“I believe the work experience I gained over the summer will help with my studies too.”
Who? Henri – trainee who develops control systems for mobile work machines. Joined the company in summer 2020 through Bootcamp, Bitwise's summer job scheme for software students. Currently works part-time alongside his studies.
“I believe the work experience I gained over the summer will help with my studies too.”
It was autumn 2019, and I'd come back from my hometown, happy to carry on with my studies. Before courses started, I decided that next summer I'd get a job in my field in Tampere. I already had a few companies in mind that I'd decided to apply to. One of them was Bitwise – I saw its recruitment booth at Kampusareena and its ads around school almost every day.
I sent out about twenty applications and also went to chat with companies at their stands during the campus career fair. At Bitwise's stand, they took down my name and phone number, and the following week I was invited to an interview. The interview fitted in neatly between lectures at the recruitment booth. The week after that, I signed my contract in that very same booth.
Just when everything seemed to be going well, the coronavirus wave hit Finland and the news was full of lay-offs. Stories about summer jobs being cancelled in particular got my heart racing. But I got to keep my summer job, and the only special arrangement was that I started two weeks later than originally planned.
My first working day started with getting to know the company and the premises. I'd never been at a workplace whose office had its own saunas, billiard tables, jigsaw puzzles, a small library and so on, so all that made quite an impression on me. After the tour, I picked up my work computer and got to dive into my project. Getting started on a real customer project felt challenging at first, but luckily help was right there next to me.
In my project, I use tools and technologies I already knew, such as C++ and Qt. Even though I haven't had to learn any completely new technologies, I've learned a huge amount about the tools I already use and about software development in general.
The summer was really educational, and I'm going to keep working at Bitwise alongside my studies. I believe the work experience I gained over the summer will help with my studies too. Still, I intend to graduate on schedule, and work won't come before that. At Bitwise, that's perfectly possible, and I can work as much as I want.