Komodo IDE User Story: Q&A with Rebecca Billings, Sr. QA Engineer

Komodo IDE and Komodo Edit are being used by tens of thousands of programmers around the world. We’ve have been serving the developer community for over 18 years–Komodo turns 15 this year–and it’s always great to hear *how* we’re helping them. We were happy to get some feedback from Rebecca Billings, Senior Quality Assurance Engineer at Mozilla’s Web QA team. In this Q&A, Rebecca discusses her role and how she uses Komodo.
**How did you get into programming?**
I got into programming as part of my job as a QA engineer. I was working in a non-tech position at an insurance company and decided that I really wanted to be part of engineering. It sounded much more fun and better for my long term career. I took classes and convinced them to give me a chance in a new position. I started doing black box testing and moved into programming as my job became more complex. It really helps being able to see and understand the code by being able to work with it on the front and back end.

**How did you start working at Mozilla?**
I’d been in QA for a number of years, and after I moved to California it seemed like an ideal place for me to work. I loved the idea of working for a non-profit open source company, and I was lucky enough to find a job opening that matched my skills.

**What technology projects are you involved with now?**
I primarily work on websites within Mozilla. This encompasses a wide range of projects – everything from short term marketing efforts to long term important sites like [mozilla.org](http://mozilla.org/). Each project has different languages, challenges and risks–so my job is always evolving and interesting. Many of my projects are working towards continuous delivery and our test automation plays an important role in keeping up quality standards.

**How did you first hear about Komodo?**
I’ve been using Komodo for roughly two years. It was recommended within my team at work as a good tool for our projects.

**What’s the workflow of using Komodo IDE for development of a web application and Mozilla browser for display and testing?**
The development of websites are done on one team, and the testing is done on another team. All users are able to use Komodo, but there aren’t any strict usage requirements for any tools! All of the code is open source–for development as well as testing–so we can view the source code using Komodo doing whichever task we’re working on.

**How does Komodo make your job easier?**
I use it primarily as a source code editor, and I really appreciate how easy it is to open multiple files and debug source code. It fits really well into my workflow.

Thanks to Rebecca for taking the time to share her story. We’re always wanting to hear from our users. Would you like to share your developer story and how you use Komodo? Drop us a note at marcom@activestate.com or follow us on twitter and send us a DM.

Mozilla has a Komodo IDE “site license” (aka Floating Group License, “FGL”) which allows all of the developers within their organization to download and use Komodo using one shared license key. If you’re interested in a site license for your organization and have 30+ developers who would like to use Komodo, [reach out to us for a quote](maito:sales@activestate.com?subject=FGL Quote).

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