From Atari BASIC to Test Leadership: Stephan Puri-Jobi of HID Global on Turning Software Quality into a Career

Context: Our session with Stephan Puri-Jobi (HID Global GmbH)

• Title: Stephan Puri-Jobi, Software Test Lead bei HID Global
• Speaker: Stephan Puri-Jobi
• Company: HID Global GmbH

Listening to Stephan Puri-Jobi, we heard a journey that begins with curiosity and line-numbered BASIC, detours through a university track where testing barely registered, and arrives at a leadership role where structured software testing is the craft. What stands out is how a dedicated testing culture, a diverse team, and a deliberate learning mindset shaped his path—and how clearly he translates those experiences into advice for today’s engineers.

Origins: A curious mind, an Atari, and the first lines of BASIC

Stephan’s story starts early. Games on his Atari stopped being interesting; a “basic diskette” caught his eye. That disk opened a door to programming.

This moment—making a machine do something visible from just a few lines—sparked a shift from consumption to creation. It’s a pattern we often hear: motivation comes from seeing your own code work, not from a perfect syllabus.

School and Borland Delphi: Tools that widen horizons

In school, programming turned more structured. With Borland Delphi, Stephan encountered a toolset that already had “a lot of libraries” and let you “do quite a lot of things.” The effect: fascination hardened into a plan. He would study computer science.

That early tool exposure mattered. Libraries and components didn’t cheapen the work; they accelerated his learning and showed what software could do. The takeaway is simple: good tools expand the learning surface and turn curiosity into capability.

The blind spot: Testing as a footnote in university and early work

Reflecting on his studies, Stephan notes a gap that many will recognize. Software development and architecture were prominent. Testing was not.

His first job reinforced the same pattern. People “tried things out after development,” but in hindsight that wasn’t real testing. Without structure, testing is reactive. It lacks method, direction, and reliability.

The turning point: Security-related software and a dedicated testing team

The breakthrough came at a company building security-related software. There, structured software testing was the norm—and a dedicated team handled it for development. For Stephan, this was eye-opening.

This was the inflection point that turned testing from afterthought to discipline—methodical, creative, demanding. Two lessons stand out:

• Structure is the separator between “trying things” and genuine testing.
• Dedicated test teams create focus, accountability, and a culture that treats quality as a first-class goal.

2020 and beyond: Joining HID Global GmbH and growing into Test Lead

At the beginning of 2020, Stephan joined HID Global GmbH as a Software Test Engineer. He’s now a Test Lead. His description of the role underlines the breadth of modern testing: varied work, a strong team, and multiple specializations.

To us, this is a simple but powerful point: great testing teams blend distinct strengths. Specification, implementation, automation—each requires a different mindset and skill profile. Teaming them up amplifies quality.

A day without a script: From PRS and specs to implementation and debugging

“There is no typical day,” Stephan says—and then gives a crisp picture of how quality work unfolds. Mornings might start with reviews of test specifications derived from the PRS, ensuring “every interesting aspect” is covered. Afternoons could be implementation or reviews of test implementations.

Then there’s the pulse of the day: a colleague might find a bug—ideally, because that’s the point of testing. Next comes debugging and root cause analysis. Is the issue in the test implementation or specification? Or in the device under test? That cycle—framing hypotheses, narrowing scope, attributing causes—is the core rhythm of effective testing.

What struck us is the matter-of-fact way this is handled. No blame, no panic. Just a robust process designed to surface, analyze, and correct issues—including those in the tests themselves.

Working with development: From “bad guys” to a shared purpose

Stephan calls the interaction with development “sometimes a critical one,” and it’s easy to see why. Testing often brings unwelcome news. Yet his team’s culture reframes the dynamic.

This is a pivotal insight: testing as a partner. When both sides share the same goal—the best possible product—findings read as contributions, not criticism. That alignment accelerates delivery and raises quality.

Foundation first: Why a university program matters to Stephan

When asked for guidance, Stephan starts with the base layer: “You need to have a solid base.” He recommends investing in a study program at a University of Applied Science.

We read this as a call for structured fundamentals: a shared vocabulary, exposure to diverse approaches, and mental models that make future learning faster—particularly valuable in testing, where precision and method are essential.

