We spoke with Matthew Goldman, a Software QA Analyst and Business Analyst at CMRRA, and discussed the new development process he went through as well as his love of music.
You recently participated in CMRRA’s new employee development assignment opportunity which allowed you to move roles from Licensing Trust Administrator to become a Software QA Analyst and Business Analyst! Can you tell us a little more about this?
When I heard CMRRA was offering a developmental position for a QA Analyst role, I was excited to jump on the opportunity. I had just finished a UX Design Certificate through York University in Toronto and saw that a lot of what I learned through the program could be applied to this role.
My responsibilities are varied but they can be distilled into two parts. The first revolves around general maintenance of LDS, CMRRA’s licensing and royalty system. In the day-to-day use of LDS, users will identify defects or incidents that need to be fixed – either internally at CMRRA or by Spanish Point, a company we work with for overall development and maintenance of the database and portals. Once a fix is developed and released into our Development (DEV) environment or User Acceptance Testing (UAT) environment, I will review the fix to determine if it has in fact solved the issue and clear it for release to our production environment
The second part of my role focuses on testing functionality for new features or proposed new lines of business. Each new feature has its own set of challenges that need to be addressed and I am lucky to be able to draw on the expertise of so many great people here at CMRRA to meet those challenges.
The pandemic has thrown curveballs into the lives of many, but you have a young daughter and a teacher in your household, how is that balance going?
There have been many challenges throughout the pandemic, but I think we are managing pretty well. My wife works half days from home which helps with childcare, and thanks to COVID-19 we managed to get Dahlia into an amazing daycare that otherwise would have had a massive wait list. Unfortunately, that daycare recently had a COVID outbreak and is shut down, but we will manage! I don’t think many working parents get to spend this much time with their kids at this age, so we are trying to take everything in stride and enjoy the time we get to spend together.
We hear you play guitar and you’re a musician! Has the pandemic allowed for more moments of creativity in your music?
Music has always played a huge role in my life. I taught guitar privately for 15 years and received my certified guitar-playing-papers from Humber College. I played for years in a band called Elsa (elsa.bandcamp.com) and am currently playing in a band called Drywall Heels (drywallheels.bandcamp.com).
When the pandemic began, music making pretty much came to a halt. This was the first time in years I wasn’t meeting weekly to make music with people. Not playing music with people has been harder to deal with than I expected as band practices have always been a weekly highlight for me. Despite that, it has given me the opportunity to finish things I had been putting off, like finishing some mixing and mastering for Drywall Heels and for another project I’ve wanted to do for years – Chet Atkins style arrangements of Simpsons music! I really do hope the pandemic comes to an end soon, I would never have thought I would ever miss the gross, sweaty rooms of a Rehearsal Factory!
A note from Lori Ellis, CMRRA’s Vice President of Operations: CMRRA management is thrilled to be able to offer these career developmental opportunities to our staff, and I am exceedingly pleased with the transition that Matthew has undergone. He has quickly become a go-to member of our team for testing support across all facets of CMRRA’s systems. Having the business background from his time in the Operations team has given him a solid foundation to support the steep learning curve of this new role, which he has approached with gusto, and which has resulted in great success. Well done, Matthew!
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