From Punjab to Production Releases
The story of how persistence turned a non-technical degree into a decade-long career in software quality.
The Beginning
I earned my Bachelor of Arts from the University of Punjab. Not computer science, not engineering. When I came to America, the tech industry wasn't exactly rolling out a welcome mat for someone with my background.
[Your story here: early days in America, the odd jobs, what kept you going toward tech.]
Chapter 2
Breaking In
My first opportunity in QA came through a contract role, and it changed everything. I discovered pharmacy benefit management, a complex domain where attention to detail and analytical thinking mattered more than what degree you held.
[Your story here: how you got your first QA role, the learning curve of PBM testing.]
The Contract Years
From 2008 to 2014, I worked contract roles across three of the country's biggest PBM organizations. Each contract deepened my expertise, and each gap between them tested my resolve.
Medco Health Solutions (2008-2009) My first deep dive into Medicare Part D testing, PEGA workflows, and back-end validation with Teradata and DB2. I was testing systems that processed prescriptions for over 60 million members.
CDPHP (2012-2013) I authored the Master Test Plan for a full PBM implementation with CVS Caremark, built QTP automation scripts, and ran performance tests with LoadRunner.
Express Scripts (2013-2014) Working through the post-Medco merger integration, testing claims and eligibility on mainframes for 80 million+ members. Coordinating across teams in the US, India, and the Philippines.
[Your story here: the gaps between contracts, the odd jobs, the uncertainty, what kept you pushing.]
Finding Home
In 2019, I joined RxSense as a contract QA engineer. The company was building a cloud-based PBM platform from scratch, and they were hiring their very first QA team. I was there from day one.
There were no existing test plans, no established workflows, no regression suite. Everything had to be created. I helped build the QA process from the ground up, defining how we'd test claims adjudication, eligibility, network pricing, and clinical authorizations on a platform that was being built in real time.
[Your story here: the feeling of stability, building from scratch, converting to full-time.]
Chapter 5
Rising
Over five years at RxSense, I grew from the new contract hire into the QA Lead responsible for every production release. I became the subject matter expert across five squads: Accumulators & Copay, Eligibility & Claims, Clinical Authorization, Network & Pricing, and Member Experience.
In 2024, I was promoted to QA Lead. I managed an 11-person team, 7 onshore and 4 offshore, and owned the end-to-end test strategy. I authored Master Test Plans, ran daily stand-ups, mentored over 20 QA engineers, and served as the final quality gate for roughly two production releases every month.
I also embraced AI-assisted testing early, using TouchStone AI (built into Jira) to generate test cases from acceptance criteria, then reviewing and refining them for full coverage before stakeholder sign-off.
[Your story here: what leadership taught you, mentoring moments, what you're most proud of.]
The Shift
In 2026, the company made a strategic decision: eliminate the QA team entirely. The plan was to have developers test their own code and automate tests using AI. After seven years, the longest I'd ever been at one company, I was laid off.
It was a blow. But it wasn't the first time I'd had to start over, and this time I had something I didn't have before: deep domain expertise, leadership experience, and the determination to evolve with the industry rather than be left behind by it.
[Your story here: how the layoff felt, what it means for QA, how you're processing it.]
What's Next
I'm not waiting for the industry to decide what happens to QA. I'm shaping my own answer. I'm building a PBM Claims QA Automation Framework using Python and Pytest, applying everything I learned in six years of manual PBM testing to automated test design.
I'm also learning to use Claude AI to accelerate my understanding of QA automation concepts and tooling. Not to replace expertise, but to amplify it, the same way I used TouchStone AI to generate test cases that I then refined with domain knowledge.
The companies that understand quality know that QA isn't just about running tests. It's about knowing what to test, why it matters, and what breaks when you get it wrong. That knowledge doesn't come from a tool. It comes from a decade in the trenches.
[Your story here: what you're looking for next, what excites you about the future.]