PASSION FOR LEARNING Virginia Hickman | Quality Assurance Engineer Movista, Bentonville
"I never had a mind for tech—I never thought I'd want to do it."
VIRGINIA HICKMAN IS a gatekeeper. In her role with Movista, a retail management software company, she’s one of a team of tech professionals who tests the company’s products to make sure they perform as advertised. It’s a critical role, one that heads off issues before they get to the customer. Hickman is a natural at her job, born of a helping spirit and a natural inquisitiveness—all the more remarkable considering that she’s never considered herself “techy.” “I had worked at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville for a really long time as an undergrad,” she says, “and anytime something happened to the computer, I would call the tech person. I never had a mind for tech—I never thought I’d want to do it.” Hickman’s education and job experience tended to reinforce that belief—she holds a degree in anthropology and previously worked as a yoga instructor. Then a friend insisted that she had the right “thought process” for a tech job. On his advice, she enrolled at the University of Arkansas Global Campus. “I just wanted to get my feet wet,” she says, “so I did an online prerequisite, which was an HTML course. I loved it. It was a very gentle way of getting into programming. And then, when we started our other classes, it was like drinking from a fire hose, but I loved that, too.” Hickman joined Movista 18 months ago as a QA analyst and soon moved into her current role. “Being a QA Engineer, you test the product and make sure it’s as bug-free as you can get it,” she says. “The bugs aren’t anything malicious. It’s usually something that’s preventing the user from doing what the user wants to do—you know, there’s a new version of the app and it doesn’t work like the last version did. It’s my job to catch all those bugs before it goes to production.” While Hickman spends her days surrounded by people who have followed the traditional tech path, she’s a firm believer that you don’t have to have a technology background to find a rewarding career in the field—all it takes is the right attitude and a willingness to learn outside of your comfort zone. “The most helpful thing to me was just doing it,” she says. And her advice to anyone considering a tech career? “I would say start with anything HTML,” she says. “It’s pretty easy to learn and you see immediate results. It’s fun and it’s a very good introduction to programming. Then take any free courses you can take. I sometimes watch YouTube videos and coding interviews, even though I’m not looking to get hired anywhere. They’re just interesting to see.”
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