Employee Story - Juho Montonen

Juho Montonen's path to the software industry is very traditional in many ways: he has been interested in computers since he was young.

It was no surprise that he sought to study for a Bachelor's degree in Business Information Technology in Lappeenranta. There, if not before, coding captured his interest completely.

- Coding is creative work and quite a bit of problem-solving. It's also fun to learn to understand what happens "under the hood" when an application performs various tasks.

Montonen did software testing as a subcontractor for various companies alongside his studies. He came to Develore in early 2020.

Montonen's job - like all other developers working at Develore - is to be a consulting coder working on client projects.

Montonen's tasks include, in addition to traditional coding, configuring SharePoint environments, developing data structures, and automating features to make them as clear and simple as possible for users.

Nowadays, the work is not just traditional coding. For example, Microsoft is constantly developing more low-code and no-code tools. These are changing the work more towards improving user experience.

- Consulting work is traditionally such that you learn constantly together with the client.

Develore's mission is to be a high-quality partner for the client in every respect. In practice, this means that they strive to make the code as good as possible within the given constraints.

- We hold a short daily meeting with the project team, where we go through the previous day's output and ensure everyone is up to date with the project. The code is reviewed more thoroughly before merging changes into the shared codebase. Our juniors also get to develop, and they constantly come up with good suggestions for improvements. It's important that everyone dares to express their opinion.

Clients usually want to use the newest and fanciest technologies. For a consultant, this usually means getting to learn new tools in client projects.

Develore is constantly looking for people who are eager to learn. This suits Montonen perfectly.

- I've thought about whether I would enjoy my work as much if we were just a single-product company. I certainly wouldn't be as excited about my work as I am now. Here you get responsibility, but we don't throw anyone into the deep end alone.

At Develore, you indeed get responsibility quickly if you want it yourself and are ready to learn.

After the first year, Juho Montonen got the position of the most senior member at Develore's Lappeenranta office. Now he welcomes new employees and familiarizes them with the company's ways.

- My first instruction is always to ask and question. You can call anyone and ask about anything.

Develore has consciously maintained a low hierarchy. In Montonen's opinion, this is due to the backgrounds of the founders and partners.

- I think all of them have backgrounds in large companies where work is often quite bureaucratic and hierarchical. They have managed to create a very relaxed and open culture and atmosphere for us.

A good atmosphere is, in Montonen's opinion, Develore's strongest competitive advantage. Joint lunches and after-work events are everyday occurrences, and the participation rate in workplace enjoyment days is high.

- We're not just colleagues but also friends with each other. And people enjoy being at the office even though everyone could work remotely. I guess no one would come here if the atmosphere was bad. In my opinion, this is a much more important thing for an employee than competing with salary. Of course, our salaries are at the same level as others.

Juho Montonen feels he has developed tremendously as a coder during his two years at Develore.

- My skills have grown immensely. Often a problem can be solved in many different ways, but the solution must also be considered in terms of the big picture and future development. The readability of my code has also improved. More time is always spent reading code than writing it, so it's worth investing in that.
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Montonen has also spoken about Develore as an employer in educational institutions. One of the most common questions from students has been "do you have to work alone there?"

- You don't. At the beginning, it's actually advisable to be at the office more. And we have a lot of meetings and Teams calls, so no one is left alone.

What kind of people does Develore suit, in Montonen's opinion?

- Social, independent, and eager to learn. This is project and team work, and new technologies are constantly emerging. You need to keep up with development.