This topic is awesome!! There's something quite intriguing about reading other peoples daily activities.
I'm a "Software Test Engineer". It's a fancy title for someone who tests software. I work for a company that was just acquired by one and merged with another, so its quite the corporate enterprise. That said, my daily schedule seems oddly similar to Office Space.
Wake up at 0700, take a shower and eat a quick breakfast (leftovers, usually).
Shave, brush my teeth, gel my hair, and piddle around until about 0750.
Drive a short commute to work and show up at about 0825.
Check my email, grab a cup of coffee or some hot chocolate, and mess around until 0900-ish.
Chat with my coworkers about the new issues we have to test and the new bug fixes that the developers put out.
By about 0930, I start testing my area of the software.
The program suite that I am specifically assigned is a Records Management System that our customers use to make sure that their date-specific documents are handled correctly. This means that they can create a "Record" in our system that reprsents a physical object: Microfiche, Tapes, Documents, Files, Boxes, even CDRoms. They can specify creation dates, destruction dates, transfer dates, and many other things that happen automatically. They can even specify the volume of an object (a given box is 6" x 6" x 6", for example, and allocate space in a warehouse. The program will automatically configure the spaces and tell the user what spaces are available. It can also tell a Records Manager how much space would be saved by deleting X amount of boxes or documents or CDs. Even beyond that, it can automatically calculate preset storage amounts for all those boxes, and a warehouse company can charge their customers via the prices in our progam.
Even through that simplified explanation, its pretty apparent there are many dependent assets in the program. If the volume calculation was incorrect, the storage tool would not work correctly, and neither would the price calculations. This could cause a lot of headaches for us AND our customers. It's therefore my job during the release cycle to make sure that any bugs we have are found and fixed before they get to a customer. This ranges from putting in obscene values into certain fields: putting "FUCKYOU" into numeric fields to see if it'll choke, to testing security of the XML/OLEDB layer to make sure hacking the system is much more difficult. I have to also make sure that the program as user-friendly and understandable as it can be. So, that in mind..
By about 1000, I'm looking back over the bugs I've written up from the previous day to see if a developer has found or fixed a certain issue. If he has, I have to find the patch and insert it into my module and re-test it. If the problem was fixed, I mark the issue as closed. If not, I spit it back to the developer to re-fix.
Depending on the day, my time from 1000 to 1230 can be anything from re-testing the fixes from the previous day to dealing with customer issues (they want a patch) sent over from Tech Support. I eat lunch at my desk and keep testing until about 1530. By then I'm pretty burnt out and I mess around a bit until 1600 when I take off.
Half an hour later I'm at home; eat a quick dinner and screw around on my computer or watch TV until about 2100 or 2200 and then its off to bed!
A day in the life of a JiNN.
