I’ve been in the IT field for 16+ years, 5 of which I’ve worked at Solita and two of them in Solita Germany.
Finnish roots
For most of my life, I’ve lived in Oulu, Finland, but we moved to Berlin a couple of years ago with my family. Berlin was a familiar city to us, and we have family ties here. My older kid already speaks German better than my wife or me. It’s impressive to listen to. In my free time, I like to go to the gym, play guitar, and go to metal concerts.
Berlin is huge compared to Oulu, with 4 million people. It’s almost as many people as Finland has in total. Compared to Oulu, there are always so many things to do. Berlin also has small and nice neighbourhoods, and for some reason, it doesn’t feel huge. We live in a family-friendly district with services nearby, so we don’t need to go far for anything. But if we do, the train station is also nearby.
Compared to Oulu, Berlin has a short winter and its warm rest of the year. But Oulu is calmer, safer, and cleaner. We travel to Finland quite often, three to four times a year.
Work-wise, in Germany, the workday is a bit longer, 8 hours. And our team is smaller than it was in Finland. Here we do a lot of remote work, even though our office is nice, modern, and has a great location next to Alexanderplatz. And a nice perk is that we are also allowed to have office dogs here.
Even though the team is smaller here, we have a really great group and good team spirit. We get together for after-works quite regularly. Plus, the team has helped my family with so many things and made it easier for us to adjust to life in Berlin.
From IT support to cloud engineering
I studied computer science at Oulu University of Applied Sciences (Oamk). At the end of my studies, I did an internship at a local software company. It was an IT Support role. When my internship was over, I ended up working there for 8 years.
I’ve also worked for other companies before I applied to Solita in 2020. At that time, I didn’t get the job because there wasn’t a team in Oulu for me to join. But luckily, I got a phone call later and was offered this position.
Also, a funny fact, I didn’t graduate until 2024 because I started working right after my internship and didn’t get around to finishing my thesis during that time.
I currently work on three different projects for three different clients, two Finnish and one Finnish and German: PHM Group, Waltti Solutions and Wellbeing Services County of Central Uusimaa (Keusote).
All projects focus on cloud-related work (currently Azure and Google Cloud), governance, infrastructure, architecture planning, writing and deploying infrastructure code (nowadays a bit faster with the help of AI agents), and basically everything loosely related to those areas.
Every day is a chance to learn something new
The best about Solita are nice, like-minded people. I get inspired when I can solve new problems and tackle challenging situations, and get my hands “dirty” while writing code. I feel that I can make a real impact when our customers get what they need, and they can rely on us; I address their needs and solve their problems.
The best things about my work are:
- The freedom I have
- Skilled colleagues who are top-notch
- Opportunities to tackle challenging tasks
- Learning new things
Each project I’ve been on has allowed me to learn and grow. I’ve participated in a mentoring program, and I’ve also been able to mentor teammates and have had a chance to give back to our community.
I also like the office cultures in our different locations. I still think of the Oulu office as my “home office,” even though I no longer live there. The atmosphere in Oulu is unique, and the people there are really nice (and I do miss them sometimes). Plus, I still say “good morning” on the Oulu Slack channel every morning.
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