Team Spotlight: Rich, Quality Assurance Engineer

From securing high-stakes systems for the MOD to leading quality assurance at Booost Education, Richard Hanrahan’s journey into tech has been anything but ordinary.

In our latest Spotlight Feature, we chat about unexpected career turns, cliffside weekends, and how one family trip to Disney turned a princess into a Jedi.

What drew you to Booost Education?

After several years working as a test manager in high-security cleared fields for the MOD and several large American companies, I wanted a new challenge in an industry that actually helped people and Booost Education seemed to fit the bill.

Since joining, I have enjoyed building and expanding the company's test capabilities and making sure that we focus on the best possible quality experience for our end users.

When did you know you wanted to work in your field?

I left school with a Cisco networking degree, so I was probably expected to end up in networking and hardware, but with two older brothers who were a computer games artist and a senior programmer, I was probably always going to end up in IT. From a summer job working at my brother's computer game company, I quickly got a feeling for QA, which turned into an unexpected twenty year plus career during which time I have worked in manual testing, test automation as a senior SDET/Test Engineer and built numerous test teams as a Test Manager across various industries such as healthcare, retail and the defence industries.

Where are you located?

I live in and grew up in a small scenic town in West Yorkshire named Mirfield, which is most famous for being the birthplace of the famous actor Patrick Stewart, the Bronte sisters having lived there, and for being where the grave of Robin Hood is located.

What does your perfect weekend look like?

Either a weekend at the coast enjoying a lovely walk along the cliffs, or through one of the numerous local forests/nature reserves with family, or enjoying a good film at the cinema, followed by cooking a nice meal. Our most recent trip was to RSPB Bempton Cliffs along the East Coast, where we enjoyed seeing the local wildlife.

Best trip you've been on and why?

It's difficult to pick just one, travelling Japan by bullet train was great fun, or visiting the Freddy Mercury music festival in Montreux on the beautiful Lake Geneva were both amazing in my younger years. If I had to pick one, though, it would probably be the first time we took my daughter to Florida and to Disney World. We must have gone on Star Tours at least 15 times, and it was the holiday she turned from being a Disney Princess to being a Star Wars one!