Ilari Henrik Aegerter

My formal studies have brought me from General Linguistics and Sociology to Software Engineering and Software Testing. I so much liked the profession that I continued to work on my skills intensively. Being a context-driven tester is the natural outcome, and I believe that software testing is not a clerical job but a profession, which needs a high level of proficiency.

I have 10+ years of experience in the field, coming from the medical software domain at Phonak AG and progressing to e-commerce at eBay. I am now the Managing Director of House of Test GmbH, and I believe there is still a lot of work to be done for excellent software testing.

In 2015 I was elected into the board of the Association for Software Testing (AST), where I act as Chief of Chapters.

Since I like talking, I often present at international Software Testing conferences, and I am also frequently invited to speak at company events. From time to time I do workshops on Software Testing, which I enjoy tremendously.

Being in the field of Software Testing does not feel like work and it is a pleasure to do what I like every single day.

In my private time, I like to read a lot of books and comics, spend time with my family, test the possibilities of our world with my kids and test good food in restaurants with my wife. I believe that people are generally good and that there is plenty for everybody in this world. All that results in me smiling a lot.

Georg Lysen

In co-founding House of Test, I saw an opportunity for freedom; a freedom from dictated models and conformative thinking, a freedom to broaden my horizons and grow as a tester. Most of all, it’s a freedom to do a damn good job and it’s a freedom I take very seriously.

In my more than 15 years of working with IT, I have come across the good, the bad and the ugly within software development, all of which helped me build a broad base to stand on and approach any new situation with confidence and skill. It has also given me a great testing toolbox to choose and select from based on the unique context of any new project. Quality, as much as I love it, is not a one-man show and I aim to get everyone to feel engaged in the quality of the product by spreading my enthusiasm, sharing valuable information and having my bug reports be something even the developers look forward to receiving.

Nicola Owen

I’m passionate about software testing. I believe, to be an effective tester you need to be a strong communicator – and if the person you’re talking to isn’t on the same page: Try again. Use diagrams; body language; change of wording.

As a tester I’m constantly looking for ways to grow and learn; whether that be through taking courses, reading blogs or bouncing ideas off people I look up to in the field. I also grow and learn by keeping a testing blog. It helps me document my learning journey and see how my thought processes have changed over time. 

I’m a strong advocate for Context Driven Testing as it doesn’t believe in a “one size fits all approach” to testing. There’s no such thing as best practices because the context between different projects can differ greatly.

When I’m not at work, you’ll probably find me cooking, baking or watching stand-up comedy. I also love learning foreign languages – it’s a great way to experience a new culture. 

Andreas Cederholm

Testing is not just my livelihood, it is part of my identity. In order to constantly learn and improve to become a superhero tester I read and write test related blogs and books, presentations, discuss testing at test conferences or local test meet-ups and am an active part of the test community. I love to share my knowledge and passion for testing, and it shows in my work.

I have worked with world class test automation, creating automated checks and creating test framework, heavily based on requirements but have also worked with Session Based testing where information for test ideas were taken from multiple sources.

My experiences have taught me many important lessons and that above all, Context matters.

Simon Berner

I started my career in IT as a system engineer/administrator and then later as a developer. I finally stumbled over testing and it stuck with me. I love the burnt smell of deep thinking while testing and to forget the rest of the world while I’m absorbed with awesome testing. I’m very enthusiastic about software testing – especially for those things I don’t know yet. I’m experienced in story testing, performance testing and mobile testing. Besides that, I have also deep knowledge in requirements engineering and agile project- and application management, I’m good at talking to customers and I’m a very good listener and tacit observer. The restlessness drives me, I’m always open to learn something new and like a chameleon I’m able to fit me into every new challenge and situation.

For me House of Test is like being among rock stars. It is the ultimate place to grow, learn, congress, communicate and debate. It’s full of responsibility, freedom, passion and satisfaction, to evolve as human beings and testers. I give all the power I’ve got for moving us forward and getting a bit wiser each day.

Johanna Forsberg

I am an awesome tester that is burning for what I do and not even a firefighter can put that fire out!

I started my career at The Incubator program by House of Test. In addition to working full time as a consultant I was additionally studying Test over ten hours each week for two years. I loved that challenge because I love to learn and grow increasingly better in my trade. During the two years in the Incubator program I have gone from a junior tester to a Test Lead with teams in multiple countries.

