Shannon Picou
Waterbury,CT
Summary
More than 7 years of professional experience each as Quality Assurance/Test Engineering Specialist and Technology Instructor. Demonstrated transformational leadership by driving key improvements that positively impacted work-life balance, deployment quality, and team productivity. Committed to building and maintaining strong relationships across teams, driving collaboration to align testing requirements with project timelines and promoting a high-performance, accountable team culture. Fostered a culture of continuous improvement, data-driven decision-making, and professional development within the Test Engineering team.
Overview
16
16
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Test Engineering (QA) Manager
Foothold Technology
11.2023 - Current
- Promoted to lead and mentor a team of manual and automation testers, developing and implementing comprehensive test strategies aligned with organizational goals to ensure high-quality software delivery for our company’s AWARDS product
- Developed and enforced comprehensive testing protocols, including mandatory automation regression tests before merging to test environments while ensuring thorough testing at all stages of the release process and minimizing regression bugs
- Oversee the design, development, and maintenance of test automation frameworks (e.g., Selenium, Cypress), driving continuous improvement and standardization across testing practices to reduce manual testing and increase test automation coverage
- Spearheaded the refinement of project and Help Desk release processes, collaborating with the Group Product Manager to standardize workflows, reduce errors, and ensure cleaner product deployments, resulting in smoother releases and fewer post-release issues
- Achieved significant reductions in Help Desk ticket totals throughout 2024 with a 32.8% reduction of total HD ticket from Q1 to Q3, project escaped bugs down by 87%, and HD ticket regression bugs down by 64%. All directly contributing to higher customer satisfaction and an improved cNPS score
- Directed the reassessment of our test automation framework (evaluating Selenium vs Cypress vs Playwright) and overseeing the implementation of significant automation improvements including faster test execution and parallelization of smoke tests reducing wait times by over 30-60 minutes and streamlining the testing process across 10-11 servers resulting in a reduced cycle time and increased velocity
- Led testing efforts for our successful Help Desk Surge where I oversaw testing and the closure of approximately 200 tickets within 3 weeks and personally contributing to the resolution of 60 tickets
- Fostered a positive and supportive team culture, empowering team members to actively engage in discussions, share ideas, and take on leadership roles resulting in improved collaboration and team cohesion
- Consistently exceeded expectations in a dual role balancing full-time Scrum project team responsibilities with leadership of the Test Engineering team and handling around 400 Help Desk tickets over three quarters and contributing to multiple project initiatives
- Enhanced the overall Test Engineering team by developing a comprehensive onboarding new hire process and revamping the Test Engineering career ladder by creating new roles, updating titles and job descriptions to better coincide with the current market
Manual and Automation Test Engineer
Foothold Technology
01.2017 - 11.2023
- Five-time recipient of the Footie Award, a peer-elected employee recognition award for remarkable work efforts and productivity - the most received during any tenure within the organization
- Develop testing strategy plans for User Stories while performing efficient manual project functional testing to ensure functionality works as intended; and communicate testing results in a clear, detail-oriented written manner along with use of screenshots, videos, and error logging as needed
- Create automated tests for new product features and general functional testing thru use of Gitbash, VisualStudio Code, BitBucket, and Xray integration in the Jira Software
- Created and executed manual and automated software test plans, test cases and test scripts to uncover, identify, and document software issues and utilized Jira to report, track and monitor defects.
- Monitored resolution of bugs, tested fixes, and helped developers tackle ongoing problems by providing QA perspective.
- Collaborate with the project team through Agile Scrum process and work closely with Software Engineers and Product Owners to achieve Sprint goal objectives
- Set a precedent for clean deployments by significantly decreasing the quantity of escaped bugs
- Contributed to company-wide initiatives by being Project Manager for our annual User’s Conference and key leader/participant in several company committees such as Impact Prize and DEI
Software Trainer
Foothold Technology
04.2016 - 01.2017
- Delivered software application training to a variety of end-users (both new and experienced users with a wide range of computer skills and educational levels) for efficient and proper usage of the organization's web-based electronic health record database system
- Developed targeted agendas and training materials for each training session and provided effective instruction on varying workflows relevant to the contracted agency
- Maintained high quality training based on end-user feedback and made changes as need for continual improvement of instruction delivery
- Trained approximately 1,000 end users within a 6 month time-frame
ATTAIN Instructional Technology Coordinator
Research Foundation of SUNY
01.2009 - 04.2016
- Developed curriculum based on academic, vocational, and Microsoft Office Specialist Certification courseware and successfully maintain a 100% passing rate for MOS Word and PowerPoint participants
- Managed usage of computer tech labs, SMART Boards, Tandberg video-conferencing units, projectors, computer networking, etc and provided staff professional development for advancement of technology skills
- Assist instructional staff with technical troubleshooting, design and implementation of promotional materials, creating forms, PowerPoint presentations, and database/spreadsheets.
- Provide staff training/workshops for advancement of technology skills, Microsoft Office Suite, and SMART Board classroom integration
Education
Bachelor of Science - Education
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
Baton Rouge, LA05.2001
Skills
- Quality assurance expertise
- Cross-functional team leadership
- Software development lifecycle
- Regression testing management
- Continuous improvement implementation
- Process improvement strategies
- Project management
- Performance metrics
- Training and mentoring
Certification
- Microsoft Office Master Specialist Certificate
- Microsoft Word, Word Expert, PowerPoint
- Microsoft Technology Associate Certificate Security Fundamentals
- Coursera Courses: Excel, Continuous Delivery & DevOps, JavaScript, HTML, CSS
Community Excellence Award
Recipient of the Community Excellence Award of 2014 for consistent efforts that train youth, adult students, and professionals in technology to enhance academic preparation and career opportunities.
Timeline
Test Engineering (QA) Manager
Foothold Technology
11.2023 - Current
Manual and Automation Test Engineer
Foothold Technology
01.2017 - 11.2023
Software Trainer
Foothold Technology
04.2016 - 01.2017
ATTAIN Instructional Technology Coordinator
Research Foundation of SUNY
01.2009 - 04.2016
- Microsoft Office Master Specialist Certificate
- Microsoft Word, Word Expert, PowerPoint
- Microsoft Technology Associate Certificate Security Fundamentals
- Coursera Courses: Excel, Continuous Delivery & DevOps, JavaScript, HTML, CSS
Bachelor of Science - Education
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
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