Most of us press buttons all day without wondering what happens next. Daniel Kaluski couldn’t stop asking. That question led him to a summer traineeship at Frends, and from there to a full-time job building the integrations behind services people use every day.

Every summer, Frends takes on developer trainees to learn the field of integrations. Daniel joined in 2024 and stayed on as an Integration Developer.

The fair that changed the plan

Daniel was studying computer science at Aalto University when he came across the Frends booth at UraTiKAS, the university’s own recruitment fair. Fullstack development was already his strength, but the backend pulled him in.

“I have always been more interested in the logic behind applications. Rather than creating a button, I wanted to know what happens when the button is pressed. What is the chain of events that follow it?” Daniel explains.

The fair mattered more than he expected. It was where he first heard of Frends.

“Recruitment fairs can feel like a formality, but for me it actually worked. I walked past the Frends stand without knowing much about what integrations were. Later that spring I applied for the Frends summer trainee role and got hired. That summer job turned into a career,” he says.

Learning on real work

In May 2024, Daniel started as a Junior Integration Developer and wrote his first line of C#. Frends is a low-code platform, but C# sits underneath: the platform runs on Microsoft .NET, and every Process you build compiles into C#. He wasn’t starting from zero, since he’d worked with other languages before, but the platform was new to him.

“Even though I had no experience in C#, it did not feel foreign to me as I have had experience with other languages already. I was even allowed to do a short course that caught me up to speed with LINQ. Writing code with Frends was a completely new concept to me yet it was very intuitive. I like how you can create specifications step by step and see those steps as Frends tasks in real processes.”

One early mistake stuck with him.

“One issue I remember I had with were types in Frends. One of the most common errors I had was an issue with dynamic typing. Working with JavaScript, I rarely had to worry about these things. After that, I have not forgotten to insert a type catching issues at compile time.”

Support came from day one. Daniel had a mentor, time to settle in and teammates to turn to.

“I had a mentor, and the onboarding went well. I was given plenty of time to get to know Frends and the tools. If I had a problem, I could always ask my teammates for help,” he says.

The traineeship went well, and Daniel was offered the opportunity to continue working after the summer as well.

Staying on as an Integration Developer

Since then, Daniel has worked on several customer projects and grown into the role he has today. His work is about how information moves between systems: creating specifications, building Processes on the Frends low-code platform, writing C# where the logic calls for it and troubleshooting when something doesn’t move the way it should. It’s a mix of planning, development, review and the occasional bug ticket, done close with his team and, increasingly, directly with customers.

He has, for example, contributed to the integration work behind Savings Banks Group, one of Frends’ financial services accounts. It’s the kind of work that sits behind everyday banking.

“Savings Banks Group was the main project I worked on after the summer of 2024 up until the start of fall 2026. There was no shortage of work on that project. I got to know the ins and outs of using the OData API and the different requirements of fetching data from different systems.”

Making room for a degree

Throughout his time at Frends, Daniel kept studying while working, and Frends adjusted as needed: full time when that made sense, part time when his studies needed more room. He finished his master’s degree in 2026 without having to choose between school and job.

“The flexibility Frends offers is what really helped. Everyone is allowed to work remotely if they want to, no required office days. Even though I prefer coming to the office, I could still choose to work remotely on days when I had to do schoolwork later. In some cases, I even had to go to a lecture during the workday, which Frends had no issues with.”

The thesis stretched that flexibility further.

“Ultimately, when I started working on my thesis, I was allowed to work 2 days a week and was even allowed to choose the days I worked on. The rest of the week I was writing my thesis, even though I did my thesis directly for the university. I have heard of other companies allowing working 3 days a week saying 2 days is too little. I could not have asked for a more ideal situation allowing me to gain experience, have an income, and finish school all at the same time.”

Integrations are everywhere

We also asked Daniel why juniors should look into integrations, and what he’d tell the next trainee starting at Frends.

“Integrations are everywhere. If you think a company does not have integrations, it is very likely you are wrong. All companies use services whether it is for sending, preserving or fetching data. These are essential nowadays. For newcomers, I would say you should not be afraid of new systems. The majority of systems used by businesses are something us regular people do not use in our normal life. The advantage of working at Frends is being able to get to know all these systems that different businesses use.”

Daniel had never worked with integrations when he met Frends at a fair. Today he builds them for a living, has finished his degree along the way and still remembers the first lesson from his first summer.

Want to see what integration work looks like from the inside?

Browse open roles at careers.frends.com.