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.

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.

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. Already during my second year I had a job as a system 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 I’m 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 reviewed 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 and 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.

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

Als ich vor über 10 Jahren in einem Testcenter das erste Mal mit Software Testing in Berührung kam, war dies eher zufällig. Seither hat sich im Testing einiges geändert. Angefangen bei fantasielosem Schritt-für-Schritt Testfällen und halbjährlichen Releases sowie manueller Rapportierung in simplen Tabellenblättern hin zu automatisierter Testfalldurchführung mit Continuos Integration, Daily Stand-Ups, PI-Plannings, automatisch generierten Testreports, zweiwöchentlichen Sprints und Cross-functional Scrum Teams.

Ich habe den Wechsel vom Wasserfall-Modell in die agile Software Entwicklung miterlebt und geniesse seither alle Vorzüge hinsichtlich Eigenverantwortung, die Nähe zu den Entwickler, die Flexibilität sowie die Tätigkeit innerhalb eines Scrum Teams als Brücke zwischen den Entwickler und Business Stakeholder zu agieren.

Da ich grundsätzlich eine kritisch eingestellte Persönlichkeit bin, kann ich dies auch bei meinem Job als Software Tester ausleben. Ich geniesse es Dinge zu hinterfragen, sie aus einer anderen Perspektive zu betrachten und anhand der Findings dem Kunden möglichst konstruktives Feedback zu liefern. Anstelle eines möglichsten hohen Automatisierungsgrades empfehle ich möglichst sinnvolle, stabile und aussagekräftige Tests.

Um meine Erfahrungen und mein Profil abzurunden, habe ich vor kurzer Zeit den Zertifizierungslehrgang CAS Software Testing an der HSR absolviert. Dies war auch der Zeitpunkt, an dem ich mit House of Test das erste Mal in Berührung kam. Die Grundsätze von House of Test sowie die enge Zusammenarbeit mit den weltweit bekanntesten Grössen im Bereich Software Testing motivieren mich jeden Tag aufs Neue mit top motivierten Kollegen zu arbeiten und uns gegenseitig auf ein noch höheres Niveau zu heben.

Ich geniesse es täglich in Kontakt mit den neuesten Methoden und Technologien zu kommen und diese bei Möglichkeit direkt anwenden zu können.

Wenn ich nicht gerade versuche die Software Qualität zu verbessern, findet man mich meist in den Bergen rund um die Welt beim Powder Skiing oder Mountain Biking oder sonstigen meist sportlichen Aktivitäten.

Iván Riera Sánchez

Born to a family in Spain which has been living in Germany in the 1960s, I decided to go to the country myself in 2013 in order to learn the language. Since then, I have not only learned German but also worked in different roles in IT and I+D+i. Eventually, I discovered that testing was the perfect fit for me and my personality, working as QA engineer for a leasing Bank in Baden-Württemberg for almost 3 years.

Searching for ways to improve systems was always at the core of myself. Formerly a computational mathematician with a specialization in logistics and process optimization, I have found in testing my true vocation in which I can work daily on the improvement of the quality of software products. I see myself as a full-stack QA engineer, being able to develop many different roles from the testing spectrum (from unit testing to defect management).

Above all, I consider myself a life-long learner, always searching for new interesting things. Besides IT, mathematics and testing, I’m also interested in economics and management, and I am currently studying the last year of a business bachelor in a distance university. In my free time, I love playing my bass, chess, reading, doing sports and learning languages.

Olga Dietiker

As a Software Test Engineer, I enjoy solving puzzles. Every project offers different testing problems; there is never a „one fits all“ solution. When I find the best test approach, strategy or tool, it gives me the most satisfaction.

My journey in Software Testing started right after university graduation. I was always into exact sciences; thus, I chose Applied Mathematics as my speciality. Once I got into Software Testing, there was no turning back for me. I like to dive into a new project, observe it from different angles, test it with different perspectives. I continuously evolve by broadening my knowledge, experience and skills. I am driven by curiosity and a desire to make things work better. Accomplishment comes when I am untangling some thorny problem threads, whether technology-based, knowledge-based or communication-based.

I believe that a sound Test Engineer has to understand the business to the fullest. I use logical thinking to visualize every possible scenario and consider every possible test data that the actual user might be using. My strengths are flexibility and the ability to adapt to the given context.

I love the world of agile, fast-paced projects in interdisciplinary teams, and I enjoy the art of software crafting from A to Z.

In my spare time, I enjoy hiking, taking pictures, reading and occasionally doing sports.

Natalia Szprega

I am from Poland, where I have finished my studies and also took my first steps in IT. All science subjects like math, physics and chemistry, were always my passion and led me to study the field of biomedical engineering. There, I had my first contact with programming. I found it very interesting and as a next step, I have started a second degree: computer science. 

While studying I found my first job as a software tester. Since then, I have worked in a couple of different industries: microfinance, banking, aviation and logistics and in three different countries: Poland, Austria and Switzerland. For most of my career, I was working as a software tester, but also shortly as a Java developer. I am a big fan of Agile methodology, where in small iterations, I can gain a really deep knowledge of the product. This helps in better testing, which makes the product more reliable and competitive on the market. 

Testing brings trust into the brand and allows me to experiment with the product, without the risk of failing. I simply cannot imagine myself doing anything else but testing. I really love the versatility and flexibility that the IT industry gives. It is never boring! 

In my free time you can find me outside: skiing, running, climbing, swimming, biking, hiking… I could list probably every kind of activity, especially if camping is involved. I love mountains, so Switzerland sounds like the perfect places for me. I’m an outdoor person and for me, there is no bad weather (especially in winter). When I need to rest, I am reading popular science books or cooking.

Jagoda Brzozowicz

Ever since I was a child, I’ve enjoyed developing things from scratch and testing it. This passion, combined with my fascination for mathematics and technology, led me from construction sites over design offices to Test Engineering.

After my Civil Engineering studies in Poland which I completed with a master’s degree, I did my first steps in programming and testing. Civil Engineering and IT testing require extensive analytical skills and the ability to work with complex systems and processes. My technical studies enabled me to evaluate details in systems with many dependencies, helped me to understand applications context and identify potential sources of error in systems before they are released. The last years before joining House of Test team, I’ve worked in a bank in Frankfurt as a QA Engineer, taking care of the stability of a multichannel service platform.

For me, my job is more than a profession. As a tester, I enjoy calling everything in question; I can do this every day. I love tricky tasks in complex environments. Not only running simple comparisons between „how something works” and „how it should work”, but seeing and testing everything from the user point of view and evaluating it within the big picture – not within a single process. For me, testing is what it needs to transform our users from customers into fans.

When I’m not diving through web applications, you can find me on a squash court, travelling across Europe with a backpack or relaxing during baking.