Life at theScore - QA Analyst

During my first work term, I was a QA Analyst on the Promotions team, working on theScore Bet. The journey was a great experience as I was surrounded by an amazing environment of positive and like-minded individuals, while having the opportunity to learn life long goals and skills.

What is theScore?

Score Media and Gaming Inc. empowers millions of sports fans through its digital media and sports betting products. Its media app ‘theScore’ is one of the most popular in North America, delivering fans highly personalized live scores, news, stats, and betting information from their favorite teams, leagues, and players.

My Responsibilities

As a QA Analyst, my main focus was on the delivery of high-quality releases that satisfied product requirements to meet user expectations. Some of my work included the following:

• Created document test plans, test cases, and utilized validation techniques for application functionality.
• Participated in bug prioritizing, priority assessment, and coverage tracking of reported bugs within the defect tracking system.
• Communicated with product, design, and executive teams through reports to identify and solve quality issues.

Similarly, other personal goals that I wanted to accomplish:

• Understanding other areas of software development, including product, design and development teams across theScore organization
• Getting involved in people & culture life at theScore, including co-op projects and volunteer opportunities

April 2022

In April I came across an open position for a QA Analyst at theScore. It was extremely busy during this time as I was interviewing for several other companies as well as finishing the last of my exams for the school year. After applying, I was reached out a week later where I was offered two interviews. The interview process was smooth as I had the opportunity to demonstrate my skills. Later that day, I received a call where I was offered the position. The onboarding process was fairly quick as was I provided with the necessary equipment to start the following week.

May 2022

During the first couple of days at theScore, there was a lot of information to cover during my onboarding, including documents, architecture, services, and different software tools. At first, it was overwhelming, however, everybody was extremely helpful which made learning a lot easier. I mainly spent the first couple of weeks playing around with the TSB app, as well as understanding the application for the promotions service.

July 2022 - December 2022

For the next couple of months, I worked on different tickets for various products. I found it motivating to continue testing these new features knowing that they are used daily. July was a very successful month since it was the launch of theScore's in-house tech stack that enhanced markets and betting capabilities.

Near the end of July, I had the opportunity to present a co-op project to the Sr. Leadership team, including the CEO, Directors and HR at theScore. Our project was a resource that would be used to target new employees that were interested in applying to theScore. We decided to create a prototype website to illustrate theScore's culture; theScoreStories which talks about theScore including individual stories from current co-op students.

Fast forward to August, theScore had a special volunteer event with partnership with the Blue Jays Foundation. Alongside 100+ theScore employees, we had the opportunity to host and lead many games and activities for athletes of all ages for the annual Challenger Baseball National Jamboree. December being the last month of the year meant for small releases in preparation for the holiday break and New Year. Looking back at the last several months, I had worked on a lot of interesting projects/products. Furthermore, I was able to achieve all of my learning goals. From signing off on tickets, to performing neccessary adhoc testing to watching these features come to life, it was an admirable experience.

Conclusion

Working at theScore for my first co-op term was a great experience. I had the opportunity to learn a lot about the sports betting industry, including what the products and architecture were at theScore. Similarily, I learned a lot about quality assurance, performing quality testing, problem-solving, and identifying critical bugs within the workflow. Some of my favourite work included promotions feature work on the Viva/Vegas and Parlay+ launch. Both were very large milestones that took an all-around amazing effort across all teams within the organization.

Although this is the end of my first work term, I will miss my colleagues and my time here working at theScore. However, I am excited about my future work terms as I want to continue expanding my skills and knowledge in software development.

Acknowledgments

• 🥇 Special thanks to Charlotte and Jamie, my supervisor and manager at theScore who gave me feedback to achieve my learning goals as well as helping to answer any work related questions I had
• 🥈 I would also like to thank everyone on the Promotions and QA team for being amazing people to work with, from Vegas launch to Parlay+ it was a great experience to work with everybody
• 🥉 Lastly, I would like to thank Michelle for the smooth hiring process, as well as organizing projects and activities for the co-op students at theScore

Highlights

theScore Co-op Project Summer 2022

National Jamboree '22 - Blue Jays Foundation

Promotions Team Event