Meet the team: Suma Arora
We thought it would be interesting to run some blogs about the super people at Cloudhouse. We’re speaking to people across all our teams to find out a bit more about them, what their role is and what makes them tick. We also ask them to spill the beans on their worst IT fail… because it happens to the best of us!
Meet… Suma Arora, Head of Testing & Quality Assurance Manager
When did you join Cloudhouse?
January 2019
Tell us a little about your career up to this point:
I started my career at Infosys Technologies Ltd. in Bangalore, India, working in a global delivery model, initially as an off-site member then moving to be a client-site coordinator.
In 2007 I moved to the UK and worked in two other companies before moving to Cloudhouse. I was Head of Testing at Octopus Investments, managing a large team working on all aspects of software testing and automation. I was there for about five years before I moved to Cloudhouse.
What do you do at Cloudhouse?
I am responsible for the testing and quality assurance of our products, and I manage the QA team with team members here in the UK and in Canada. When I started the team was smaller, it has more than doubled in size since I joined and we have plans to grow more in future, too.
My team gets involved in projects right from the inception phase, all the way through the development and testing to releasing the changes to production. We make sure the products are fit for purpose and free of major defects, doing a range of manual and automated tests. We get a lot of satisfaction from releasing a product that works as it is intended to and gives great value to the customer and makes them happy.
What’s the best thing about working at Cloudhouse?
At Cloudhouse, there is always something to get involved in. You are encouraged to try out new ideas. You can get involved where you want to if you have an interest. For example, one of my team members is getting involved in internal audit as well, because they are interested in learning more about that. It’s a really collaborative company: everyone helps out across the departments.
Most embarrassing IT moment (e.g. hitting reply all when you really shouldn’t have, deleting something VERY important, leaving your laptop on the train…)?
In the early days when I had just joined Cloudhouse, in the morning rush I accidentally took my husband’s laptop to work! I was wondering why I couldn’t get anything to work… why could I not log in? Luckily, I lived quite near to work and I managed to get home and swap them over. My husband hadn’t yet left for work which was a relief. Since then I have been extra careful to make sure I have the right one!
Favourite sandwich filling:
I love avocado and chilli toast, and also tomato, mozzarella, and pesto sandwich. Or maybe Another favourite of mine is pita filled with falafel and lots of vegetables!
How do you take your tea?
I like strong tea, with ginger and cardamom flavour.
Cats or dogs?
I don’t have any pets, but when I was little, I wanted kittens and puppies. So, I like both!
Dream holiday destination:
My dream has always been to go to Alaska and Lapland. It looks so beautiful and magical in the wintertime. I would also love to visit the Swiss Alps again, I have been once and it was beautiful.