After the incredible time as an Incubator I joined the wonderful team at House of Test. Here I get inspired to become even better, to think more and to learn even more.

Martin Nilsson

I’m a kick ass tester with an incredibly wide spectrum of skills; from programming microprocessors to developing Continuous Integrations strategies for development organizations. My unusual combination of technical expertise and understanding of systems and organizations has made me a favourite to throw into highly complex situations on short notice.
Quote from my last customer for whom I in six months went from a System Tester to the Test Coordinator of a project with a hundred testers: “We didn’t believe your CV. We were wrong”. Not only do I perform my work excellently, I also spread my passion of Test to my colleagues, enabling their growth as well in their trade.

My drive comes from a curiosity of technology and people and I leverage this heavily in my passion for test. I’m able to outpace my competition by having my work as a hobby and therefore I’m constantly evolving my abilities in my craft.

Diana Flores

My motto is do it better. As testers we have the opportunity to find improvements. We have both the overview, by being involved in different phases, and also the behind the scenes look, by being involved in finding root causes.

My motivation in choosing a career in IT was to solve problems, learn about new ideas and share the better practices.

I started university in Budapest for Informatics-Mathematics, and did English-language IT-teacher training as well, which matched my desire to combine a human side to the rational subjects. I continued with a thesis and case study on socio-technical congruence, when I moved to Amsterdam for a Computer Science MSc.

My first work experience, software configuration manager, thought me how important communication is, being the connection point of developers, testers and project managers, which I kept in mind when I became a tester.

I enjoyed especially the agile projects, as it gives you the most room to change towards efficiency.

I joined HoT to be among the motivated people who feel that testing is not just a job, it is our profession, so I feel at home here.

Alexandre Bauduin

Quality is not a mandate: It is my lifestyle. I have been testing in various fields like electronic boards, smart cards, airborne equipment, TV broadcasting systems, warehousing and other industries , software or equipment that have to work  once or 24-7 for millions of end users.

Don’t be surprised if during a test campaign you see me looking at an oscilloscope and an electronic schematic, a vernier caliper and a mechanical drawing, stepping into assembly code, recompiling a Nux kernel, debating about requirement or test-stalling a Boeing 777!

So many missions in many places, countries with only one goal in mind: Provide the best test services to my customers.

Testing  for me could be a piece of jazz music: A mix of cultures, techniques, non conventional beats and I love to compare testing activity to jamming sessions.  But it could also be a  piece of classical music with strict rules.

I feel home at House of Test because in any case what is the most important thing is THE Context.

Michal Zima

Testing is not only work for me, it is a profession and a passion. Testing for me is bringing clarity into uncertainty, bringing value for the project with the information I provide.

I jumped into testing right after my masters degree in management of computer systems. Working on various projects I started to develop passion and enthusiasm for this profession. I am constantly refining and adding to my skills through work itself, through self-study, from courses/seminars and on community events. While on projects I seek new ways to solve problems, minimize chaos, promote collaboration and build a knowledge base among people. I strive to achieve mutual trust in the form of:

“Michal tested this, there will be no surprises”

My strength lies in banking, followed by reinsurance and embedded devices.

My methods include scripts to support my testing and I am willing to use trial /error to an extent when most people give up. This helps me creating a model of the system which I then refine incrementally. At the end of the day, only the testing itself shows the best approach. You need to always be ready to change the way how you approach the problem.

When you don’t see me testing, I am probably traveling, doing sports (fitness, running, martial arts) or reading a good book.

Jan Wegner

I entered the professional IT world when studying computer science at the University of Paderborn and having a job as a systems administrator. After working quite a while as systems admin, I was hired as a professional Software Engineer. The first time it became “test-related” was after finishing university and entering into a big German web-portal. Our Team was inspired by Toyotas “Total Quality Management” (well) idea and lean-approach. Still programming I was working at the QA-department, to assure that no software hits the servers, which was not verified by our department. We saw early versions of frameworks like Selenium, Spring, CruiseControl and software from e.g. Apache Jakarta which are still in use today – at much later versions, though.

As a matter of fact we were building our own test tools because testing was not yet a discipline by itself. Some may not come to mind firsthand when talking comes to test tools. In the meantime the business has changed a lot and observing, thinking an communicating are the primary tools at hand instead being the human bug-finder. After working for a while on both sides of the ‘front line’ between software development and software testing, I found my first job as a testing (only) position. Having an innovative manager, I had the first encounter with the context driven school of testing.

