Meet Esther Okafor, the QA engineer fixing software bugs on a global scale one company at a time

The world’s software is riddled with errors, bleeding billions from companies and crippling operations. This growing epidemic demands immediate attention. A recent Consortium for Information & Software Quality (CISQ) report paints a grim picture. Poor software quality costs a staggering $2.8 trillion in the United States alone, a figure projected to rise further. 

Operational failures, the biggest culprit, reached a jaw-dropping $1.56 trillion in 2020, a 22% surge in just two years. Failed development projects add another $260 billion, a staggering 46% increase. These aren’t mere statistics; they represent actual financial losses companies desperately try to staunch.

The crisis extends far beyond developed nations. A Technica study reveals a shocking reality: a potential 100-150 errors lurk for every thousand lines of code. African companies, too, are haemorrhaging billions due to software flaws and cyberattacks. Check Point’s latest report shows a worrying 20% rise in cyberattacks on African businesses in Q1 2024 compared to the previous year. 

While global attacks per organisation increased 5%, Africa bears the brunt, averaging a staggering 2,373 attacks per week per organisation – a 20% jump from 2023. This exponential growth in poor software quality and cyberattacks poses a grave threat. Traditional defensive measures are proving insufficient, and the numbers keep climbing.

Consider the recent software failure at Optus, an Australian telecom giant. In November 2023, a lack of fail-safe mechanisms during critical maintenance left 10 million Australians and 400,000 businesses without phones or internet for 12 hours. The fallout was severe: the CEO resigned, traffic snarled, payment systems shut down, and a staggering 228 emergency calls went unanswered. This is just one example of countless similar incidents that occur daily.

Quality assurance engineers are emerging as the heroes in this battle. They advocate for a crucial shift: integrating rigorous testing throughout the product development lifecycle, not just as a last-minute bug fix. 

Meet Esther Okafor, a software bug fixer

Esther Okafor is one quality assurance engineer driving this evolution in this space. Esther strongly believes that Software testing is no longer just about finding errors. It’s about understanding the user experience, anticipating problems, and ensuring top-notch quality from the get-go. Finding the right balance between fixing bugs and developing new improvements is integral to software development. Developers need to find the right balance that suits them best. 

A typical ratio is spending 20% of your time on reactive tasks like debugging and 80% on proactive tasks such as creating new product features. Spending more than 20% on debugging can indicate that there are issues in the development process and that they are affecting their overall productivity. She added

Starting her career at Venture Garden group, she has continued to champion the role of testers in Africa, rising through the ranks at startups like Flutterwave and Renmoney. Her expertise is now driving quality at Storyblok, a headless CRM platform.  Esther is a changemaker, one test at a time.

Beyond her role, Esther mentors aspiring testers and tirelessly advocates for best practices on the global stage. Esther believes African startups must build software on a solid foundation, prioritise early testing, embrace DevOps practices, and leverage new technologies to ensure superior quality and reliability. Esther envisions a future where cutting-edge standards, metrics, and tools continue to drive product quality across Africa.

See also: Meet the FUTMinna teams that won the 2024 Huawei ICT Competition in China