New interview alert! This week, we’re catching up with one of my brilliant friends from undergrad: Fer. She’s sharp, creative, and has one of the best work ethics I’ve ever witnessed firsthand, though we still managed to have plenty of fun between Blackboard tabs. Keep reading for stories from our virtual university days, Fer’s current work in localisation QA, and the poetry that’s stayed with her along the way.

Some friendships are born in strange places. Ours began in the middle of a pandemic, through laggy mics, endless Blackboard links, and the strange purgatory of virtual university. Fer and I met during our undergraduate degree, which we mostly attended online thanks to COVID and a number of administrative issues our university was facing. We studied things like translation, forensic linguistics, language teaching and testing. We once interviewed our favourite Italian teacher for a class project, and I’m pretty sure we asked her if she could give us private lessons; we nicknamed our anthropology lecturer the Cannibal and she’d send me almost poetic bilingual to-do lists (as pictured on the featured image)… I think, despite everything, we kinda actually had fun.

Even through the screen, we clicked. Maybe it was the way we always defaulted to English even though we’re both native Spanish speakers, or the way we instinctively teamed up to finish tasks quickly, not to compete, but because it just made sense. When graduation finally arrived, we decided to run across the American football field to be the first ones to pick up our diplomas. I turned to her and said, “Have you heard that TikTok sound? Run fast for your mother, fast for your father?” And off we went, in shoes that hurt and dresses that almost didn’t, with Dog Days Are Over blasting in our heads.

Fer also went to see me off at the airport before I left for the great big Edinburgh adventure. It was one of those quiet, generous things that said more than a long goodbye ever could.

Fer now works in Localisation QA, where her love of language, precision, and sticky notes collide beautifully. In this conversation, she talks about what it’s really like to work behind the scenes of global content, how her view of language has evolved, and why Olivia Gatwood’s work resonates.

Whether you’re curious about linguistic QA or just here for a reminder that some friendships outlast the group projects, this one is for you.

When you started, did you feel like your degree had actually prepared you for this role, or was it more of a “learn on the job” situation?

I think it was a mix of both, actually! My major prepared me in the basics, things like where to find information and funnily, the hardcore translation theory. However, since we didn’t have straight up “localisation” courses and each industry uses their own preferred software and workflows, my first weeks (if not months) were spent learning new tools and getting used to the way in which our client wanted things to be done.

What skills would you say are must-haves for someone doing Localisation QA?

You need some tech skills, or at least some “tech-interest”. Our entire workday is spent in front of the computer, whether it be revising Excel sheets with a million strings, or going into testing builds to see them implemented. I remember some tasks that took me way too long because I didn’t know the cheats and pro-tips I know now!

A strong linguistic base is important but somehow not a “must”. It really helps being able to immediately tell when something is grammatically incorrect, even better when you can explain the rules being broken and how to fix them. Nonetheless, you don’t need to be a walking dictionary to succeed; nowadays there are a ton of resources that will help you verify your hunches, be it the webpages of language academies, corpora or sometimes even forums online. In the end, it’s important to remember that language is alive and sometimes the most natural way of saying something will not be the one that’s approved by the institutions.

Has your job changed the way you see language(s)?

Yes! I guess in a sense we all started the degree with a very romanticised view of languages. Like, the way in which we convey our thoughts and the “secret sauce” only humans possess. It’s been almost four years since I started my career in Localisation QA and, while a part of me will always tear up whenever I see the Rosetta Stone in its shiny glass case, I’ve also grown to understand things in a more down-to-Earth manner, so to speak.

Seeing how localising a product, whichever it may be, can lead to speakers feeling represented, welcome and cared for, that’s really what my work is all about. Every day we’re making conscious choices to ensure whatever we put out into the world is respectful of local cultures and values, leveraging language to build a world where everyone feels welcome and considered.

