Get to know Lassi – our multi-talent Lead Software Developer, who takes care of the development of continuous integration and automated testing, while supporting the work of others. With him you can easily get immersed in conversation about anything related to the essence of the universe, or have a friend with whom you can do sports and are guaranteed to have fun with!
Who are you?
My name is Lassi and I am a Lead Software Developer at Visy. I started working at Visy in early 2018, and I’ve been working in the software industry for about 9 years now.
Your background? Studies, work experience?
I studied at Tampere University of Technology where I graduated as a M.Sc. (Tech). Before Visy I worked as a software developer in another bigger software consultancy company.
When did you learn that you wanted a career in software development? What factors do you think have influenced your choice?
It happened when I was trying to find my first summer job from the field I was studying back then – mechanical engineering. I sent applications to maybe around 20 different companies and none of them even agreed to have an interview. One or two of them at least replied to my messages.
Then I realised that maybe I could look for a job in the software industry. After all, I had done programming as a hobby for many years at that time and studied it as my minor subject. After sending the first application, I already got into a job interview and the next application landed me a job. Since then, software development has been putting the food on my table.
When did you join Visy? What were your work tasks in the beginning?
I joined Visy in 2018. Back then I worked as a software developer and also joined some of the system commissioning trips all over the world. It was always great to see your self-developed software deployed and being successfully used by happy customers. Joining those trips taught me a lot about the various environments in which both our software and hardware need to perform flawlessly and what sort of obstacles could be encountered by our project and support staff, and how I could mitigate or even remove some of those obstacles as a software developer.
“It was always great to see your self-developed software deployed and being successfully used by happy customers.”
What are you doing today at Visy? How have your work tasks changed over time?
Currently I work as a lead software developer. So nowadays I’m focusing more on streamlining the work of other software developers and communicating with clients, while also doing some of the actual coding myself too. Every now and then, I am still traveling to customer sites to provide technical support in commissioning our systems.
Why do you like Visy as a workplace?
The work tasks assigned to me have been very diverse: Besides my various everyday software development tasks, implementing CI and administering our GitLab instance, I have also had the privilege of traveling around the world on customer sites and helping with various tasks improving our internal processes and communication. Also, comparing to a bigger company with more employees, I have always felt more important than just a small cog in a big machine. I feel that my expertise is valued and that I can make a difference in the company.
“Comparing to a bigger company with more employees, I have always felt more important than just a small cog in a big machine. I feel that my expertise is valued and that I can make a difference in the company.”
What do you like to do in your free time? What interests you have? Do you have a strong passion towards something outside of work?
I like doing all sorts of sports in my free time, mainly badminton and padel. I also really like photography; I’ve been doing it for about 15 years now. Every now and then when I still have the time, I also like to play some video games.
I’m really interested in science and technology in general outside of work, too. Also, discussing anything related to psychology, philosophy, and other things related to human nature and the essence of the universe will get me easily excited. After all, I’ve been called a latent humanist.
