I’m Anttipekka, but you can call me AP. I live in Joensuu surrounded by animals. I like cooking, walking in the woods, photography and tinkering with music.

Actually, a bit by chance, although I’ve been interested in computers and programming since the days of the Commodore 64. I was first studying psychology, but I realized that it might not be what I want to do after all. That’s why ended up tinkering more about coding and found a few projects where I got to develop my own skills and that’s where it all started.

I came across Mika Hietanen who was on a bike ride in the yard of the local small village S-Market and works at Anders. Mika was my co-worker in my previous job, and while talking, he mentioned that Anders was looking for experienced developers with a profile that resonates with me pretty well. As a result, I started chatting with Anders people, and things seemed so interesting that I ended up working here.

It’s been nice. Anders trusts that employees are motivated professionals in their field, who strive to do their best to meet the needs of their customers. That gives a lot of freedom and responsibility. The project that I have at the moment is really interesting and I get to take advantage of my own skills on a large scale.

I have already become accustomed to remoting, and I largely like to work remotely. Of course, sometimes it would be nice to see co-workers as well.

As I don’t live in Helsinki or Turku at the moment, my work will continue mostly remotely even after the pandemic. Anders has organized joint activities; various technology showcases and laidback community events such as weekly yoga, game after works, and coffee breaks. Probably the same will continue after the pandemic.

Anders also supports off-site work after the pandemic and actively continues to organize remote events. We believe that remote working will become even more popular so the organizations need to ensure that the actions for the community are supported also remotely. For remote workers, we offer office visits, so that the employee can come to the office and hang out in the city for a couple of days. It’s important to give the chance to get to know colleagues also face to face.

Anna-Greta Marttila
Talent Agent

So far I have been in one project from the beginning. The outcome of the project is a new reservation system that enables sharing of urban spaces for the applicants based on transparent criteria. The project has a small group consisting of developers and project management, with whom the work has been very smooth. I have been able to give a great impact on the technical implementation and to improve the surrounding software development processes.

Software development needs to be continuous development of both the code and you as a professional, and much of the learning takes place alongside the work. I am interested in new technologies and trends, and I keep myself up to date by reading tech-related websites. The best way for me to learn and develop myself is by working with other people, with developers from a variety of backgrounds. Team members open up new perspectives and approaches, that wouldn’t come to my mind.

Interesting things I would like to focus more on in the future are functional programming and linear optimization.

I don’t have strong preferences for the programming languages themselves. Maybe I like more statically typed languages, but that doesn’t have matter much either. More importantly, the chosen frameworks should support well the work that is being done and the developer team needs to have a common vision of the practices to be followed.

Ask lots of questions. Many times I’ve noticed when worked with novice developers that they are too shy to ask for help if they are stuck with a problem or don’t know where to start tackling it. No one sees asking questions as a bad thing, and the experienced developers (at least that I know) are willing to advise and mentor the less experienced. A good way to learn and become familiar with how more experienced developers approach problems is to do pair programming. For this reason, Anders also does a lot of pair programming.

Kysy paljon kysymyksiä. Monesti aloittelevien devaajien kanssa työskennellessä huomaa, että he ovat arkoja pyytämään apua, jos ovat jumissa jonkin ongelman kanssa tai eivät tiedä mistä aloittaa sitä purkamaan. Kukaan ei pidä kysymysten kysymistä huonona asiana, ja tuntemani kokeneet kehittäjät ovat valmiita neuvomaan ja mentoroimaan vähemmän kokeneita. Hyvä tapa oppia ja tutustua siihen miten kokeneemmat kehittäjät lähestyvät ongelmia, on tehdä pariohjelmointia. Andersilla tehdään myös paljon pariohjelmointia.

If Anttipekka’s story resonated with you and you would like to hear more about Anders, don’t hesitate to contact Anna. We are constantly looking for more top experts for our team and customer projects – tell us what kind of role you are dreaming of, and we will see what we can do to make it happen.