Juha – Senior Frontend Developer at Knowit
Born to code – Juha Kemppainen grew up with computers. Knowit enabled his biggest passion: diving deep into the code.
When the year 2019 was approaching its end, a challenge was shared rapidly in Linkedin. It encouraged people to list what kind of jobs they’ve had over the past decade. For Juha Kemppainen the list was short: he just wrote “Coder in Cybercom” ten times. As a matter of fact, his roots in Cybercom run even deeper. In 2004 he started working in the computer software company NSD, which was bought by Cybercom in 2010, and now he is part of Knowit after Cybercom and Knowit merged 2022.
Love for technology has always been part of Juha’s life. He learned his first English words “run” and “load” at the age of five while playing with his family’s computer. He built his own computer before high school and was a familiar sight at computer festivals. Throughout the years one thing has stayed the same: his passion for code. “Coding is satisfying and challenging. I haven’t felt like I want to do something else.”
For the last four years, Juha’s customer has been MTV, the Finnish broadcasting media company. There he has been able to try different kinds of technologies and roles. “Working in a big company gives a lot of interesting opportunities to learn new things.”
Learning by doing
With Juha’s remarkable CV it would be easy to climb the corporate ladder. It’s just not something he wants. He calls himself an introvert who likes to focus deeply on a variety of subjects. “I don’t see myself as a boss. I like to tinker and work close to interfaces. Teaching others is nice when the group is small, but otherwise, I like to stay in my comfort zone.”
Knowit has supported the career path Juha chose in many ways. Together with his closest boss, they make sure Juha gets the education he needs. When he finds a new project he would like to participate in, he can book needed courses through Knowit. “But the best way for me to learn has always been working.”
Future on the watch
Right now Juha‘s title is Senior Frontend Developer. For him, the visible part of the code is most fascinating. It’s also something he wants to practice outside office hours. “I’ve always worked in my free time. Code is constantly on my mind and I need to have my own projects.”
During the last Christmas break, he programmed a new watch face for his Garmin sports watch. He added it to Garmin’s open platform Connect IQ, and so far the response has been great. In the future, he would like to develop more software on devices. And he has full encouragement from work because Knowit’s mission is to support competence development on employees’ own time. That’s why Knowit even pays rewards when an independent project is finished, published and approved.
The biggest obstacle is time: Juha lives outside Helsinki with his wife and three children. Knowit came to help and offered him a deal where he can work two days a week from home and cut the travel time.
“With Knowit, I have found a balance between work and free time. I’ve even had the opportunity to keep my tech stack updated. To me that’s priceless.”
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