It is important to us that we can offer interesting career paths to junior developers who are just starting out, and in this way, grow new talent in the field.   

Riina-Alisa, who works as an Integration Developer, originally came to Frends through an internship and a summer job.  

How did your career at Frends start?

I started my journey at Frends as a Junior Integration Developer. I was at a point in my studies where I was already longing for a job in my field alongside my studies. There was a recruitment event at the Kumpula campus called ‘Kumpula Potential’, where HiQ & Frends were also involved. I went to their stand to get to know them, and after getting a very good impression of the company, I decided to apply for a job. My application resulted in an invitation for an interview and an internship and a summer job.   

After my internship and summer job, I wanted to continue working for the company because I found integration development meaningful and also really enjoyed working with my team. I got a permanent job and the opportunity to further develop as an integration expert. 

I didn't know much about integration before I started in my position, so I have learned everything about it on the job.  

What do you do now?

I currently work in the Energy team, which, as the name suggests, implements integrations for the energy sector. My tasks include implementing various processes/interfaces in our own integration platform Frends, as well as testing and documenting.  

My role in projects is mainly in developing, but sometimes I also get to do some designing of the processes/interfaces before I actually start implementing them. 

In just over a year, I've already gotten to work with a broad range of things: simple automated file transfers; whole new interfaces; retrieving, editing and exporting data to another system; and the larger integrations described above. From time to time, I have also encountered bugs identified by customers, which I have worked through and fixed. 

Which tools do you use in your work?

The main tool I use is our proprietary, low-code integration platform, Frends. It has a graphical web interface that allows us to orchestrate different processes and plan and implement how data moves from one place to another. Frends is based on C#, so programming thinking underpins the work.   

Other tools I use include Visual Studio (code testing), Postman (testing HTTP calls), Jira (tickets) and Confluence (documentation). The main technologies used are C#, JSON, XML, SQL, and XSLT. 

What have you learned in your work?

A huge amount of everything! Some of the technologies I need to work with, such as C# and XSLT, were not familiar to me at all, so I learned them on the job. My knowledge related to telecommunications has deepened tremendously compared to what I knew before I started working here. Basic tools like Confluence and Jira have become very familiar, and cloud environments don't seem as mysterious anymore. 

As this is my first real job, I've naturally learned many things about work in general: customers are just ordinary people like everyone else, and there's no need to be nervous about communicating with them. The world doesn't come crashing down even if you make a mistake, and it's always worth asking if you're unsure about something. 

The best thing about Frends?

The best thing is definitely how flexible the company is in terms of working hours and remote work. Because the working hours are flexible, you can run errands during your working day, which makes life much easier, as you don't have to do everything outside of work between 5 pm and 8 am. The Covid period has made it clear that not every workplace is very flexible when it comes to remote work, but this has not been a problem for us. Last autumn, I even decided to move considerably further away from Espoo, where our office is located, because I knew that it would not be a problem for me not to be in the office every day. I have been very grateful for this.  

We also have a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere! I was naturally very nervous on my first day, but practically as soon as I got into the office, the tension disappeared because I could sense that there was a good team here – no judgement and a good atmosphere to work in. That feeling has remained to this day.  

Riina-Alisa's tips for combining work and studies