Testify equips Nigerians with software testing skills

A career in software engineering or software testing is not something that should be taken lightly.

Furthermore, if anyone claims that they will teach an employable software testing course in less than a month, promising a six-figure salary at the end, they are scammers.

These are sentiments of Nigerian software testing consultancy firm and academy Testify's founder, Ibironke Yekinni.

"Any field in software engineering or testing is not a joke. You can get six weeks with a full day of learning, yes, but six weeks with little or no attention is a huge no," she told Connecting Africa in an interview.

Yekinni said the idea of Testify came to her when she was on a bus, on her way to a new job at a tech firm that had all the perks that a young software tester could ask for. She said she was excited to start a new job, but when a young man who went to a similar school as she did climbed onto the bus, drenched in sweat and looking despondent, something inside her changed.

"The guy sat down and said, 'It doesn't matter how much hard work you put in, it doesn't mean you will get a job,' and that broke me," she explained.

"What did it matter if I had a big job that paid a lot? What good was that if I couldn't change the lives of others? My prayer was, 'God, please make me one of the solutions for unemployment in Nigeria,'" she said.

A new direction

That encounter with the young man on the bus led to Yekinni quitting her job after the first day without a plan on a way forward. When she got home, she started developing a curriculum without knowing what it was she was writing. When she sent what she had written to her mentor in Canada, she was encouraged to teach people what she had developed.

After working as a senior software quality and testing professional at different companies, and with the curriculum she developed, Yekinni started teaching online.

"I launched the academy on Telegram, and after a few free training sessions, I started charging a fee for the training program," she added.

It was when people she taught came back to her to let her know that they had secured jobs with reputable organizations all over the world that she officially started Testify.

"I knew I was onto something. I knew I had a viable idea," she added. "I knew I was contributing to the reduction of unemployment in Nigeria and [across] Africa. By 2025, I hope to have equipped 5,000 people with employable tech skills through software testing."

Testify's offering

Testify is a software testing agency that provides software testing services to product-led companies.

Furthermore, the academy trains software testers and provides hiring services to companies that need software testing talents, she said.

The company also specializes in the delivery of full-cycle quality assurance and believes that building trust and quality relationships with its clients is at its core, Yekinni continued.

"We provide qualitative software testing training for our students and equip them with the required skill sets as well as provide mentorship for them until they land a software testing job," she added.

Helping women in tech

Yekinni believes that women in the African tech ecosystem are required to work twice as hard as their male counterparts.

"Therefore, as a founder and a woman, I am committed to making it easier for other women to get ahead in the tech industry through our training academy," she said.

The Testify academy trains software testers and provides hiring services to companies that need software testing talents. (Source: Testify).

"We have also designed programs targeting females who are unemployed, who are single, wives, and mothers who mostly stay at home, as well as females who are employed or entrepreneurs who want to learn tech skills and increase their ability to earn more," she continued.

Moreover, she said Testify is also expanding opportunities for women to access digital education, collaborate and provide digital education, and participate in the digital and tech economy.

Training courses

Currently, Testify's academy has a range of courses that take between one and six months to complete as well as a soon-to-be-launched advanced one-year course.

Testify has a one-month "ABC of software testing" course that introduces beginners to software testing.

"Our signature software testing program provides tech skill sets in three months for novices who want to switch careers and enter the tech ecosystem, " Yekinni said. "The six-month program teaches manual software testers how to leverage the skill of test automation in increasing their job productivity, thereby leading to an increase in potential earning."

Yekinni has also introduced an advanced one-year course, for those software testers who want to have an advanced training program.

"I will be running a free master class in software testing on September 9, 2023, and I implore everyone who is interested to join us online," she concluded.

*Top image is of Testify Founder Ibironke Yekinni. (Source: Testify.)

— Matshepo Sehloho, Associate Editor, Connecting Africa