For most software companies, documentation is treated as an afterthought, as something written after the real work is done. At Frends, good documentation is part of the product experience itself. It shapes how quickly users learn, how confidently partners build, and how efficiently teams solve problems.

That’s exactly where Mikko Sairo comes in.

After joining Frends as an Integration Developer, Mikko gradually found himself drawn toward a different kind of challenge: making complex things easier to understand. Today, as Frends’ “Knowledge Master” within the Product Management team, he sits at the intersection of product, learning, troubleshooting, and user experience. His job is to help customers and partners get more value from the platform every day.

A role that grew naturally

Mikko spent his first years at Frends building integrations and working directly with customer solutions. It was technical, hands-on work, and he genuinely enjoyed it.

“Working as an Integration developer, I liked the hands-on feeling of the work, creating solutions and value for the customers,” he says. “It was creative work and with different projects it never felt always the same.”

But over time, he started noticing something else: he cared deeply about the quality of the documentation surrounding the product. “I realized I don’t actually mind the documentational work. I wanted the docs to look good and have everything aligned properly,” Mikko explains. “I was also writing my thesis at the time, and I realized that I like writing, too.”

At the same time, Frends itself was evolving. As the platform expanded, the need for clearer documentation, onboarding resources and learning content became increasingly important — not only for customers, but also for partners, developers and internal teams.

When a new role focused on technical documentation and knowledge management opened up, the fit was immediate. “The role felt like a natural next step for me in my career,” Mikko says. “I felt like the role was made exactly for me and my background and career interests.”

More than documentation

Despite the title, Mikko’s work is far from traditional technical writing.

“Most of my time is spent working on Docs content,” he says. “But often messages or questions about the documentation send me deep into the Frends platform to investigate how things actually work, and create test processes and setups to confirm and give an answer to the questions.”

That investigative aspect has become one of the most important parts of the role. “It kind of becomes less a writing role and more about troubleshooting and testing different solutions in Frends,” Mikko explains. “Making the Knowledge Master role a very technical and hands-on one.”

That technical depth is visible across a wide range of projects. Beyond docs.frends.com, Mikko has worked on the Frends Learning portal, onboarding tutorials, the Frends-to-Frends community platform, and internal testing initiatives.

One recent project had a particularly important impact. “The latest solution was to bring Task documentation over from Task Portal into Docs,” he says. “It had been asked for time, and again, and now we have it.”

Why good documentation matters

For Mikko, documentation is not separate from the product. It’s all part of how users experience Frends.

“Documentation is what is seen about the product from outside,” he says. “And if it’s not up to shape, the product won’t look good either.”

That perspective comes directly from his own years as a developer. “As a developer, I often ended up looking for the same docs and realizing soon that something was outdated or missing,” Mikko explains. “With the new documentation, the type of questions asked has moved toward the edge cases.”  

That shift matters more than it might sound. Instead of spending time solving basic blockers, customers and internal teams can focus on improving integrations, exploring more advanced use cases, and adopting new features faster.

“We are able to move forward more efficiently now,” Mikko says. “In short, we can focus on what brings value to everyone, rather than just figuring out how to clear the blockers.”

Building for the future and for AI

As Frends continues to evolve, so does the role of knowledge and learning content. Mikko sees the future moving beyond static text toward more interactive and multimedia-driven experiences.

“We want to expand and mix these together and provide both more visual content in form of videos and demos, as well as more interactive guidance to using specific features in Frends,” he says. “This way we can cater to different types of learners and content consumers and make Frends easier to learn and use than ever before.”

He’s also closely watching how AI is changing the way people interact with documentation.

“We want to distribute our content as openly and freely as possible,” Mikko says. “But to create good content to be used by AI, it can’t be created through AI — that’s not a good idea. All the new data has to be created by someone first, and that is me for Frends Docs.”

A different kind of career growth

Mikko’s story reflects something broader about growth at Frends: careers don’t always follow predefined paths.

“The absolute best way to learn more about what you like and don’t like, and what you are good at, is to work on different customer projects and in different roles,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be an architect or team lead role after being a developer.”

That flexibility is part of what keeps him motivated. “Being able to work full time remotely from another city is a great benefit at Frends,” Mikko says. “It allows me to fit my work and personal life together really well, giving me the freedom to pursue my goals outside the career.”

And while his role may have shifted from building integrations to enabling others to build them better, the core motivation remains the same: helping people succeed with Frends.

“The goal is to both promote Frends, but also to make it as easy to use as possible.”