how to find the answer myself.
An Unexpected Turn: From QA to Development
And then my role took a direction I hadn't expected.
Along with QA, I got the opportunity to work on the development side of QAlity too.
I worked on the UI and created pages for the product, which gave me a chance to understand QAlity from a completely different perspective.
That experience was especially valuable because I got to see both sides of the product.
I understood what went into building a feature and also what I needed to think about when testing it.
It gave me a much broader experience than I had imagined when I first joined.
Instead of seeing development and testing as completely separate activities, I started understanding how closely they are connected.
Building something gives you one perspective.
Testing it gives you another.
Having the opportunity to experience both helped me understand the product much more deeply.
Eight Months Later
Now, eight months later, I can see how much has changed.
I came in wondering whether I would be able to do the job.
Today, I have worked on QAlity as a QA, contributed to its development, built UI pages, and taken on things that I wouldn't have imagined myself doing on day one.
Looking back, the biggest change isn't just the number of things I've learned.
It's the confidence I've gained from actually doing them.
The things that seemed intimidating at the beginning gradually became things I knew how to approach.
What I Would Tell Someone Starting Their First Job
If there's one thing I'd tell someone starting their first job, it's to give yourself some time.
You don't have to know everything from the beginning.
Ask questions.
Learn from the people around you.
Take feedback.
And don't hesitate to try something new just because you've never done it before.
Your first job isn't about proving that you already know everything.
It's about learning how to learn in a real environment.
More Than Just a First Job
When I think about these eight months, I don't just think about the work I did.
I think about how much that first opportunity opened up for me.
I joined as a QA intern, but along the way I got to explore development too, learn from some really good people, and discover that I could do more than I initially thought.
And honestly, I think that's what makes these eight months so special to me.
I came here with a lot to learn, and I'm leaving this phase with a lot more experience, confidence, and curiosity about what comes next.
About Amita
Amita Sharma is a Quality Assurance Engineer focused on building reliable, scalable, and efficient testing workflows. Her experience includes manual and automated testing, with a growing interest in AI-driven testing and modern QA practices.
Her CoderLegion profile is:
https://coderlegion.com/user/amitasharmaa
Her technical interests include JavaScript, Python, SQL, Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, Postman, REST APIs, Machine Learning, and Agentic AI.
She is passionate about improving product quality, reducing manual effort, and creating better user experiences through smarter testing solutions.
This story is part of CoderLegion's Dev Journey series, where developers share their real experiences, challenges, lessons, growth, and the opportunities that shaped their careers.