Providing information about the ‘state of the product’ and contributing to identifying risks is now one of my primary goals. Besides that I enjoy working with a team not only following “The Prozess(tm)” but strive to learn, adapt and change. In that field I am really engaged about showing the agile benefits to those who work with me. Bering thoughtful and risk-aware I am also a hands-on guy, passionate with experimenting. Last but not least I keep my eyes and mind open for the new and noteworthy.

Sebastian Thuné

I tend to use the word successful, and I want to start out by clarifying my definition of this word.

For me it’s not the meaning of having achieved fame, wealth, or social status. Successful for me will always be to accomplish a desired aim or result. It’s up to you to define success, and I will do anything I can to help you out.

Communication and problem solving is my life. We are all in the people business, and that’s the very foundation of my philosophy. With a plan and the 80/20 rule I make every minute and every challenge as an excuse to advance. Through a history of sales, leadership, marketing and partner management and a successful track record of solving problems within the areas of retail, software development, IT, SaaS and telecommunications I will continue to push myself, coworkers, customers and partners forward in the successful ongoing journey of House of Test & friends.

With a strong entrepreneurship and an open mind, I’m ready to help every one of you out there who is curious on how we as the number one context-driven testers can help you accomplish every desired test result you might wish for.

Ida Waller

I was once asked how such a positive and outgoing person as you always expect the worst.

My answer simply was that I´m a tester and there are always problems but my mission is to make sure that we know what kind of problems exists so that we can take care of them.

Communication is my biggest strength, I often lead various dialogues with many stakeholders, customers and end-users. I always try to see the full picture to understand how the system works and who will use it, so it´s not always about the tech skills.

I try to stay sharp because software and testing is constantly evolving, getting more complex and advanced. Even after 10 years I still feel excited when finding issues in software or explaining why for example a feature might not be easy to understand for an end-user.

Besides being a tester, I also have thorough experience in big data and business intelligence tools.
I can help you identify new business opportunities by analyzing and visualizing your data.

If there is software there will always be bugs to track down and I’m like good wine getting better with years of experience.

Victor Förare

I am a tester that is always looking for new challenges, that never gets bored with a task because I always find things to improve or things to test in ways they never have been tested before.
I like being around brilliant people since I am like a sponge that quickly absorbs knowledge from those around me and have the ability to quickly fill in anyone’s shoes if need be. That was what enticed me to join the HoT family.
My goal in every company is to become one of the people with the best overview of the system as a whole.
Since I started out in health care and later re-schooled into a software test engineer I have refined social and technical skills.
They came in handy when I developed test routines, trained new employees and handled customer support for several years with one of my previous employers.
I know that the developer has a profound knowledge about their own code, but I have the ability to take a step back and view the system as a whole. I am like the glue that fuses your systems together.
I will analyze your system integrations and if anything is amiss I will find it, I got the Bug repellent spray for you.

Emma Lilliestam

A hammer is a nice tool for some things, but if you use it to fix a window you might not get the intended result. I keep a scientific approach to most things and my interdisciplinary background helps me find the right tool for the right task.

My road to software testing was far from straight, but throughout studies of IT security, system administration, environment, anthropology and journalism one thing has always been at the core: studying vulnerabilities, and fixing them.

I think both inside and outside of the box. Standards and checklists help with organization and systematization of product development. But a standard must always be set in a context, and is only efficient when continuously tweaked.

Some people regard the word “nerd” as negative. I don’t. Nerdism is a real superpower, it gives a person the stamina to skeptically interrogate a subject again and again. I’m a nerd about the GDPR, user security, business continuity and process. On my spare time I nerd about space, cyborgs, cognition, music, and long distance training.

Andreas Roos Bergman

As a tester I’m not afraid to challenges your idea of test and quality. I come from the “new” way of thinking and despite the fact that I’m at the beginning of my test career I already have a lot of useful experience,

I got my education from EC Software Testing where House of Test where involved, and I early adopted their way of breathing test & quality. Naturally when they contacted me I took the opportunity. I might be at the beginning of my journey, but I already get to learn from the best.

I love to work in teams close to developers. It doesn’t matter if you lack experience in test, I rise to the occasion. I strongly believe that quality is not owned by one individual but rather by the entire team. In all aspects, from idea to delivery.

