At Frends, growth doesn’t only happen through new markets or new customers. It also happens when people are trusted to shape how work gets done. When individual strengths are recognized early and given room to grow, the impact can reach far beyond a single role.

That’s exactly what happened when Jaro Lexmond joined Frends as an Integration Architect. What started as a natural continuation of his career quickly became something more: a chance to influence how architects collaborate, share knowledge and build together across the company.

Why Frends felt the right place 

Before joining Frends, Jaro had already spent years deep in the integration space. But it wasn’t just the role that drew him in. “The global underdog position felt very appealing, a relatively small, scaling tech company from the Nordics trying to compete with the big players on the area of integrations,” Jaro explains. “I really wanted to give my contribution and see how far Frends can go.”

That motivation still defines his day-to-day work. “As an integration architect at Frends I get to take part in interesting customer projects with a holistic approach,” he says. “The role is an intriguing mixture of having to understand the big picture formed by customer’s various business processes and being able to translate those business processes into integration specifications at a very detailed technical level.”

After a decade in the field, the work still delivers. “I can honestly say that after starting to work with integrations ten years ago, there hasn’t been one single boring workday.”

Building something new, together 

Alongside customer projects, Jaro was given another opportunity early on: coordinating Frends’ internal architect group. “The most exciting part of my work has been acting as the coordinator of Frends’ internal architect group,” he says. “What has felt extra special is that the management recognized my personal traits and had this role set out for me from the beginning.”

Rather than forcing a predefined structure, Jaro focused on first understanding the people. He gradually got to know the architects, their skills and their preferences, while also talking to stakeholders to clarify expectations. The goal wasn’t to overhaul everything, but to make collaboration easier, more visible and more effective.

Over time, this led to more structured internal development work and closer cooperation across the architect group and beyond. Even smaller initiatives became shared efforts, encouraging knowledge exchange without disrupting customer-focused work.

Impact without overhead

Importantly, the changes were designed to stay lightweight. “Although the ways of working of the architect group as a team have been pretty much fully redesigned, at the same time we’ve tried to keep the changes minimal on an individual level,” Jaro explains. “After all, 85–90% of architects’ time is spent serving our customers.”

Architect collaboration became a way to refresh how things are done and improve Frends as a whole, without losing focus on customer impact.

Nearly two years in, the results are visible. “People have seen the projects and the results we’ve produced, and they start to have an idea what kind of challenges they should throw to the team to solve,” Jaro says.

The feedback so far has been encouraging, and Jaro’s certain that this is only the beginning. “Still, I feel we’ve only scratched the surface and got started. There are bigger nuts to crack and greater things to achieve.”

Leading with humility and trust

For Jaro, sustainable change starts with listening. “By this age, I’ve learned that change takes time,” he reflects. “Adopting new ways of working doesn’t happen overnight.”

A key part of making progress has been staying open to feedback. “Most of my initiatives have been fine-tuned and improved by the team, some have even been discarded altogether after experimenting with and seeing that they didn’t work for us,” he says.

Creating a safe and open atmosphere is central to strengthening the team spirit. Jaro sees his role more as an enabler. “Although I intentionally come off as the face and spokesperson of the architect group, my small part is just to initiate the spark for the other team members to get fired up and deliver.”

Advice for new Frendszies

Looking back, Jaro’s message to new Frendszies is simple, yet deeply aligned with Frends’ culture. “Be your genuine self and you will eventually find your own way of being the superhero you are,” he says.

He also encourages openness. “Be open in expressing the things you would like to do and the things you can do. It might well be that the role you started in is just a stepping stone on your way to reach your full potential.”

Courage also plays a big part in developing each team member. “Be courageous when presented the chance to take on new challenges, even if you feel you don’t have 100% of the skills required. You will learn by doing and in a good organization you will be supported by others to succeed in your new role.”