“Someone is always doing and researching something new, and the whole team learns at the same time.”
Who? Lauri – Design Engineer and fourth-year software engineering student at Tampere University of Technology. At Bitwise, he has worked on Android and cloud service development – and, in his own words, a bit of everything else along the way.
Becoming a Bitwiser through Bootcamp
Lauri joined Bitwise in February 2016 via a Bootcamp summer job period: "After my year in the army I began to apply for work, and Bitwise had stayed in my mind from the Campus arena's recruitment desk due to its name. I sent in an application, and I hadn't really had time to apply anywhere else when I received an invitation to a job interview, after which I soon had concluded an agreement too."
Bootcamp is an experiential summer job period intended for software industry students, where work can be carried out in genuine customer projects alongside experienced Bitwisers. The Bootcamp concept, which was awarded in the Responsible Summer Job campaign, is also praised by Lauri: "The work duties during Bootcamp taught me at least a lot more than my studies at TTY. Real world issues are best learnt in real projects, at the guidance of skilled colleagues."
Work that fits around studies
After the summer job period, Lauri was hired as a part-time employee for the Wisehockey team. Combining school and work is made as easy as possible at Bitwise. It's in everyone's interest that work doesn't delay graduation. "The employer's flexibility was extremely important to me. Working alongside studies requires flexibility in both directions, so that everything can be scheduled. At Bitwise, this did not cause a problem. The amount of work was adapted according to studies", Lauri says.
At Bitwise, young professionals are appreciated, and the number of experience years does not make a difference – skills are the deal-maker. Lauri is valued as a colleague who keeps the big picture in hand. "Quite often, people come to me first with anything unclear," he says. Lauri praises his own team for both their skills and their positive attitude: "There are very many different professionals in my current team, and this is truly valuable. There is always someone who has a view from a slightly different perspective, and knowledge and skills in different areas. And most importantly, of course, my colleagues have a positive attitude to the work – everyone does things with enthusiasm and gives it their all, according to their own skills."
At their best, work and studies support each other. "At this stage, while my studies are still ongoing, the main value of work is developing my skills and gaining experience. At the same time, at work you feel that you're getting real results," Lauri sums up. "And the fresh pastries Mother Sunshine serves on coffee breaks don't hurt either," he adds.
A creative, finely tuned team behind product development
Wisehockey, Bitwise's own product, is a speciality among the software company's customer projects. In Lauri's view, product development calls for discipline as well as creativity: "Usually the customer decides what time is spent on, but here the development team has to set its own priorities. Responsibilities are also quite different from customer projects – the company's own project often needs developers' personal commitment to get things done. But that commitment has come naturally, because doing our own product development and researching and building new things is just great. Someone is always doing and researching something new, and the whole team learns at the same time. During the past year, I have also learnt all sorts from architecture design to serial port standards, so the scale of technology is wide."
You can explore the results of Lauri's and the Wisehockey team's work at Wisehockey.com. In the 2018–2019 season, the real-time sports analytics system Wisehockey is already in use in four Liiga arenas.