Can you walk me through what a “normal” day at work looks like for you? (If there is such a thing)

I’d say, for an LQA tester in our organization, the morning starts by setting up backends for updates (that can take a while since most of them are heavy and we’ve got like five of them). Then, there are the “daily” tasks, which tend to be shorter and are needed with quick turnaround times. Those can be quick asset reviews, emergency translations or webpage sanity checks, to name a few.

Once the fires are taken care of, testers can start working on QAing the content for the releases. We handle something like 10 products, so there’s always variety and each team member can choose to work on whatever fits their interests or strengths best.

Sometimes we’ll try and make some time for team building activities, like online gaming. International, remote teams can sometimes make people feel isolated, but luckily that’s never been the case with us. We’ll never pass up the opportunity to talk about lunches or weekend plans.

Are there any tools, apps, or random essentials you couldn’t survive your workday without?

My sticky notepad! One would think I am trying to launch a space mission with the amount of little notes and reminders I’ve stuck around my monitor, the wall in front of my desk and even the picture frames. I’m a strong believer that paper remembers so I don’t have to, so writing everything down and putting it somewhere I’ll be seeing it constantly helps me clear my mind and tackle the actual tasks with more efficiency.

An ergonomic mouse, you know, one of those silly-looking vertical things. After my first year at work I developed a classic case of “My wrist hurts so bad I fear it might fall off”, which is when I decided it was time to face the truth and ditch the gamer equipment in favor or something that would improve my quality of life, albeit at the cost of some coolness points.

Lastly, whenever I’m not in meetings, I enjoy working with background YouTube videos. I go through random spells of feeling interested in one niche topic and wanting to hear everything about it, so I’ve learnt way too much about Mariana Trench, a video game about a shark in a pool (sensing a theme there), all the Margaritavilles in the USA and the Pokémon TCG. Working from home is amazing, unless your neighbor loves power tools and spends the whole day hammering your shared wall, so noise-cancelling earbuds are required for maximum learning.

How do you unwind after work?

I’m currently working on my French, so most of my off-work time is spent studying. There’s something about feeling the “thinking muscles” flexing in new ways that makes me feel super happy and keeps me out of the cycle of overthinking things that happened at work that day.

On the weekends, I enjoy taking the bus to downtown Mexico City and walking around. I usually end up in the same spots, whether it be the library, a park or an Italian restaurant that serves the best ravioli in town.

If someone wanted to get into Linguistic QA, what’s a piece of advice you’d give them?

Put yourself out there! Localisation QA is a welcoming environment, filled with passionate professionals who will stop at nothing until they find the one string that’s out of context and fix it. Get into the forums, reach out to people in the industry. Opportunities are always out there for those who are prepared to give it a try.

If you could go back in time and meet yourself at uni, what advice would you give her? (in terms of career path or just life in general)

I knew I liked computational linguistics, which is not exactly the same as what I do know, but just adjacent enough to feel like I would’ve liked to learn more about that. We’ve got a team of Localization Engineers who are in charge of making sure the systems and programs devs are creating properly support 15, 30 or more languages and they’re always talking about things I only vaguely understand.

In a way, I’d tell Little Me to pursue more of what interests her. Uni is a great time to gather knowledge and go after whatever your heart desires, and in the end, I promise you’ll find a way to put everything to work.

What’s a book/poem you think everyone should read?

Now that’s a difficult one, huh. For books, I’d say Chuck Wendig’s “Wanderers” is a pretty cool read. I don’t really know how to describe it aside from “Well that aged funnily” mixed with “What a ride that was”.

For (slam) poetry, anything Olivia Gatwood, to be honest. She’s got an amazing way of expressing feelings I’ve felt and am yet to feel.

Thank you so much to Fer for taking the time to share her world with us. For me, this interview feels like such a full-circle moment. From those early undergrad days spent switching between Blackboard tabs and texts to seeing her now, thriving, thoughtful, and quietly brilliant in everything she does, it’s a reminder of how far we’ve both come. I hope you enjoyed hearing from a brilliant Woman in Language.