Introducing Lauri Suomalainen, our Cloud Architect. He’s been with Verifa for two years now, and is based in Helsinki.
How did you find your way to your current role at Verifa?#
About two years ago I was contacted by a recruiter. And in my current position at the time I felt that I had done everything I was first hired to do. In addition, I was the only person in the company doing DevOps things.
Verifa was attractive to me because of a low hierarchy, and having a chance to work in different kinds of projects together with other DevOps professionals. I felt that this was an opportunity for professional growth and for interesting work opportunities. It was also like a personal challenge, because I had had a disdain for consultancies due to previous not so good experiences. I got into talks with Jacob and we really hit it off. That kind of gave me the courage to give it a try, and I haven't regretted it at all!
How would you explain your role as Cloud Architect?#
So, most of my projects so far have revolved around migrating workloads and re-architecting them from one cloud to another. Last year it was from VMware to GCP. Now I'm working on a project moving the workforce from GCP to Azure. And yeah, working with public cloud is something I enjoy doing.
With Cloud migration, it’s a golden opportunity to improve practices and make effective changes as you go. So as well as implementation, I also bring my experience from other projects and act as an advisor for introducing new ways of working.
In addition, this past year, I have dabbled with some IoT stuff, data collection, and even giving advice on a software project, and doing some testing for that. I'm also very fond of, and see value in, changing mindsets, trying to improve workflows, even the team and company culture.
So as previously said, I was looking for variety in projects and that is certainly the case now!
What stands out to you about the culture at Verifa?#
Many companies claim to have a flat hierarchy. And what we have here at Verifa is actually a very flat hierarchy, in the sense that people can speak their minds, they can voice their concerns and opinions without fear. If they see things that could be improved, they can take the initiative, and that is celebrated and welcomed.
We have seen this past year, many good and important initiatives, such as the open salary policy and the metrics project to measure the well being of employees and the health of the company. I really enjoy that, and feel like it's the true definition of a flat hierarchy.
If you really knew me, you would know that…#
People know that I really like climbing. But I'm also very interested in the technical aspects, like the gear and not just free climbing. Like let's say, cliff rescue stuff, abseiling, rope techniques. So yeah, I’m very nerdy with my climbing!
Want to join the crew? Check out our careers page for openings.
