From software developer to project manager; from supporting customers to giving lectures; from tester to CEO, Kristjan has done it all.

The first half of his career so far was mostly spent writing code. Whenever he tried to get out of that groove — be it project management or systems administration — he would always fall back on development in a year or two. Until he found testing. Starting as a tester at ASA Quality Services, he quickly grew into a test manager and a few years later was offered to take the position of CEO at the same company. After leaving ASA in 2015, he took some time in smaller projects — building test strategies and helping with tester recruitment among other things — before finding his way to SEB. For the past few years he’s been busy building the Baltic Testing Area at SEB, including the strategic view for both manual testing and test automation. Having left the bank in the end of May, at the time of writing he’s looking forward to finding himself a suitable new challenge starting in autumn.

He’s been a member of the Nordic Testing Days organizing team since the 2016 conference. Also, he’s one of two accredited ISTQB Foundation Level trainers in Estonia. While certificates have been bombarded by critics over the years, Kristjan believes that as with any tool, it needs to be understood and used properly to be useful.