Carin Cedergren

I think that in many ways I could be the perfect tester. I have logical mindset, I am thorough but I also have a good insight on what is good enough, I have a good eye for foreseeing risks and I also seem to have a nack for breaking things.

I am a positive person who thrives on irritation. Positive anger is my drive and one thing that angers me is doing things a certain way only because of old habit. Understanding the cost and the benefit is essential for effective and good software testing. I have been on the dark side of test case maintenance and abiding by strict rules that doesn’t really make sense, but everyone’s so preoccupied with upholding these rules that they never stop to question them.

What happens when we dare to make that leap? How can that improve us as a company, a team and as individuals? That’s what I am here to find out!

I love what I do, and I love getting better at it. I almost never wear anything other than black since lighter colours seem to hurt my soul. I also love kittens.

David Dormvik

After graduating what might be described as one of the world’s first program in context driven testing I spent my first three years of my career in software testing as a member of a cross-functional R&D team.

I have worked closely with developers in maintaining and improving a large catalogue of API’s and developer tools. Challenged with being the lone tester I managed to come out on top by simply staying communicative and humble.
I truly believe I managed to changed both mindsets and processes for the better and left a team that will continue to deliver quality software.

The combination of a mindset trained in my education, and the technical aspects learned from the responsibilities working close to developers creates a creative, curious and knowledgeable tester.

Being the ‘go to’ guy for anything quality related in my previous assignment I honed my skills in ‘talking the language’ of testers, developers, support personnel, technical writers and managers alike.

According to me the key to delivering quality software is a spot on risk analysis (the hard part), followed by a strategy to cover these risks in the simplest and most maintainable way possible (the part that should be easy).

Sebastian Kruschke

I started my career adventure yet during study, after bachelor exam, in July 2012. Results, which I achieved during research necessary for writing thesis, were so interesting, that based on them promoter published with me as co-author scientific article. As a side effect of that, I have been proposed for internship in scientific research center located in Frankfurt in Germany.

Next chapter of my professional experience has been started at the end of master study, after publishing second article and during finishing master thesis. At this time, I have been hired as Junior Software Developer in Wrocław (Breslau), in Poland. During over two – years involvement I participated in five different projects, in two as software developer and in three as software tester / test automation engineer.

After that, I decided to look for challenges outside of the company and relocated myself to small town located in Lower Saxony, Lingen, where I have been hired as Software Developer / Software Tester in company, which was providing inspection service for oil – and gas – pipelines by using custom – designed hardware platform and software solutions. After this very valuable experience, which took almost 1.5 year, I received job offer with relocation to Switzerland, which I decided to agree.

Since April 2017 I have been assigned as Test Automation Engineer to projects related to reporting and clearing duty and risk management of OTC derivatives, central counterparts and transaction registering from various jurisdictions (like for example EU, Switzerland, China, etc.). I was also involved in one project as Test Manager and organized work for the group of eight QAs from three different locations (Switzerland, Poland and India) and very different cultural backgrounds.

After worktime, I like to learn new languages. I have the luck that I already speak German, Polish, English, a little bit Russian and currently I learn Hebrew, which would be fifth one. It simplifies communication and helps me to understand cultural diversity, in my opinion there is no better way to understand cultural heritage of people than learning language, which they use.

Juan Pablo Consoli

I am kind of a non-conventional tester and throughout my years I’ve been exposed to a lot of challenges in many different companies and countries. I have never been afraid of anything and find it exciting to resolve complicated testing problems. But to be successful in the testing world, I believe not only technical expertise is required, but even so creativity and a bit of psychology.

I like to experiment and try new things. For one of my previous clients, on my own initiative, I co-developed a project using Arduino for the testing representation of API’s results using LEDs. While not as useful as it might sound, I am fascinated with the integration of software and hardware for any kind of project.

In my opinion, everything that is boring and repetitive should be automated. I have been working for many years to achieve this because testers should be free to use their work in more meaningful ways.

I have developed several automation frameworks, for the web, mobile, APIs and performance testing mostly using Java, Ruby, Javascript and Python. I think there is not a perfect programming language, that is why I consider that the best results are achieved using combinations of tools and languages for different purposes, for example, I used Java + Jython or Ruby + JRuby to make powerful combos.

I have been involved in several crypto projects and ICOs since 2015, took a Bitcoin certification in 2018 and I firmly believe in the incoming cyberpunk blockchain revolution.

