“My most interesting projects have been the ones where I've had to push myself incredibly hard.”
Who? Mikko – Design Engineer. Mikko has been with Bitwise for over seven years and has kept expanding his skills the whole time. These days he works with cloud technologies every day.
Friends brought Mikko to Bitwise over 7 years ago
When Mikko joined Bitwise, the company had its Company Granny Anitta, already a legend in the software industry, and just under thirty Bitwisers. He already knew a third of his colleagues from school and previous jobs. In fact, it was those same friends who persuaded Mikko to switch jobs and join Bitwise.
Mikko now has more than a hundred colleagues, but he still feels Bitwise has held on to the ways of a small company and growth hasn't made its processes rigid. “At Bitwise, I've almost always had motivating work, nice colleagues and fair pay. Of course, no company lets you decide entirely for yourself what you get to work on, but luckily you can always talk to your boss if you want a change”, he says.
Mikko especially praises the work community for being helpful and wanting to do things well: “What I value in my colleagues is a kind of conscientiousness, a desire to get things right the first time. For me personally, it's important to dig into things so that I know exactly what I'm doing. You can get help when you need it, because someone often knows more about the topic and is happy to share what they know.”
So at Bitwise, help is both received and given, and the principles of the company culture reach beyond the office walls. Mikko says his own values are in line with his employer's. A good example is the Maitolaituri project, carried out for Heikkilän Juustola during the COVID-19 crisis. “When Bitwise built Maitolaituri as a charity project, I felt proud of my employer. We had the chance to help a smaller company in a difficult situation, and we got on with it”, Mikko says.
An employer has to offer the right amount of challenge, but also support
In the software industry, new technologies and innovations are part of everyday life. The industry constantly needs more professionals who want to learn new things. Since its early days, Bitwise has understood how important it is to offer motivating work to seasoned pros and newcomers alike, so that skilled people want to stay. It's the employer's responsibility to make sure everyone has the chance to grow in their work and learn new things.
Mikko follows developments in the industry closely, as new technologies and projects add a bit of extra spice to everyday work: ”In recent years you've been able to see from projects that development is moving more and more towards the cloud. It's been pretty clear what's worth learning.” He describes himself as someone who likes to challenge himself: “My most interesting projects have been the ones where I've had to push myself incredibly hard.”
Mikko has worked on projects such as the eGate environmental monitoring system. His team rebuilt the real-time, visual device management system in just six months and moved the entire system to the cloud at the same time. ”The latest cloud technologies made the work especially interesting and motivating. In six months, the customer got a more scalable, faster and more user-friendly service”, Mikko says.
Even when an employee like Mikko actively seeks out more challenging projects, the employer also needs to support those transitions. In Mikko's view, the best results come from a combination of personal initiative and incentives from the employer: “As well as skilled colleagues, Bitwise offers both training and a training budget you can spend on courses and training that support your work. Of course, you also need the motivation yourself to learn new things, keep up with developments and dive into the unknown.”