Tommi “Joutti” Joutjärvi, who works as an application architect and developer, once left Kuusankoski to study in Lappeenranta — and never returned. This is our luck, as Tommi has been with us in Lappeenranta for more than 5 years.
Tommi says that he likes working at twoday because all the basics are in order and balancing work and other things in life is flexible. Tommi also praises the low hierarchy and the way the company trusts in its employees.
“They have given us the freedom to do things and have seen that things are going well. In my opinion, the corona pandemic has increased trust that people are experts and want to do their work well. And that is the basis for enjoying working here.”
“Our top priority is the well-being of our employees. Our goal is to grow and we can’t achieve that if the employees aren't happy. I know that the entire management team is thinking of ways to make sure that the employees would not be annoyed every Monday morning. They understand that when the employee is satisfied, the customer is satisfied. The trust they show towards us is a very good thing,” Tommi says.
Dual role makes for varying days
The dual role of developer and architect is varied and offers very different activities for working days. As a developer, you can work alone with your headphones on and keep coding until you reach such a crazy state of flow that you almost forget to pick up your child from daycare. As an architect, you get to work more with other people. You’re talking and thinking about what to say next. According to Tommi, working as an application architect requires good social skills and stress tolerance.
“You have to be able to read people, communicate and negotiate with people. You need to be able to tolerate stress, and you have to make sure that you can keep the promises you make to customers. I had some challenges when I started my career as an architect and started to burn out amidst all the demands. I had to take care of old projects while taking on new jobs. Then I realised that I don't always need to know everything, it’s ok to spend time figuring things out and to be a bit silly as a beginner,” Tommi says.
Face-to-face encounters are important
Even though Tommi enjoys working remotely, he thinks that meeting colleagues face-to-face is really important for coping and creating teams at work.
“It’s really important that you have face-to-face interactions with your colleagues. It gives you a little break so that you don’t have to be thinking about just work all the time. And you can also see that other people are struggling with the same problems as you. And a shared problem is, well, a double problem, but you can solve it together and get it fixed at once.”
“It would help people cope if we all went back to the office. I highly recommend it. Although it is challenging, as it takes time away from something else, it is a positive thing in terms of coping,” Tommi says. 
Pedaling thousands of kilometres a year
Tommi has a second profession as a photographer, specialised in wedding photos, and he praises twoday for helping him reconciliate the two jobs and for giving him leave from work when he needed to process wedding photos.
Nowadays, however, work as an application architect provides so much social interaction that even though Tommi is a people person, he no longer feels the need increase social interaction in his life by talking to hundreds of wedding guests. So, at least for the moment, his wedding photography business is on a break.
In his spare time, Tommi seems to be some kind of a perpetual motion machine. His hobbies include all sorts of sport: football, submission wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, kettlebell training, swimming and other exercise. When the corona pandemic led to closing all gyms, Tommi had to find some new way to exercise, so he moved on to cycling, a hobby he now shares with his wife.
He cycles thousands of kilometres all year round, and he also commutes by bicycle, even though he has a car. He says no one in his family uses the car unless they really have to. Tommi enjoys biking so much that he participated in the Saimaa Cycle tour to ride the modest 300-kilometre route on his road bike.