Ville Aaltonen. Software developer. Started as a trainee in 2017.
Fresh out of school, diploma in hand, I stepped into my summer internship at Reaktor back in 2017.
Feeling equal parts excited and entirely out of my depth, I was thrown straight into the deep end. This wasn’t just a school project, it was real software built for a real-world purpose, with a significant impact on a large part of the Finnish population. Compared to the coding I’d done at school and in my free time, this was on an entirely different level.
Like many fresh grads in their first project, I was living my peak impostor syndrome era. I mean, here I was, surrounded by people with decades of IT experience. But from day one, my team welcomed me as an equal.
There was no “just the intern” treatment.
I was part of the crew.
Of course, my first tasks were carefully scoped for a summer trainee. Just challenging enough to grasp but with enough space to learn and ask questions. And an encouragement to ask any and every question I had.
And that’s where one of the best aspects of the team dynamic really shined:
The more experienced engineers had to explain why things were done the way they were, which not only helped me learn but also gave them a chance to reflect on their own work. It was a total win-win.
They had a deep well of knowledge, and I got to soak up as much of it as I could over those few months.
But beyond the technical learning, something else stuck with me. A certain passion for excellence.
This project mattered.
It was an important piece of software to our clients and its end-users, and while no one wanted to end up in headlines for mistakes (who would?), what really stood out was the sheer pride and craftsmanship my teammates had. You could feel it in every decision they made. They knew and were proud of the fact we were building something meaningful.
This mindset is something I still carry on in every project I work on.
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