Learning resources today: From a 28k modem to tutorials, forums, and open source

Stephan’s personal timeline adds perspective. When he began, “the internet was just coming up.” A 28k modem didn’t resemble today’s connectivity. Even then, information existed. Today, the floodgates are open.

The message: learning barriers are low, opportunities are many. The key is active engagement—watch, read, and, crucially, reason about the code.

Practice over theory: Get to real code as early as possible

Stephan’s most pragmatic advice is to move from resources to real work quickly. Internships, real codebases, colleagues who help—that’s the multiplier no curriculum can replicate.

And the line that compresses a career’s worth of growth:

Feedback loops, comparison, and practice—that’s a self-contained learning engine.

What we’re taking away: A practical playbook for testing careers

Grounded entirely in Stephan Puri-Jobi’s remarks, here’s a set of actionable themes:

1) Build a solid foundation

• Invest in a structured study program at a University of Applied Science.
• Seek breadth: technologies, architectural ideas, implementation approaches.
• Aim for thinking tools—not just facts—so you can learn faster later.

2) Seek structure in testing

• “Trying things” isn’t testing.
• Learn to derive test specifications from requirements (as Stephan’s team does with the PRS).
• Normalize a cadence of review, implementation, execution, and analysis.

3) Embrace specialization within the team

• Test specification, test implementation, automation—these are distinct strengths.
• Quality rises when those strengths collaborate, rather than when one person tries to do it all.

4) Cultivate the relationship with development

• Testing finds problems—that’s the job.
• The “bad guy” perception fades when both sides rally around the product.
• Clear, respectful communication builds trust and velocity.

5) Leverage open learning channels

• Tutorials, videos, forums, open source—use them.
• Connect what you watch and read back to real code and real tests.

6) Start internships and code reviews early

• Put your work under review by peers; learn from their code as well.
• Early exposure to real codebases compresses learning cycles dramatically.
• Practice is the greatest accelerator—do more, sooner.

The quality loop Stephan described

Although “there is no typical day,” Stephan outlined a loop that many strong teams follow:

• Make requirements tangible: derive test specs from the PRS.
• Review specifications together: ensure “every interesting aspect” is covered.
• Implement and cross-check: create and review test implementations.
• Discover and attribute: find bugs, then assign causes—test error vs. product issue.
• Align with development: keep both sides aimed at the same outcome—the best possible product.

This loop isn’t a rigid process diagram; it’s a way of thinking. Understand, safeguard, learn, improve—repeat. It generalizes across domains without needing tool-specific details.

Why this story resonates with today’s engineers

Quality is increasingly the differentiator in software. Stephan’s path shows that testing isn’t a phase; it’s a mindset—curious, structured, collaborative. The parts of his narrative—early exposure, solid foundations, structured methods, team culture, and hands-on practice—add up to a plan that works even as tools and platforms change.

We also hear humility in his approach: it’s okay when a test spec is wrong; what matters is that the system—people, process, reviews—is robust enough to catch and correct it. That is professionalism in practice.

Immediate next steps inspired by Stephan’s guidance

If Stephan’s path speaks to you, here are steps you can take right away:

• Pick an open-source project with a test suite you can study. Trace how requirements become tests.
• Set up a small, recurring peer review ritual in your context—two-way and focused.
• For a given feature, write a test specification first, then the test implementation. Review both.
• Create a weekly learning loop: a tutorial or talk on test design paired with hands-on coding.
• Proactively seek an internship or a mentor who will give you direct feedback on your work.

Every item above is consistent with Stephan’s recommendations and experience—practical, direct, and free of buzzwords.

Closing: Quality as a team sport—and a personal journey

The story of Stephan Puri-Jobi, Software Test Lead bei HID Global, is an argument for the deliberate path: early curiosity, formal foundations, then the discovery that testing is a challenging, rewarding discipline. His current work—spanning specification, implementation, automation, review, debugging, and collaboration—shows how much creative force lives in software testing.

Our takeaway: quality emerges where people think together, work precisely, and learn from each other. Or, in Stephan’s words: “Try to do as much as possible as early as possible and try to have other people look at what you did and try to look at other people’s code.” It’s hard to imagine a clearer compass for a career in software quality.

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