From Law Enforcement to QA: Gerardo Antolino Torres II’s Student Story

Each of us has a catalyst that helps us get up in the morning and out to work. Maybe yours is an urge to provide for your family. Maybe it’s ambition — a thirst to achieve a higher pay grade, a new swanky title, the corner office. Or maybe your fuel is a need to Do Good in all of that phrase’s guileless implications.

That’s exactly what animated Gerardo Antolino Torres II. And it was what united two careers that, on the surface, seem to be diametric opposites: law enforcement and quality assurance (QA).

Here’s how TripleTen helped him land the pivot from Deputy First Class to Software Test Engineer — and keep Doing Good.

Topping out in law enforcement

Strictly speaking, Gerardo’s first job wasn’t in law enforcement. Rather, he started out as a professional baseball player in the minor leagues. But he wanted to have an impact, so he decided to turn to a career in public service — specifically, in law enforcement. “I had a passion to help people, to make a difference,” he said.

It was a major shift for him: “In baseball, you wanted to throw everything you had into it. When you get into law enforcement, you can't, because then there's nothing left for any of the other people that really need it in their lives. And so I had to learn how to regulate.”

And over a six-year career in law enforcement, that self-knowledge helped make something else clear to him: if he wanted to keep directly assisting others while still advancing in his career, the sheriff's office might not be for him. 

I wanted to be able to be more hands on, help people, and I started realizing there were no other avenues that I wanted to take within law enforcement. Gerardo Antolino Torres II, TripleTen grad

As he was looking for that next opportunity, he sought advice from his father. “He's not in tech, but he deals with a lot of tech individuals at his job, and so he was explaining to me the ins and outs and the different avenues that I could take, and that it's so broad that I wasn't going to be limited to just one side. And so that intrigued me a lot,“ he said.

So he started researching the industry. When he discovered QA_{How to Become a QA Engineer}, something clicked. “I’d get to actually have more of a direct impact. It's instantaneous. You find a bug, they go fix it, and then you see the result.”

Hands-on influence? Check. But his dad helped convince him QA was the field for him with a joke: “My dad always told me if anyone could break anything, it would be me. So I figured it was right up my alley.”

Looking into options to make the change, he knew he needed something that was flexible. After all, he had a family with three kids as well as his own business. TripleTen seemed to fit his needs perfectly, and after a conversation with a TripleTen representative, he was sold.

Learning to patrol for bugs

In preparation for his studies, he and his wife sat down and sketched out a full schedule: “We had what we call a time budget. We put it in kind of like a spreadsheet.” It showed blocks of time for kids, work, and study, and the organization helped him stay on task. 

And when life happened, as it often does, he could reach out and ask for extra time on a project. Or if he wanted to go a little faster, that was an option as well: “The schedule was always accommodating to whatever it was I needed.”

This open, clear communication also helped him make the most of his time at TripleTen. See, at the start of the bootcamp, he struggled to properly describe the issues he was facing. But after some practice, he got the hang of it. “It took about three sprints for me to realize I should probably figure out how to communicate better so I can get through these a little bit more effectively,” he said.

When he did, he thrived. There were no grades — just feedback and guidance from industry experts on how to fix parts of projects that needed a little extra attention. He still looks back on interacting with these guides with enthusiasm.

The tutors were amazing, way better than any tutor that I ever had in college or even the academy. Gerardo Antolino Torres II, TripleTen grad

They helped him gain the hard and soft skills_{The Top 5 Soft Skills Every QA Engineer Needs} that made him ready for a career in QA. And once he had that know-how down, it was time to dive into an in-depth preparation for the job search itself. During this phase of the bootcamp, a career coach guided him through the application process: “The coach was there, always in my corner.”

He got help tweaking his resume, but one thing he really appreciated was the mock technical interview: “To be able to do a tech interview and to actually know what you're talking about was huge, and that played a massive role in my interview process for the job that I currently have.”

And yes, he did land a QA job.

A new career in helping people — no badge required

It wasn’t instantaneous, and it took dedication, but after Gerardo sent over 300 job applications, a company reached out. It was hard to finagle schedules so all three interviewers could come together in-person. But it was a tech interview, so they instead decided to have the conversation online.

During that meeting, the interviewers asked questions that ranged from the technical to the general, all of which Gerardo handled with confidence. Then he mentioned a skill he gained at TripleTen, and the interviewers took keen interest.

One of the things that drew their attention was the fact that I knew automated testing, and they were trying to start implementing automated testing with some of the software. Gerardo Antolino Torres II, TripleTen grad

The people he would be joining didn’t even have that expertise. Three days later, he got an offer letter.

Now he’s a Software Test Engineer at KBR, Inc., which provides tech services to companies and governments worldwide. He works remotely unless a client wants to meet him in-office, so his schedule is much more flexible, freeing up time for him to focus on his family. And he’s still finding that his work has direct impact_{Please Break the Software: The Importance of Quality Assurance}. 

One tangible example really hit home for Gerardo. His company provides tech to record the actions of military planes, and his brother-in-law is a pilot: “I can have an effect on that and potentially save his life.”

Best of all, in his new job, he’s now doing good without having to take on the risks of working in law enforcement. “I'm a lot less stressed. I don't have to dodge bullets. I don't have to dodge knives. I don't have to dodge fists. I just have to dodge questions sometimes.”

Discover more stories

Gerardo’s not the only one to have landed a major career change via TripleTen. Check out more of our student stories here.