Real Not Perfect: Typical Workday of Tech Specialists

Intellias is all about people. And people aren’t perfect, are they? This September, we’ve launched a Real Not Perfect project. We sent our colleagues disposable cameras and asked them to show their true selves—no filters, no retakes. The results? A collection of honest, lovely, messy photos revealing the real people behind our digital technologies.  

Browsing through the photos led us to imagine what real, not perfect workdays would look like for some of the tech specialists. So here are the typical schedules of a software engineer, a QA engineer, and an HR specialist. Any resemblance to the colleagues you know is purely coincidental. Kind of.   

Software Engineer  

5 a.m. Wake up and run four miles. Yes, your body is a powerhouse.   

6-6:15 a.m. Spend 15 minutes upside down to stimulate the inflow of innovative ideas.

6:15-7 a.m. Take a hot shower, then a cold one. Then sit on your bed staring into the void. If anyone asks, you’re meditating.   

7-7:45 a.m. Make a smoothie and eat some granola.  

7:45-8 a.m. You know what? Have a waffle. You are only human, after all.    

8-8:30 a.m. Procrastinate at your desk.  

8:30-9 a.m. Check Slack, Teams, and email continuously in a vicious circle. Find someone who has a question. Mentor them until they find the answer.   

9-9:30 a.m. Join the daily stand-up. Give your updates in 20 seconds, then stare into the void for the rest of the call. If anyone asks, you’re meditating.   

9:30-9:40 a.m. Buckle up. It’s time to code! Put a YouTube webinar on one screen and a focus playlist on the other. Let’s go!  

9:40-11 a.m. Code.  

11-11:15 a.m. Fight off sleepiness with willpower and an espresso.  

11:15 a.m.-12 p.m. Code.  

12-1 p.m. Accept your weakness and take a nap.  

1-2 p.m. Wake up, run four miles. Realize it’s lunchtime and you already went for your morning run. Go for lunch.   

2-3 p.m. Code some more.  

3-4 p.m. Attend a pointless meeting. Feel enraged.  

4-4:15 p.m. Write in your journal how pointless meetings are ruining our economy.

4:15-5 p.m. Get a mentoring request from a middle engineer. Share your expertise. Feel alive again.  

5-6 p.m. Procrastinate on Reddit.  

6-7 p.m. Clock out from your primary job; clock in to your pet project.  

7-8 p.m. Order some Thai food, eat from a tray at your desk. Promise yourself to cut down on food deliveries, pad thai, and eating at your desk.  

8-9 p.m. Watch educational webinars. Yes, there’s so much to learn out there! We are truly living in a digital revolution.   

9-10 p.m. Go to bed and fail to fall asleep because your brain is buzzing with information. Stare at your phone a little bit, hoping it will help.  

10 p.m. Okay, it’s time to go to sleep.  

2 a.m. Fall asleep.   

QA Engineer  

7 a.m. Wake up.   

9:45 a.m. Come on, seriously, it’s time to wake up.   

10:05-10:25 a.m. It’s a beautiful Friday morning! Read a new “a QA engineer walks in a bar” joke on the way to your favorite coffee shop.    

10:25-11 a.m. Walk into your coffee shop and ask for a cup of coffee. Ask for two cups of coffee. Ask for 9,999 cups of coffee. Rush out, enter through the back door, and ask for a third of a cup of coffee. Oooh, Greg, the barista, loves that joke!  

11-11:30 a.m. Okay, the fun part is over. Time to check if there were any critical test automation failures overnight.   

11:30-11:40 a.m. No failures, because you rock! Now, see if the tasks in your backlog have evaporated magically.  

11:40 a.m.-12:00 p.m. They haven’t. Well, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.   

12-1 p.m. Attend your daily stand-up. Try to fight off more issues being dumped on you. Sigh and accept your fate.  

1-2 p.m. Lie down on your couch, legs crossed, laptop in front of you. Now you are ready to deal with priorities. 

2-2:30 p.m. Engage in a classic “Is it a bug or a feature?” debate with developers.  

2:30-3 p.m. Do some testing; prove it was a bug. Let everyone know immediately.  

3-3:30 p.m. It’s time to get some food. Order a burger. Order null burgers. Order a buuurgr. Oooh, you are on fire today!  

3:30-4 p.m. Take a quick nap. Dream about an unfixable bug that keeps coming back. Wake up in a panic.   

4-4:30 p.m. Ping the dev team asking if they’ve fixed the bug that you found yesterday.  

4:30-4:45 p.m. Retest the feature just before release and find another, bigger bug: the Queen Bug! Oh, that’s good!  

5 p.m. Report the Queen Bug and clock off for the weekend. Your job is done. Time to enjoy your Friday.   

HR Specialist  

7 a.m. Hit snooze.  

7:02 a.m. Wake up terrified, thinking you overslept. 

7:02-7:10 a.m. Enjoy the remaining eight minutes of your ten minute pre-booked time slot to brush your teeth, get dressed, and gulp down a cup of coffee.  

7:10-7:15 a.m. Do your daily affirmation: I love people. I love people. I love people.  

7:15 a.m. Let’s go!  

7:15-8 a.m. A call.  

8-8:45 a.m. A call.  

8:45-9:30 a.m. A call.  

9:30-10 a.m. Your pre-booked time slot for a quick breakfast, just to quiet the rumbling in your stomach.  

10-10:30 a.m. An interview.   

10:30-11 a.m. An interview.   

11-11:30 a.m. An interview.  

11:30-11:35 a.m. Your pre-booked time slot for AAAAGGGHHH!  

11:35 a.m.-1 p.m. Write literally thousands of emails to everyone, everywhere, all at once.  

1-1:30 p.m. Your pre-booked time slot for lunch. And of course, someone ignored it and invited you to a call at this time. Join the call while munching on yesterday’s reheated pasta.  

1:30-2 p.m. A call.  

2-2:30 p.m. A call.  

2:30-3 p.m. A call.  

3-3:15 p.m. Your pre-booked time slot for soaking up that vitamin D because your GP is getting really concerned.  

3:15-4:45 p.m. Ask your interviewees where they see themselves in five years.  

4:45-5 p.m. Ask yourself where you see yourself in five years. Maybe it’s better not to go down that rabbit hole.  

5-5:30 p.m. Oh, good, you have another call. No time for self-reflection.   

5:30-6 p.m. Enjoy a nice moment of bonding with other HRs in the office kitchen. Have a good laugh. You do love people, after all.   

6-6:30 p.m. Do some filing . . . because it’s more fun than data entry, right?  

6:30-7:30 p.m. Do some data entry.  

7:30-9:30 p.m. Sync with your family and friends, pre-book a time slot for a retrospective with your kids.   

9:30-10 p.m. One last sync!  

At Intellias, we have good days and bad days; fun days and what-on-earth-am-I-doing days. We stay true to ourselves and support each other. That’s how we create outstanding digital technologies. To become a part of the real, not perfect team, check out our vacancies and embark on an exciting journey with us.