When I am not coding, or testing to exploit a flaky system, I enjoy cooking, gardening and playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Mathilda Wickman

I have a broad scope that includes project management, test management and security primarily in the telecom, Medtech and IT-industry. I am driven, goal oriented and love challenges. I am very analytical and structured, and consider myself being the person you think of when you have a so-called DOER in mind. If you want things, done I’m the one.

I like challenging assignments where the prerequisites are not entirely given, where there must be new ways to solve challenges. One of my biggest strengths is to see things from many perspectives and finding relatively simple solutions to my customer’s complex needs.

I have both technical knowledge and communication skills so I’m often the bridge between top management and the teams. Constantly evolving as a person in anyway possible is a huge momentum for me, hence I’m always eager to to learn new domains.

No one can take your knowledge away!

Lukas Mathiasson

All my test assignments have been unconventional. I’ve worked on a small team developing an upcoming app making up the testing as new features came along. I’ve worked on a global medical giant where the test plan and scope was so huge and established that it worked against testing quality. And I have worked in between on a company with their own methods and own self defined scope, where the goal is more important than the way there.
What I have found from these endeavors is that the rebels way is the best way. When testers bend the limits, use their own initiative and test their way, all this for better results. As demands and expectations change, so should testing, adapt and evolve constantly past limits, not around them.

So I burn for rebel testing. Finding the best way and executing it no matter the environment. The best solution is out there and I aim to find it.

When I am not bending rules on the workplace I spend my time fencing with medieval longswords, games and cooking.

Andrew Orange

My degree is a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronic and Information Engineering.  During my 4 year studies, we covered all aspects of engineering including,  software, electronics, high voltage systems, digital signal processing, analogue electronics and pure mathematics. During that period was 1 year in industry working on designing, building power supplies and writing error correction firmware for spectrum analysers.

Most of my career has been involved in testing one way or another. The first company I worked for was Micro Focus in the UK, where I was automating tests and exploring a COBOL Integrated Development Environment we’d developed for Windows 95. Later, as a developer for the product, we would do our own testing for bug fixes, automate the tests and drop them straight into the build process. The start of CI/CD building blocks perhaps!

In 1999, I moved to Switzerland where I continued as a developer mainly in financial institutions.  Here I would develop my own testing practices alongside my own development work up until many companies started to separate testing from development and commodify the practice. Throughout my time in industry, I’ve seen the most skillful testing work come from testers knowing their products very well, and having the ability to talk directly to the customers and the developers. This is why it’s such a pleasure to work for a company like House of Test who shares the same belief that testing is a skill and not a commodity.

When I finish work, I go home to Winterthur where I find my apartment in the city, my girlfriend and my 2 dogs which we take to the woods for walks.  I read a lot and my hobbies include value investing and bitcoin, mainly from a technical and economic standpoint. In my spare time, I’ve tested equity pricing apps and crypto-wallets. The learning never ends.

Simon Reichenbach

When I started working as a Software Tester in a so-called Testcenter more than ten years ago, it was pretty coincidentally. There were a lot of changes over the last decade in the area of Software development and testing.

At the very beginning of my career, we used to handle a vast amount of uninspiring step-by-step test cases designed by some business guys who didn’t really have a clue of what testing is. There were those never-ending projects which consumed so much time to manage the requirements and get a first draft version of the application to realize that it wasn’t implemented as desired by the Business Stakeholders side.

We had to complete our checklists and spreadsheets to submit them to the test Manager, manually, of course. Then we moved on to the agile framework. Everything became faster. We were faced with PI-plannings, biweekly sprints, continuous integration, daily deployments and fully automated test execution during nighttime. I began to appreciate all of those new liberties where we were able to plan, develop and schedule our tasks and user stories. It was a pleasure to see how our team improved every other week.

Since I am a pretty critical person, I think this fits very well to my job as a software tester. It lets you think differently about a specific situation and can help you approach things in another way than probably most of the people would think about. I’m pleased to work with the most recent technologies and to apply my knowledge in a useful way to help our customers increase their quality and to shorten the feedback cycle.

Recently I’ve completed the post-graduate certification course CAS Software Testing at the University of Rapperswil which was conducted the very first time. That was also the moment when I first got in touch with House of Test. I immediately identified myself with their principles and the way they work. I enjoy working together with or at least be a part of this highly motivated team as well.

In my leisure time, you can find me shredding downhill trails in the mountains with my mountain bike or ski powder all around the world.