The Professional Résumé of Abraham Heward
Contact Information
10033 N 35th Place
Phoenix, Arizona 85028
(703) 346-8620
abe@abeheward.com
Web Site: www.abeheward.com
Skype: abraham.heward
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/abrahamheward
Software Development Experience
Senior Test Engineer
FetchBack, Inc., Tempe, AZ (480) 289-5555
July 2010 to Present
FetchBack provides an online advertising service known in the industry as “retargeting”. My role in the company
is to help to plan the company’s development schedule, test newly developed features and bug fixes, and write and
maintain a suite of automated regression scripts, written in Ruby/Watir. Issues are tracked in Jira, and product
design and testing documentation is written in Confluence.
Currently Working On:
 Extending the reach of our automation tools using the Ruby library “Watir-Webdriver.”
Accomplishments:
 Gave a presentation on how to write effective "bug" reports to the Account Management team.
 Wrote design documentation for Fetchback's advertiser reports, as well as detailed instructional
descriptions of various aspects of “Fido,” Fetchback’s proprietary tool for managing a client’s online
advertising campaign.
 Codified the company's development process, describing and defining all the steps, from design to
release.
 Starting from scratch, developed a suite of automated regression checks using Watir, Ruby, and SQLite3,
with enough coverage of critical features that now the weekly releases—once a source of trepidation
sometimes followed by panic—go smoothly, like clockwork.
Testing Consultant
Humana RightSourceRx, Phoenix, AZ (800) 379-0092
December 2009 to July 2010
RightSourceRx is the mail-order pharmacy arm of Humana Health. I was hired to test RightSourceRx’s system
responsible for the scanning and OCR of all incoming mail and fax orders—internally known as “Fairfax”.
Accomplishments:
 On a team consisting of 17 people, I wrote over 2000 of Fairfax’s approximately 5000 test cases, based
on existing design documents, prior to actual delivery of working code.
 Regression-tested “MailRx”, RightSourceRx’s current front end for their patient and prescription order
records database.
 Consulted with the team managers, recommending ways to streamline process and improve testing
efficiencies.

Mentored the team on testing philosophy, including giving a PowerPoint presentation on Goodhart’s Law
and the potential dangers of becoming “test case obsessed.”
Head of Quality Assurance
Qtask, Inc., Burbank, CA (818) 562-8400
September 2007 to December 2009
Qtask developed an innovative online project management, collaboration, and accountability SAAS product. It
blends the newest ideas from web 2.0, social networking, real-time interaction, speed, and intuitive UI. My role
was to manage the testing process.
Accomplishments:
 Built the test team from the ground up. This included interviewing candidates and training new hires
when necessary.
 Managed the small team of part-time contractor testers.
 Managed the preliminary development of a suite of automated tests of Qtask's API calls, using Watir, an
open-source testing library for Ruby.
 Collaborated on improving the development process to ensure the least number of bugs slipped through,
in spite of the web site's aggressive weekly release schedule. This included defining the release schedule,
tracking showstopper bugs, managing the update process, and coordinating emergency "hot fixes" to the
site when necessary.
 Wrote and maintained all of the company's testing documentation, including a "New Tester Orientation"–
a document designed to acquaint new hires with Qtask's unique development process (which resembled
the Agile methodology).
 Met weekly and semi-weekly with development heads to track and modify project priorities.
 Worked with the Marketing department to design and implement a process for coordinating copy writers
and IT staff (who were on opposite sides of the country) to ensure safe and frequent updates to Qtask's
marketing web pages. Prior to implementing the process, many embarrassing problems would
inadvertently "go live", to be found by customers. The new process minimized these types of mistakes.
Quality Assurance Analyst
McKesson/Relay Health, Scottsdale, AZ (480) 663-4000
June 2007 to September 2007
RelayHealth, a subsidiary of McKesson, developed and maintained a Visual Basic product called "ProHelpDesk",
designed to process claims for prescription medication.
Accomplishments:
 Evaluated a number of test automation tools, such as Seapine's QA Wizard Pro and Mercury's QuickTest,
to quickly determine whether any would be a good fit for ProHelpDesk. Reported my findings and
recommendations to the development team.
 Wrote a number of test plans based on vague requirements specifications. This process required taking
the initiative and making frequent contacts by email and phone with the offsite development staff to get
questions answered regarding expected functionality.
 Reported bugs and tracked time using their bug database, which was custom made in MS Access (and,
prior to leaving to join Qtask, I strongly suggested they consider using other tools for this purpose).
Testing Contractor
Blueprint Consulting, LLC, Phoenix, AZ (602) 343-1806
November 2006 to May 2007
Blueprint Consulting was charged with testing the U.S. District Court's Case Management and Electronic Case
Filing software. The position required black-box manual testing, verifying fixes, regression testing existing system
functionality, and occasionally running SQL database queries to ensure the integrity of any underlying data that
could not be seen from the application's front end. The position also required, during the final phase of beta
testing, some minor supervision of on-site beta testers.
Accomplishments:
 Authored numerous detailed test case documents in Word Perfect, based on the provided
design/requirements specifications, as well as my own exploratory testing and initiative.
