Meet the Polaris ICE team

Ján Cafík

Tern Systems and Isavia ANS have been collaborating closely for almost 30 years now, developing ATM systems. The newest and most ambitious product being developed is the POLARIS ATM system. The POLARIS ICE team, comprised of members from both companies, is responsible for developing the feature set that will enable Isavia ANS to manage air traffic over the North Atlantic Ocean in the future. The area is more than 5 million square kilometres and is one of the largest control areas in the world.

Here we introduce the first team member: Ján Cafík.

✨ Role within the POLARIS ICE team

We asked Ján about his role within the POLARIS ICE team and he replied: “I mostly focus on connecting user needs and requirements with Product Vision & Strategy. Building an overarching, multi segment plan, laying a necessary foundation for POLARIS ATM to grow further at Isavia ANS and later beyond to ensure sustainable market growth.”

✨ Professional Experience

Ján studied Air Traffic Control (BSc) and Management (MSc) at the Faculty of Aeronautics at Technical University of Košice. He worked with the Slovak ANSP, LPS SR for many years first as a technical administrator (Thales Top Sky, Ales - Letvis, Ales - Letvis RAD Sim, Adacel 3D TWR Sim, EIZO Safe Guard and many more) and technical expert, later helping in international research projects within SESAR - Virtual Centre architecture and UPMS (User Profile Management System) solutions. He has helped set up automated testing and product vision for a small startup within the domain. His experience as both a customer and a service provider at the startup and SME levels has given him a well-rounded perspective.

✨ Life outside of work

When asked about his life outside Tern Systems, Ján says: “I live an active life outside work, doing anything from Basketball to Golf, from Hiking and Running to Swimming. When I feel lazy, or tired, I mainly watch movies or read a good book. :) These days, my main focus outside work is on building the future generation, through my 5 month old son, Liam.

✈ About Polaris ATM

POLARIS ATM is our flagship product, the next-generation Air Traffic Management System. Our vision is to advance Air Traffic Control by delivering new levels of usability, modernity and innovation. Moving beyond the legacy systems which dominate the industry, POLARIS ATM uses technologies which will support our partner's emerging needs in the next decade and beyond. ANSPs who select POLARIS as their future ATM system will benefit from new features developed with others within our user group, designed with scalability and adaptability in mind.

Summer Interns

We at Tern Systems are extremely pleased to welcome this fantastic group of summer interns who will be working on various projects and are particularly passionate about everything regarding designing and building Air Traffic Management (ATM) software solutions!

Laufey Matthildur Friðriksdóttir

When asked about her studies and her job at Tern Systems, Laufey says: "I just graduated from the Computer Science program at Reykjavik University, where I learned a lot and am very grateful for everything my studies gave me. At Tern Systems, I work with the Customer Success department to develop software that simplifies and streamlines the system setup process for our clients."

Einar Ágúst Jónsson

Regarding his summer job at Tern Systems and his studies, Einar says: "I work on designing and programming software solutions for air traffic controllers. The main thing that my computer science studies at Reykjavik University have given me is the ability to work well as part of a team."

María Rós Kaldalóns

María Rós works on designing and programming software solutions for air traffic controllers, just like Einar Ágúst. She is studying software engineering at the University of Iceland and has this to say about her studies: "In my studies, I have touched on various aspects such as data science, compilers, mathematics, software development, and I have tried to learn as much as possible from Snorri Agnarsson, who is my Professor in computer science."

Egill Magnússon

Egill is studying software engineering at the University of Iceland and when asked about his summer job, he replies: "I am working on a system that facilitates changes to environmental data for air traffic control."

We look forward to getting to know them better and seeing them grow and thrive in their roles this summer! 🚀🌞

Tern Around: Employee Spotlight on Women in Engineering with Marijke

Marijke hails from the Netherlands and has lived in Iceland for many years (she speaks Icelandic fluently, by the way!). Her background in Quality Assurance testing within Air Traffic Management makes her a strong asset to our team of amazing QA’s. When she isn’t busy focusing on acceptance tests, she cycles, listens to audiobooks, and visits home for the holidays.

Please introduce yourself.

My name is Marijke and I’m a Quality Assurance Lead at Tern Systems. I’ve been here for 7 years now. I came here as a Quality Assurance Engineer. I’ve been through a couple of teams and learned a lot about air traffic control and testing along the way.

How did you get started at Tern?

I started working here just after maternity leave. I was at home with my oldest and I was very happy to come here so I could just leave my husband with the baby and talk to grown-ups about real things! I was testing the simulator, Amelia, back then. It was great because I could pick up Air Traffic Management from a relatively simple application that we were using. It’s a little more straightforward than the actual ATS system because it was just one application, so I spent a couple of years doing that. From Amelia, we went to Orion and now I’m part of the Polaris team.

What’s a day in the life of a QA Engineer look like?

I am in Customer Success and at the moment, I’m doing the acceptance testing and preparing for that. We are busy with requirements work, so I’m helping out a lot with that, because the acceptance test is quite far in the future. I’ve been very busy last year, both preparing and running tests together with customers. So a day in the life is: I get here, I work, I have meetings, I eat lunch and then I go home. And the work is different day-to-day.

How has your role evolved since starting seven years ago?

I came here as a Quality Assurance Engineer and quite quickly I was starting to help do testing- that’s my main job. But I started to help write down templates and processes for the Test Manager back then because I came from an academic background where I learned to write that type of document. From there, after a couple of years, I went into the role of Lead Quality Assurance Engineer. First and foremost I’m a Quality Assurance Engineer testing, but I also organise the quality assurance meetings and decide where we’re going with testing like objectives and writing the handbook documents. And then last year I switched over to Quality Assurance Lead.

Can you share achievements in your career so far?

A lot has happened in the past seven years. For me, the Factory Acceptance Test and the Site Acceptance Test with HC were big achievements. Those were the largest organised tests that I’ve been a part of, mostly leading. I learned a lot and it was very rewarding.

What are some challenges that come with your role?

It’s often challenging to organise things in the right way and find the right level of how deep we want to go with the testing. When can we test what? When should we prepare what? Where should we precisely focus? Because there’s so much and software isn’t always ready on time. It’s always give and take and finding the right balance, and that can be challenging.

Do you have advice for those seeking a career in testing?

My advice is give it a try. Testing is fun. It can be very rewarding!

How do you manage stress?

Work can be a bit like eating an elephant: just one bite at a time. And apart from that I try to eat healthy-ish and exercise. I bike to work, because Tern is very accommodating with that.

Hobbies

I like yoga, exercise, hiking and sewing! I like sewing my kids clothes.

Rapid fire questions: Favourites

Childhood memory? I used to go to the theme park with the family every year

Cuisine? Indian

Pastime? Hiking

Destination? Netherlands/Home

Relax? Listening to or reading a book

Music? Pop

Gadget? My phone

Book or podcast? Sapiens