Team Q&A: Darnell McKinney Jr. – Quality Assurance Intern

From his personal recycling efforts to his work fine-tuning our software, our Quality Assurance Intern Darnell McKinney Jr. is committed to making the world a little better. Join us in welcoming Darnell to the Virtual Peaker team!

How did your previous life prepare you for Virtual Peaker?

I started with a tech boot camp where I gained the skills and mindset needed to succeed in a QA team here at VP. I went through 2 internships that allowed me to work on different projects testing web and mobile applications. Those internships prepared me a lot for the work I’m doing now. Having experience working in team environments also helped me transition into working as a QA for VP. Effective communication, critical thinking, and problem-solving become a bigger individual responsibility in a smaller team.

Tell us about your role at Virtual Peaker.

My role is Quality Assurance Intern at VP. The QA team and I ensure that the Virtual Peaker platform meets quality standards by testing, identifying defects, and proposing improvements. I create test plans, analyze data, communicate findings, and collaborate with other teams to deliver a high-quality product. I’m basically spending time making sure the software is functioning as expected, and finding ways to break the software. This exposes gaps and bugs within the software so our developers can fix issues before they get to the end user.

How do you personally engage in sustainability efforts?

Overall, I feel it has become significantly easier to practice sustainability with the amount of awareness spreading about the value of reducing, reusing, and recycling resources. Some of the ways I engage in sustainability efforts is to focus on making changes to some of the things I do in everyday life. Recycling, transitioning to reusable items like bags and bottles and moving away from plastic. I’ve learned about reducing wasted water and energy consumption and now incorporate that into my daily habits.

What can you tell us about yourself?

I was born in New Castle, Delaware, but lived in different parts of Texas for around 7 years. After living in Houston, Austin, and College Station, I realized the Texas summers are not for me, so I decided to move back to Delaware. I love listening to music, eating great food, gaming, and visiting new places but really don’t like the traveling process. Growing up I had a lot of hobbies and interests, one of the main ones being dancing. My friends and I had a dance crew and went to the Apollo Theater in New York to participate in the amateur night. We got 2nd place that night and it was an awesome experience to visit some iconic places in New York. These days most of my free time is spent with my wife and 2-year-old son. I have family in the U.S. and in Canada, so working remotely is a major benefit now that I can travel back and forth and not sacrifice time with family, or time away from work.

About The Author

Bill is a serial entrepreneur with a PhD from UC Berkeley in Controls and Artificial Intelligence and 10 years of experience with high performance residential energy management and connected appliances. He was previously at GE as an Advanced Systems Engineer in the Connected Home Software Group, but left that role in May 2014 to pursue entrepreneurship full time.

Bill grew up in Louisville and returned with his family in 2010 after a long stint in the San Francisco Bay Area. He loves Louisville and is working to make it a better and more attractive city for high tech startups.

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