Sunday, February 19, 2012

Looking for a new job

I feel excited and puzzled - I'm actively looking for a new job. I've spent last 2,5 years at Ilmarinen, and enjoyed the lessons learned there greatly. We've succeeded, with my projects and teams, to get projects, where the contractor does their share on quality-related work and acceptance testing phase is actually just that: testing, not fixing. We have great business specialists in acceptance testing, they've learned something relevant about testing with me and work with contractors is less cumbersome than before.

So why I'm changing: because I watch out contractors to get to do the stuff I'd want to do with the limited time I have for work. They actually create the quality, their testers enhance the productivity of the teams they work in. They do testing for finding problems so that customers like us don't have to. And I want to be doing that: work close to development, actively making a difference in quality and productivity for the company I work for, and the end users of the products our teams are creating.

So I'm looking for a senior testing specialist position, that would enable me to do hands-on testing work. I'd love to take a spin at test automation, from the extending exploratory (not manual, but brain-engaged!) testing point of view, doing more and using ideas that are not possible without tools. With test automation, however, I know I'd be stronger with a team where I could provide practical ideas of what we'd test, instead of trying to do that by myself alone. The reason is that I have developed a practical way of developing and grouping ideas, and focusing on automation alone may prove to be difficult as the list of stuff that would need to be covered may take more time than first assumed.

My ideal position would be:
  • working with a system or product with relevance: either successfull business-wise or relevant purpose, like with Ilmarinen: there's no pension paid without the success of the chain of systems that make it happen
  • working with a development organization: either product company or company providing software development projects on contract. Essentially, working with people who create the software. 
  • enabling me to do hands-on exploratory testing, develop exploratory testing related practices on smaller and larger scale.
I'm considering both work in Finland and relocating somewhere in the world. But, since life is short and I really want to do more of hands-on testing work than I can in my current position, I would prefer to move quickly. I can work either as a self-employed contractor or as employee. If you happen to know anyone I should talk to, give me a hint.

A tester at heart, always learning - that's what testing is about. So I think I've gotten pretty good at learning to be useful quickly.