“There's room for all kinds of personalities, and everyone gets along brilliantly under the same roof.”
Who? Jyrki – Design Engineer and a soon-to-be Master of Science in Technology, majoring in embedded systems, with only his thesis left to finish. Now in his third year at Bitwise as a Software Developer working on embedded systems.
Students become part of the work community
Like many current Bitwisers, Jyrki started out at Bootcamp. Over the past few years, Bitwise's summer job scheme for software students has brought plenty of talented people into the company. Almost all Bootcampers stay on part-time alongside their studies after the summer. For an employer, that's the best possible outcome: by the time they graduate, they're already one of us. That's really the whole idea of Bootcamp – summer trainees become a close part of the work community straight away, and they work on real customer projects from day one.
When choosing where to work, Jyrki was looking not only for an interesting company but also, at the back of his mind, for a thesis topic: “Bitwise seemed like a good company with interesting embedded systems work on offer, plus a relaxed vibe and atmosphere. Embedded systems was a must because of my studies and the thesis haunting the back of my mind – and after a bit of personal procrastination, I did find a suitable topic and project for it.” Bitwise aims to find a thesis topic for every Bitwiser who needs one. You can also spend one working day a week on your thesis, fully paid. The practice benefits both the employer and the student, as topics often come up through projects.
Because Bootcampers jump straight into customer projects, their skills develop fast. At Bitwise we trust people – we trust that they either know how to do something or want to learn. Both skills and the ability to learn matter equally to the company's success. So there's no point worrying about not knowing everything. “I realised very quickly that you can't know everything, especially in the early days of a programming career, because there's always something you haven't come across before. So in practice you're learning something new all the time, which of course keeps your mind sharp,” Jyrki says.
Besides learning new things, Jyrki sums up the benefit of Bootcamp as a more complete understanding of project work: “Even though I work as a developer, I've got a better view of software development from a project management perspective too than I ever got in the classroom. It's also nice to see your own handiwork in action, for example in mobile machinery.”
A good work community has room for all kinds of personalities
After his summer job, Jyrki stayed on at Bitwise alongside his studies and is now in his third year as a Bitwiser. His work is already fairly independent, but support is there whenever he feels he needs it. “My role in my current project involves quite independent work, which suits me very well. Then again, you never have to wrestle with things alone, which is really great, because you can always ask a colleague for tips or swap views when you need to. Every project I've worked on has had really skilled people, and that's often how you pick up something new on the side,” Jyrki says.
When people in the software industry talk about what makes work meaningful, interesting projects usually take centre stage, but Jyrki also highlights the work community: “The work itself is at the core, so meaningful tasks and projects are obviously important. But a good work community is just as important. I think there are about a hundred people at Bitwise at the moment. There's room for all kinds of personalities, and everyone gets along brilliantly under the same roof.” Along with bad humour, he values both the technical and social skills of his colleagues: “Professionally, of course, strong know-how, the ability to learn, independent problem-solving and working well with people are valuable and partly essential traits. And the worse the humour, the better – that always works.”
Besides work, Jyrki's near-term plans include graduating: “I'm still officially a student because my thesis isn't finished, but combining studying and working is generally really easy and flexible. The only personal threat I can see is the constant availability of coffee, which sets the stage for some seriously excessive consumption.” As a bit of trivia: according to the statistics from the speciality coffee machine in Bitwise's café, the office gets through an average of 60,000 cups of speciality coffee a year.