Maaret Pyhäjärvi

Tester Extraordinare; Director, AI-Enhanced Application Testing at CGI

Helsinki Metropolitan Area

About

Maaret helps organizations deliver software systems better by working inside actual teams while driving structural change at the leadership level. She leaves behind better practices, pipelines, agents and talent – including developers and testers who know how to work AI-natively. Awarded testing expert, polyglot programmer, senior manager and board professional. Speaker in 30 countries. When I look for work, the following is how I describe myself: Results-oriented software development professional. A change agent who improves while she delivers. An exploratory tester extraordinaire. Polyglot programmer. Leader. Sees things others don't and has track-record on delivering on time, with quality - because you can't be on time if you continue fixing after delivering. I prefer specialist / individual yet collaborative roles over manager roles, and craft a manager job to include hands-on work, and a specialist job to include leadership. Experienced with multiple contexts: - working side by side with developers in product development context, complementing the team's available skills with business, value and system -oriented views and putting together test automation and exploration in a great mix. - working side by side with business analysts on focused acceptance testing and guiding contractors on making acceptable deliveries. - organizing and delivering testing in agile and traditional lifecycle models - strong theoretical background through research and teaching work in the software testing area I pair and ensemble (to learn and contribute while raising everyone's skills level) a lot, and hold my part of the work without supervision. I believe in learning to improve every day, and measure improvement through outcomes. Specialties: Combining hands-on work, strategic quality/test management and teaching what I do for others, see https://maaretp.com

Experience

  • Director, Consulting at CGI
    Jun 2024 - Present · 2 yrs 2 mos

    Scaling Finnish capabilities in AI-driven application testing. https://www.cgi.com/fi/fi/uutinen/Maaret-pyhajarvi-nimitetty-cgin-johtajaksi With and without AI, testing industry is going through unprecedented change where it's all about *testing* not *testers*. We're figuring out how to take ourselves through contemporary testing transformations to best serve our customers, in scale. Growing from where we are keeping results and value in focus is the work.

  • Vaisala (Full-time · 4 yrs 2 mos)
    • Development Manager
      Mar 2023 - May 2024 · 1 yr 3 mos

      Operational leadership and line management for Vaisala Aviation Weather product AviMet. Always a testing professional: now moving focus from testing systems, apps and features and testing ideas to testing organizations.

    • Principal Test Engineer
      Apr 2020 - Mar 2023 · 3 yrs

      Making a difference to quality practices over multiple teams.

  • F-Secure Corporation (3 yrs 8 mos)
    • Lead Quality Engineer
      Sep 2016 - Apr 2020 · 3 yrs 8 mos

      A hands-on tester with enough seniority to figure out what is right for whatever goal assigned. Working on making the Corporate Security Client awesome through empirical evidence and smart testing approaches. "During her time in the company, Maaret Pyhäjärvi worked in leading roles, first as Lead Quality Engineer in Windows Endpoint team and later on as Senior Manager for the whole team. In these roles, she led redesign of her team from a regular development team to a high-performing, continuously improving unit of professionals. She also influenced greatly the whole development and quality process of the product area, by leading improvement in tooling, processes and human interaction across all the units and teams involved. This resulted as major enhancements in measurable customer satisfaction, quicker response to change and overall process and product quality." -- work certificate assessment

    • Senior Manager, Corporate Windows Endpoints Development
      Jun 2018 - Feb 2020 · 1 yr 9 mos

      Managing a development group of 12 people. Job crafting the manager role to look like the tester role while serving the team in must-do managerial tasks.

  • Freelance Testing Specialist at Altom Consulting Oy
    Apr 2013 - Dec 2016 · 3 yrs 9 mos

    I merged my successful on-the-side software training and consulting business under the Altom Consulting Oy umbrella. I continue to deliver courses as a freelancer for Altom Consulting Oy. All course materials created continue to be Creative Commons Attribution -licenced.

  • Software Testing Specialist at Granlund Oy
    Apr 2012 - Sep 2016 · 4 yrs 6 mos

    Testing-related work for two software products delivering releases in a monthly cycle at Granlund. The first system tester in a group of ~20 software developers where testing is the team's responsibility. Guiding the work of another tester in remote testing settings.