 Reported issues to the development staff, located in Washington, DC, via Lotus Notes and Bugzilla.
Quality Assurance Manager/Quality Assurance Specialist
Harmony Information Systems, Inc., Reston, VA (703) 674-5100
August 2004 to October 2006
Harmony Information Systems, Inc., is the leading provider of information management solutions for both
government and private provider human services organizations. I was brought in to test their web-based, highly
customizable product.
Accomplishments:
 Initially hired as the company's only full-time manual tester of "Web Harmony", the company's flagship
product.
 When hired, Web Harmony had out-of-date help manuals and extremely limited or non-existent
requirements documents. Within 6 months I had become one of two experts on the product, such that we
became the unofficial second-tier for customer support.
 Ultimately managed 3 additional testers.
 To ensure that QA would be able to quickly provide management with accurate reports regarding the
current status of testing, I began the process of cataloging a comprehensive suite of test cases in
Mercury's Test Director. As a result, QA could, at will, provide Harmony's stakeholders with a concise
summary of where we were in the testing cycle.
 Bugs and feature requests were tracked in Web Harmony itself.
 Edited a number of updates to the Help manuals.
 Learned basic SQL commands and MS Enterprise Manager, creating queries to verify the integrity of the
system data.
Lead Tester
Desert Document Services, Tempe AZ (800) 726-9898
January 2002 to July 2002
Desert Document Services, Inc., develops software to help lenders streamline the preparation of loan document
packages and have the ability to roll out new loan products quickly and cost-effectively.
Accomplishments:
 Lead a team of 4 testers
 Planned, prioritized, and delegated tasks, as necessary, to ensure testing occurred as rapidly and
efficiently as possible, given the team's limited resources and experience, and the company's aggressive
release schedule.
 Maintained a Winrunner test script while the web-based version of the Mortgage application underwent
multiple iterations.
 Wrote and maintained testing standards and checklists.
 Performed black-box, requirements-based testing on the company's DOS, Windows, and web-based
products.
 Informed development staff of all discovered issues via the company's project tracking software,
"Harvest".
Quality Assurance/Customer Support Manager
Buzzsaw.com, Phoenix AZ (602) 744-1300
August 1997 to August 2001
Originally named "PageMasters, Inc.", prior to being purchased by Buzzsaw.com, the company was the premiere
provider of software to manage large-format print jobs for architects, engineers, and reprographers.
Accomplishments:
 Managed up to 9 people responsible both for testing the product across several major and minor releases
and localization builds, and for providing telephone and email support to our worldwide customer base.
 Worked closely with executive, technical, and sales staff throughout the organization to communicate the
current status of the application and the test team's progress.
 Helped to define product requirements, set new feature and bug-fix priorities, and otherwise improve the
application's functionality, based on customer needs.
 Created and maintained a comprehensive, 156-page test specification designed to ensure complete testing
coverage, including for the 11 localized versions of the product
 Developed a novel way to track the testing team’s progress so that the whole company always knew our
status.
 Trained the junior team members in the philosophy and methodology of effective testing.
 Delegated specific testing and support tasks to appropriate members of the team, to capitalize on their
strengths and experience, and provide opportunities for growth and advancement.
 Used MS Project to determine testing schedules and potential resource bottlenecks or unrealistic
deadlines.
 Used PVCS Tracker for compiling and managing product bugs and feature requests.
 Contributed directly to the testing effort, as necessary, with exploratory and regression testing.
 Provided our international customer base with friendly support via telephone, email, and on-site visits.
 Created a customer support "knowledgebase" from scratch, using FileMaker Pro 4.0 and 5.0 This enabled
the support team to build a library of common problems and their solutions. As a result, they could do
simple key word searches and quickly diagnose and solve customer issues.
 Learned to use Mercury’s Winrunner to automate a small number of testing tasks.
Producer/Game Designer/Tester
Gravity, Inc., San Francisco CA (415) 516-8777
July 1996 to August 1997
A small start-up game company, Gravity hired me specifically to help design the game play for "Banzai Bug," a
unique, pseudo flight-sim game, set from a bug's perspective. Using programming tools created by the project's
technical director, took the basic, abstract game concept and transformed that into a fun, challenging game.
Producer on a game prototype of popular block game "Jenga." Managed a small production team consisting of a
programmer, several contract artists, and myself. Wrote a preliminary design specification for the game.
Other Professional Experience
Admissions Counselor
University of Phoenix Online, Phoenix AZ
November 2003 to August 2004
Counseled prospective students via telephone and email regarding University Admissions requirements and
enrollment issues. The position required building rapport with prospective students and counseling them on
whether or not the University's programs would help them to achieve their long-term goals.
Realtor
John Hall & Associates, Phoenix AZ (602) 995-7400
August 2002 to July 2004
Independent contractor in real estate sales. Responsible for all phases of the business, including marketing, lead
generation and follow-up, writing and negotiating contracts, counseling buyers and sellers about purchase
contracts and related legal issues, coordination of all parties to the transaction, such as lenders, title companies,
home inspectors, etc., and managing all customer service needs throughout each transaction.
Education
University of Arizona
Bachelor of Fine Arts in Media Arts
Degree included a split minor in Chemistry and Economics.