Linus Willner. Software developer. Started as a trainee in 2021.
In 2016, I was a high schooler and hobbyist programmer, intent on becoming a language teacher. Then, one faithful day, we were introduced to the Abitti exam system at school. I had been teetering between two career choices, either teaching or technology and had essentially made up my mind already to pursue teaching out of a desire for job security.
But then, I was decisively turned around by the sheer coolness of a custom operating system booted from a simple USB drive, one that was open source no less, so I could have a look at how it worked.
“Languages are cool and all,” I remember thinking, “But computers are also super interesting. And they have languages, too. Maybe this could be the best of both worlds?”
A few years later, in 2018, I stumbled across Reaktor’s summer job advertisement by complete accident. The name “Reaktor” vaguely rang familiar from that past Abitti encounter. And since the post listed no firm minimum qualifications or degrees, I decided to give it a shot despite not even being out of high school yet.
I got into a first interview and turned up with a spring in my step. When you’re just starting out, you tend to slightly overestimate how much you truly know, and meeting my interviewer made the penny drop on that fact quite hard. After the first 15 minutes, I thought that I could not possibly tell this walking, talking encyclopedia anything he didn’t already know. But no, he remained firmly curious about my experiences and kept asking about the things I had been programming in my spare time, wanting me to pithily explain their technical merits (that I thought were quite underwhelming, really).
The whole thing felt more like a meeting of minds over coffee than a job interview.
An hour flew by on wings. In the end, I didn’t make the cut because I was simply a year or two too early, My interviewer gave me a nod to keep Reaktor in mind for the future. “Challenge accepted”, I thought.
Cue Eye of the Tiger and a 1980s training montage:
Studies, some hands-on work experience, sharpening my skills for a retry. Come 2020, I applied again and got an invite to a first interview once more, this time a lot more confident in my abilities.
However, as fate would have it, my interview was to coincide with the day COVID-19 hit Finland, and everything was in turmoil. In a bit of a faux pas, I almost pumped hand sanitizer into my coffee by accident before the interview. By the time I made it to the second interview, COVID had the world firmly in its grasp, and everyone was stuck at home.
My future colleague had the unenviable task of telling me over a video call that Reaktor couldn’t hire any more trainees at that point. But once again, despite everything, I was asked to give it another year and then charge once more into the breach.
If I had gotten this far on the second try, then surely the third try was going to be it, I thought.
So I went back to school, sharpened my skills even further, and even did a short summer project for my dad’s printing company.
In 2021, I applied for the third time.
First interview. Then, the second.
I smashed it and got hired. And here I am, still on that path to this day.
One of the best parts about working at Reaktor as a trainee is that you’re not really treated much differently from any other developer in a team.
At Reaktor, trainees are not sandboxed amongst themselves into projects specifically made up for them; they join real development teams working on real customer projects, and I think that’s unquestionably the best way to get acquainted with what it’s actually like to work in this field day-to-day.
What’s more, that’s not a one-way street either. The teams I was in as a trainee remarked that I brought a lot of fresh perspective and, above all, boatloads of energy into the team. Some more senior people told me that seeing my passion for this industry burning so bright as a young developer helped to renew some of their own that had perhaps started to fade a bit, given time and familiarity.
Everyone benefits – I learned from the experts, and the experts also learned from me. So perhaps I somewhat realized my teaching ambitions after all!
But my favorite thing about working here as a trainee is this: You’re a trainee, sure, but you’re allowed to shine as bright as your own light can muster.
There isn’t really a “glass ceiling” after which you have to leave things to the “grown-ups.” If you have the skills and the guts to do something, you can go ahead and take a crack at it. Should you get stuck after all, there’s always someone there to help you; the most important thing is that you’re not discouraged from reaching for the stars if you think you have what it takes.
Because how else would you learn what it’s like to be a software developer, if not through trial and error and just sheer persistence in the face of adversity – be those challenges purely technical or just getting hired in the first place.
P.S. During my time at Reaktor, guess which nationally used, crucial piece of software I’ve gotten to work on?
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