“Elisa is a perfectly sized home for software developers”
Scrum Master Harri Määttä develops tools for mobile devs in Elisa’s Site Reliability Engineering team. He recommends Elisa as a workplace for software developers who want to work with cutting-edge technology and want to have multiple growth options for developing their careers.
Our software development unit is small enough for me to know all my colleagues personally and the place doesn’t smell like a musty old corporation right at the front door! On the other hand, the company is big enough to have enough funding for our development projects”, Harri explains.
For Harri, one clear advantage of working in a larger firm is Elisa’s Scrum Master community, which has the opportunity to kick the thorniest problems forward to a larger crowd of willing helpers. The software developer team also conveniently includes a lot of expertise in areas like cloud technology and databases.
Harri believes that the ability to offer competitive remuneration is also important, as the mobile development veterans at Elisa have strong memories of starting out in their careers in a turbulent time in the IT industry when work started drying up, then stopped completely.
“For me, Elisa is a stable employer, even among the constant change in the industry”, he says.
Working at Elisa, devs have the chance to choose a path in mobile development, web development, backend systems or device programming, among many other technologies. If the big picture is more appealing than the finer details, the road to becoming a software architect is also open.
A couple of years ago, Harri himself took advantage of the opportunities at Elisa to extend his role as a software developer by becoming a Scrum Master. Now he works in that role in two software development teams, one of which is for Elisa Viihde, a brand well known to many Finns.
“Working as a Scrum Master has expanded my perspective on application development. Now my work is more about working with people, such as in discussing the future of development work with both developers and business people”, Harri explains.
In his role as a Scrum Master, Harri also updates Elisa’s mobile development environment and tools. For example, he is responsible for developing source code management tools, automation and analytics tools.
“This is a place where developers can change roles if they desire. We always use the latest technologies, and the teams have some influence over what kinds of projects they undertake and the kinds of technologies we choose,” says Harri.
Harri is also known for his enthusiasm in sharing his expertise as a software dev with the community. Among other things, he helps other well-known names to arrange the React Finland event, sponsored by Elisa and other firms in the sector. The event sees over 300 React and React Native developers gather for several days to learn from the very best in the industry.
Every year, Elisa reserves a number of tickets to the event for its mobile developers so that they can soak up the latest information and inspiration and bring it to their work.
“At work, we often let each other know about interesting courses. For example, a couple of weeks ago, I broadened my knowledge with a Google Cloud course”, Harri says.
Continuous learning is Elisa’s lifeblood, so Harri and his partners help updating the technology stack to keep up with the very latest developments:
“For example, 5G networks can revolutionise mobile development whenever”, says Harri, looking to the future. “I mean, 4G networks have already led to TikTok and Instagram Stories, which nobody could ever have predicted 15 years ago.”
“We’re doing our best to transition to GitHub Actions CI/CD tools, which are going to replace our old Jenkins-based application pipeline functions. This will make it easier to transfer code and publish it to different platforms.”
“With React Native, we can rotate product development in small groups, both for mobile devices and for the web.”
“We use these languages primarily in the largest projects.”
“We’ve been quietly experimenting with a Flutter project, which has grown into a promising technology based on feedback from developers.”