Meet the Pride: Diego Villalobos

In this installation of our Meet the Pride Series, travel to Mexico City to meet Diego V., a Senior Test Lead at Lionbridge Games. When he's not hunting for bugs or managing his team of testers, Diego enjoys playing video games, visiting cultural and historical landmarks, and trying the local cuisine.

Tell us about your role at Lionbridge.

As a Senior Test Lead, I manage six teams totaling 220 game testers as they hunt for bugs in our customers’ upcoming releases. My team does Functional Quality Assurance (FQA), so we're responsible for identifying reliability, usability, and functionality issues to ensure a great gaming experience for future players.

In addition to testing the games myself, I’m also in charge of designing and executing tests according to our customers’ specifications. I communicate with them daily to address goals, challenges, and concerns to refine our testing strategy, improve efficiency, and ensure we properly document our work and track analytics. I then brief my team so we’re all on the same page and working toward the same outcome.

I function as a bridge between the developers and our testers — I find out what our customers’ end goals are and translate that into an actionable plan for my team to carry out. Sometimes, the customers aren’t very clear or don’t know what’s best for them, so I have to do a little reverse engineering to develop a plan that satisfies their needs before the project gets to my team. I also deliver the necessary documents and communications from our team back to the developers.

Lastly, I handle all the typical managerial tasks, such as logging hours, reviewing performance, and taking care of my testers. I take a lot of pride in being a good manager, listening to their needs, and ensuring they get opportunities to grow.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

As someone who has played video games my whole life, I find it really fun to play games all day with my team. Even more than that, though, I love watching my team grow. I started with testers who had only 1-2 months of experience, and now, most of them have blossomed into fantastic testers and renewed their contracts multiple times. I’m grateful to have such an impact on their journey and to see them improve.

I also enjoy being the “face” of my team and representing Lionbridge Games to outside parties. I love working with customers, learning about the corporate side of things, and investing myself in a company where I have so much room to grow. I’m aiming to be a branch manager someday!

How long have you been at Lionbridge Games, and how have you seen the company evolve over that time?

I’ve been with Lionbridge Games for five and a half years. I started in Costa Rica as a Localization Quality Assurance (LQA) Tester for English and Mexican Spanish. I was then promoted to LQA engineer, then Senior LQA Engineer, and began training for a Test Lead role before moving to Mexico in mid-2024.

Back when I worked in Costa Rica, we were in a sort of experimental phase. It was a huge learning curve. There were a lot of mistakes and growing pains, and you could really see the Costa Rica office maturing alongside the company in real-time. There was a lot of learning to be done on both sides.

After the Costa Rica office reached a stable point, I transitioned to the Mexico office. Thanks to all of our hard work at the Costa Rica office, we were able to apply all the knowledge we gained to ramping up the Mexico office — and it ramped up fast. The adjustment period was shorter, things went more smoothly, and it was much easier for us to adapt to Lionbridge Games’ standards.

The learning snowballs with each office we open, giving us more experience and insights to run efficiently right off the bat in future endeavors.

What excites you most about the industry you work in?

This industry is incredibly fast-paced, which keeps things exciting. Five years ago, the landscape was completely different. Big projects we stressed over seem like a piece of cake now. So many of the things we used to agonize over have been completely forgotten. Things are always moving quickly, and trends are constantly changing. Nowadays, everything is online, and streaming is everything. There’s so much innovation and competition, which leaves you wondering, “What’s gonna be the next big thing?”

Where do you live, and what do you enjoy most about it?

I've only been here for 7 months and spent the first half of that getting my documentation and basic living necessities settled. However, I've had enough time to explore, and I know I love this city. It's so big, has so many people — 20 times the population of where I used to live — and is so unique.

Coming from Costa Rica, I especially enjoy Mexico City because you can see the distinct differences between those two places. Latino cultures are often treated like a monolith. People lump them together as though they’re all the same, but even I was surprised at how much I had to learn. I enjoy getting to know the city, the people, and the culture.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

This might come as a surprise, but despite playing video games at work, I still come home and play them even more. But that's not my whole life. I love going out and experiencing the world around me. I go out to eat, party, and see cultural and historical landmarks. I especially love museums, as I'm a history nerd, and Mexico is historically and archaeologically significant.

What’s something a tourist visiting your area shouldn’t miss?

There's the archaeological museum (Museo Nacional de Antropología), Templo Mayor, and other historical sites... but the thing I advertise the most is the food. The food is so amazing. Honestly, that’s the biggest reason I never want to leave.

What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?

This is something my dad told me: We are human. We are allowed to make mistakes. What we are not allowed to do is make the same mistake twice.