Empowerment by female leadership is what drove Nita Rodriguez to become a woman in tech now. In fact, she’s now in a leadership role, serving as vice president of quality engineering at Verint, the customer engagement company headquartered in Melville, NY.

A global leader in solutions that focus on customer engagement, security intelligence, as well as fraud, risk, and compliance, the company has customers in more than 10,000 organizations. Operating in 180-plus countries, it represents more than 90% of Fortune 100 companies.

Initially planning on a career in accounting, it was not long before Rodriguez transferred to IT. Deemed a much better fit, her first job after graduating with a Bachelor of Science in computer information systems was webmaster with MARTA - Atlanta, GA’s rapid transit system. Next along her career path, were positions at two dotcoms before joining Verint 17 years ago.

Today her job includes ensuring that Verint software is released in a high-quality and timely manner. Currently engaged in transitioning from traditional quality assurance to a new holistic testing model - whereby engineers are involved in the entire process from design to coding to testing - she explains that this new model helps testers evolve into test architects able to guide engineers as they apply real-life scenarios to the product features they develop.

Her job functions further include mentoring engineers and testers as they adapt to newer models, in addition to focusing on automating test cases - considered a number-one priority.

Noting that traditional quality assurance is evolving to modernize quality engineering by transitioning from traditional, less flexible waterfall development - which is a sequential, rigid, linear process of project management - she says: “It’s up to me to help engineers make that transition, while taking into account the growing role for agility and innovation in the engineering process.”

What she particularly enjoys is driving the new and bold transformation, acknowledging, with a smile that, “at times it can be like pushing a boulder up a mountain.”

According to Rodriguez, the best career advice she received came some years ago from a coworker. When asked to take on a significantly large project for the first time, she recounts that coworker absorbing her facial expression of concern and telling her to “just embrace it.”

Rodriguez did, and ever since she embraced all challenges that came her way. “The fact that I was recently promoted to vice president shows there’s always something to learn in every opportunity, and I’m humbled and incredibly appreciative of my experiences,” she states.

As a participant in numerous recruiting events at Verint, Rodriguez was active in last year’s recruitment of the WomenHack group, which supports women in technology. Having proved to be a highly successful networking event, this venue has now morphed into an on-going program to involve women in quality engineering.

Pleased with the impending changes being brought about in this male-dominated field, Rodriguez says: “Verint is now one of the more progressive companies in this arena, and one that hails workplace diversity.”

To that she adds, “I’m so grateful for the support and mentoring that I received from both male and female members of the Verint executive team.”

For further information about Verint, visit verint.com, verint.com/careers, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and YouTube.