Education & Certifications
This page lists recent QA-focused training and certifications. Each item includes a verification link and a note on how I applied the learning in my case studies.
Accessible Player Experiences® (APX) Certified Practitioner Training (02/2026)
Provider: AbleGamers Charity
Why: Training under full scholarship, to support my long-term goal of specialising in accessibility-focused Game QA
This will strengthen my accessibility practice by giving me:
- A shared accessibility vocabulary to use with designers, developers, and producers.
- Practical patterns and checkpoints I can apply across accessibility-focused QA work.
- A stronger foundation to move towards an accessibility-focused Game QA role.
Microsoft Game Dev - Gaming Accessibility Fundamentals (12/2025)
Provider: Microsoft Game Dev / Microsoft Learn
Why: Build a structured foundation in gaming accessibility so I could design comfort and accessibility checks for VR and flat-screen projects instead of relying on guesswork.
Key skills: Core disability types (motor, cognitive, vision, hearing), common barriers in games, Xbox and platform accessibility guidance, mapping issues to real in-game options, and framing findings in player-focused language.
Applied in: Shadow Point - VR Comfort & Accessibility QA Go to Case Study
Practice in this project:
- Turned course guidance into lightweight comfort and accessibility charters for tutorial flow, locomotion, menus and basic interactions.
- Tagged notes using the course’s disability categories so clusters of issues (for example cognitive load, text legibility, audio balance) stood out clearly in the workbook.
- Used the course framing to phrase findings as “problems plus options” instead of vague complaints, making them easier to act on in a real QA cycle.
Create User Stories in JIRA (11/2025)
Provider: Coursera
Why: Go deeper into Jira for Rebel Racing by framing QA work as user stories with clear acceptance criteria.
Key skills: Breaking epics into user stories and sub-tasks, writing acceptance criteria, thinking in terms of player goals and expected behaviour.
Applied in: Rebel Racing - Charter-based Exploratory & Edge-Case Testing Go to Case Study
Practice in this project:
- Framed test ideas and charters as short “stories” (interruptions, LTE vs Wi-Fi, Bluestacks visual check) with a clear player goal and expected outcome.
- Linked RR-1 and RR-37 defects back to their parent charter so each issue sat in a clear story context.
- Used acceptance-criteria style thinking to keep issues focused on observable behaviour, not vague descriptions.
How to Create a JIRA Scrum Project (11/2025)
Provider: Coursera
Why: Learn how to model Rebel Racing QA work inside a small Scrum-style Jira project with a clean, readable workflow.
Key skills: Creating a Scrum project from scratch, setting up a backlog and sprint board, configuring simple status transitions (To Do → In Progress → Blocked → Done).
Applied in: Rebel Racing - Charter-based Exploratory & Edge-Case Testing Go to Case Study
Practice in this project:
- Used a lightweight Jira-style workflow (To Do / In Progress / Done / Deferred) so each issue told a clear status story with minimal admin.
- Logged RR-1 and RR-37 with consistent titles, short descriptions and direct links to 1080p evidence clips, mirroring how they would appear on a real Jira board.
- Kept the issue list small but focused, favouring a few well-written tickets with strong evidence over a noisy backlog of half-formed notes.
Get Started with JIRA (10/2025)
Provider: Coursera
Why: Build a baseline in Jira before my first manual QA project.
Key skills: Kanban workflow (To Do → In Progress → Blocked → Verified), simple WIP limits, labels/filters (e.g., pc-gamepass, test-execution).
Applied in: Battletoads - Functional Testing Go to Case Study
Practice in this project:
- Created issues directly from test runs, attaching repro clips and exact steps.
- Used Blocked to surface input-ownership problems quickly; moved to Verified with video proof after re-test.
- Kept short, consistent titles so tickets were scannable on the board and easy to reference from the case study.
Introduction to JIRA (10/2025 — 2 hrs)
Provider: Simplilearn
Why: Formalise the fundamentals so I could set up a clean project/board for my first case study.
Key skills: New project + board from scratch, issue types, attachments/comments for evidence.
Applied in: Battletoads - Functional Testing Go to Case Study
Practice in this project:
- Set up a clean board and defined issue types to match test execution.
- Attached short clips and screenshots so each defect was self-contained and easy to triage.
- Added clear, reproducible steps and environment details to speed reviews.
Game Academy Bootcamp (09/2025 - 10/2025)
- Team-based programme across five projects (design, pitch, production).
- Final project was QA-focused - practised structured testing and evidence capture.
- Attended weekly QA Skillbuilder sessions (bug report fundamentals, severity/priority, repro steps).
- Skillbuilder gave me the basics of writing defects; I then took two beginner Jira courses to run a clean board and document bugs properly in my portfolio work.