Employee Story - Antti Heikkinen

Antti Heikkinen feels that the software industry has been his destiny. The direction has been fairly clear since he was young.

- Even as a child, I thought computer stuff was really cool. The influences came from home because my father has been in the industry. I thought that's what I want to do when I grow up.

However, Heikkinen tried to fight against his destiny. He thought that the computer field was "too nerdy", so he decided to study mechanical engineering to become a Master of Science in Technology.

Coding, however, was constantly present in his hobbies. Finally, his passion led him to software jobs in 2015.

- I felt that in mechanics, you hit limits more easily, just because of physics. In the software industry, the boundaries are much broader, they're actually only inside your own head. We can achieve really meaningful things with a small team.

Heikkinen, who started at Develore's Helsinki office in November 2020, is among the company's more experienced staff. He feels that consulting, which is strongly tied to customer work, is pleasant for senior developers.

- We are all in important development roles. We're not just small cogs in a big machine.

Heikkinen considers Develore's small size and agility a great strength. When working together with customers, new things come up all the time. Then they learn and start doing.

- "In larger companies, there might be heavy processes and requirements before you can even start doing anything. Things might go through many loops and managerial levels. We don't have this because we don't have any middle levels. If I need to talk to the CEO, I just shout at the office or make a Teams call right away when working remotely," Heikkinen illustrates.

Develore's way of doing customer work is rewarding - but on the other hand, also demanding. Heikkinen admits that the approach might not suit everyone.

- If you want an easy job, you might not want to come to us. In many companies, people work on the same project for years. With us, you're forced to learn new things all the time.

However, no one is left alone in their work.

- We have experience across the board and we help each other with a low threshold. We know immediately if someone has done similar things, and it's easy to ask anyone.

Heikkinen praises Develore's atmosphere as excellent. How the good vibe show in everyday life.

- It's always difficult to put the atmosphere into words, you'll see it when you join the group. Maybe one significant thing has been that even during the corona restrictions, people wanted to come to the office to work, and it was possible in a small team.

In Heikkinen's opinion, a guarantee of a good atmosphere is also that professional matters are not compromised. Things are done to perfection and the work tools are in order.

- I have as good a laptop as I dared to ask for. Or actually, I didn't even dare, but I was told, 'take a better one now, that's not enough'. In all companies, you definitely can't choose your work tools.

Antti Heikkinen has noticed that as experience and years of work accumulate, the proportion of development in a software developer's job starts to decrease.

About half of Heikkinen's working time is spent talking and planning with customers. The other half is implementing what has been agreed with the customer. The work is never boring.

- Over the past year, I've had the opportunity to work with several completely new tools and technologies. We definitely don't have two similar weeks.

Heikkinen thinks Develore's strength is its age distribution. The youngest coders are in their twenties, the more experienced ones at least double that.

Now women are also finding their way into the field. Heikkinen is excited about the development.

- The trend in the industry is that mere coding by staring at a screen is decreasing, and creativity and working together with people is increasing. That might be the reason why the field is increasingly interesting to women as well.