The Digital Engineers of Nitor: Ville, who joined as the youngest Nitorean, now mentors his colleagues

Greetings, Ville! What does a typical week look like for you?

Hello! I am a Senior Software Architect and work with comprehensive system development from design to implementation. My client has a strong in-person work culture, so I spend most of my week at their office.

I enjoy working full-time on-site. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I realised that remote work alone does not suit me at all. We have a good representation of Nitoreans at the client site. I stay in touch with other Digital Engineers daily through Slack.

So, the best of both worlds! But tell me, what are the characteristics of a Nitorean Digital Engineer?

First of all, they are all top-notch professionals. You can always trust that everyone gets their job done. Additionally, Digital Engineers are pleasant and helpful by nature. You can always nudge a colleague for support or sparring.

A Digital Engineer needs problem-solving skills and a desire to work closely with the client to help them with their problems. Although we are talking about Digital Engineers here, our work is very human-centric. We develop software solutions for people, after all.

Nitoreans have skills that complement each other. Digital Engineers do not have to be cut from the same cloth. Instead, we can all learn from one another. 

Digital Engineers sound like a great bunch! What does learning together and professional development mean to you?

I prefer learning by doing. If you cannot apply the skills you have learned from courses in your work, the new knowledge does not stick for long. 

For example, if you learn a new language, you quickly forget it if you do not get to speak it regularly. Pragmatic learning is important to me – and aligns with Nitor's values.

Professional development is paramount, and it is good to keep up with developments to avoid getting stuck doing things the same way. You do not have to chase every technology trend, but knowing what is new in the field is good so you can form your own views.

Ville seems to always be able to give what the team needs at any given time, be it either technical expertise on complex subjects, a calming voice of reason in debates that never gets annoyed, or a link to a Lego Turing machine to lighten the mood.

- Joonas Laitio, Senior Software Developer

You participated in Nitor's mentoring programme with Kalle Ahlström as your mentee. How did it feel to support a colleague's professional growth?

This turned out to be an interesting case, as I had never done anything like it before. Initially, I felt quite uncertain about how it would turn out. However, it was great that I could relate to Kalle's situation as I was also the youngest in the company when I started at Nitor.

Seeing that I could give new knowledge to someone else was wonderful. At the same time, being a mentor validated that I had made the right choices in my career. Kalle insightfully noted that it is great to see how even experienced professionals sometimes encounter problems. I think it is important to learn early in your career that things do not always go smoothly, and issues get solved with Google, Stack Overflow, and ChatGPT. After all, this is a normal part of the job, even for experienced developers.

What an important realisation indeed. How do you think the culture of learning together is reflected at Nitor otherwise?

The essential aspects are certainly the projects done during the Core time and the sharing of lessons learned from them. We primarily share information about the company's situation in our monthly meetings. But on the same day, we organise a Lightning talks session where anyone can give a short presentation on a topic that interests or is important to them. This way, we get to learn about completely new things together.

I also recently gave a short presentation on Protocol Buffers and gRPC technologies during our training trip to Stockholm, which I have liked working with at my client. They could be suitable for others as well.

You enjoy working closely with the client. Does the culture of learning together extend to client relationships as well?

Certainly! My current project started at a very early stage, and along the way, we have thought a lot together about how things should work. The client has welcomed us as part of the team, and we work together as a team, learning from challenges and new developments.

Often, clients request Nitor consultants because they know that the entire community of Digital Engineers is behind them. The community helps, supports, and shares knowledge that benefits the client. I would say that our clients appreciate our learning culture, and it is a great advantage for Nitor. 

You recently shared your thoughts on video as well. How did it feel to step in front of the camera?

It was quite interesting, as the video shoot day was hot! The filming crew was very professional, so it was easy to believe that the end result would be good. Almost exactly ten years earlier, I had my previous company video shoot, so this was not entirely new to me. But I can now reveal that the impressive parkour stunts in the video were done by a stunt double, not me.

It was a sweaty day for everyone indeed, but we also think the result was very successful. Thank you very much for the interview, Ville!

Thanks!

In this campaign, we’ll introduce Nitoreans in different roles. Every Nitorean is a Digital Engineer: a pragmatic and solution-oriented helper who doesn’t settle for assumptions. Instead, they take one step further to seek the right questions and even better answers.