Riaan Roos is a Senior Solutions Consultant at Inspired Testing, a Dynamic Technologies group company. With three decades of IT industry experience, Riaan is integral to Inspired Testing's commitment to delivering cutting-edge solutions and mentorship in an era of rapid technological transformation.
Of his role, Riaan says, “I design and break systems, usually in that order. Officially, I’m a Senior Solutions Consultant. Unofficially, I’m the guy who asks the uncomfortable question, rips the veneer off broken processes and builds something better with duct tape, logic and a refusal to accept the first answer.” Whether he’s working with Selenium, custom test frameworks, embedded hardware or just asking ‘why’, his job is to make things work – for humans, teams, and outcomes.
His mantra is ‘curiosity fed the cat’, and he works hard to stay sated. A champion of spending less energy on solving the wrong questions and helping his colleagues get better faster than he did, he says, “I’m perpetually on the lookout for smarter, weirder, and more sustainable solutions.”
Originally headed towards a career in marine biology, Riaan quickly realised it wasn’t the field for him. As life progressed, he began building his own IT tools in an effort to avoid boring tasks, and accidentally discovered a talent for solving those problems that nobody else wanted to deal with.
He says, “I’ve never cared much for titles, trends, or templates. I care about outcomes and solving the real problem, not the one everyone keeps rewording on the whiteboard. A lifetime later, I’m still poking at the edges of the system, asking questions and refusing to grow up.” He joined Inspired Testing because they not only accepted this, but they also embraced it. “Here, I can bring my whole self. With curiosity, chaos and conviction, and I can use that to help teams build something real. They didn’t ask me to perform. They asked me to solve – and that’s rare.”
He's comfortable at the company and enjoys the honesty and the bravery that allows people to ask ‘why’ even when it sounds dumb. “There’s no performative competence here,” he notes. “People admit what they don’t know. We challenge each other. And we care more about doing the right thing than looking as if we did. That’s a culture I want to be part of. That moment when ‘I don’t know’ becomes ‘oh wait, I see’, is unbeatable.”
Riaan’s advice to clients looking to remain relevant in this time of fast-paced technological change is simple. “Don’t chase shiny things.” He adds, “We build systems that work. We listen, ask better questions and recommend what fits the actual context, not what’s trending on social media this month. We build to last.”
Being a tech magpie is a common trap, but Riaan cautions that new isn’t the same as better. Adopt when it solves a problem or makes something better – being intentional about new technology is not the same as being slow.
For those looking to join the tech space, he has some sage advice born from experience. “Stay curious. Break things. Question everything. Especially yourself.” He adds, “Chase patterns, learn to understand and don’t pretend to know what you don’t. This field doesn’t reward people who always have the right answer, it rewards people who find better questions.”