Command centre topsy-turvy
We heard retro was à la mode again, so we re-anointed our beloved old leader Juha Huttunen as the CEO. Juha hopes to see companies in the industry pay more attention to sustainable career development and people’s well-being.
The command centre onboard the Rocket has been shaking, rattling and sometimes even rolling, as we’ve been shuffling the deck and making changes in the organisation.
First off, we appointed a new CEO on 2 August 2021 as Juha Huttunen stepped into Marko Saaresto’s well-worn gravity boots.
Rest assured, he’s not just some cosmic guy from another galaxy. Juha is one of Rakettitiede’s founders, and he worked as the Rocket’s CEO in 2011–2017 before becoming its COB. After his stint on the Rocket, Juha transferred to VibeCatch, our job satisfaction gauging spin-off company, four years ago. Now he’s coming back, ready to reclaim his place in the command centre of the Rocket.
“This company has enormous potential, and reaching it requires some good, human-centred management. We’re in process of creating a skilled and ambitious core team around the CEO. As far as values and the right kind of energy go, Juha is just the person to take on the role and write the next chapter in Rakettitiede’s story,” says Marko, who’ll continue as COB of the company.
“It’s fantastic to be involved in developing a business that is arguably one of the industry’s forerunners in promoting well-being at the workplace. Investments in well-being not only prolong careers but also increase productivity. A developer who’s enthusiastic about what they do is many times more productive than a coder who’s fed-up with their work and forced to take part in projects,” Juha muses.
“I hope others will keep copying the way we do things”
According to Juha, the industry hasn’t experienced any radical changes in the past 20 or so years: “Many are still chasing the mythical unicorn, a good, cheap and immediately available software developer, and employers still don’t seem to pay enough attention to sustainable career development.”
The way Juha sees it, people do seem to know how they should act – they just don’t put their money where their mouth is. “Everybody knows that a motivated worker is far more productive than an unmotivated one. Even though the benefits of having happy employees are obvious, companies are surprisingly reluctant to promote well-being at work. Mental problems are the biggest cause for sick leave in IT but that this fact isn’t really reflected in how companies carry out their operations.”
Our plan is to keep circling our tried and tested orbit and to continue to provide high-quality software development services while promoting the well-being of our employees.
“We have interesting clients, which means we can offer our developers attractive assignments that provide opportunities for development even for our seasoned experts. On top of that we offer a good salary and the opportunity to become a shareholder. Any employee can get hold of company shares and thus have an impact on the company’s future. It’s not just the founders that own the company, many of our employees are also shareholders,” Juha says.
According to Juha, it’s consultancies that are pioneering the idea of occupational well-being in the Finnish IT scene – unlike for instance in Silicon Valley. “We don’t have any big tech companies like Google or Facebook. Maybe that’s the reason why consultancies have become the standard-bearers of work satisfaction. I hope more companies like Supercell and Wolt keep popping up in Finland since this will promote better work culture in product-oriented companies as well.”
As we try to peer into the future of IT, Juha’s crystal ball is murky. “What’s more important is that you genuinely want to do what’s right. We still aim to be one of those companies that others look up to and mimic. We are alert and ready to change. It’s essential that we avoid the pitfall of knowing what should be done but doing nothing about it. I hope others will keep copying the way we do things.”
The Rocket is approaching the 50-employee threshold. “We aim for moderate growth so that we don’t have to compromise our quality or our Rocket culture,” Juha explains.
And that’s not all folks!
Our sales team recently got a new team member to boost our growth, as Timo Jaakola started as a rocket accelerator. Timo’s job is to find the right full stack, embedded and mobile developers for our clients and to search out challenging assignments for our developers, who wish to live out their professional ambitions.
Timo’s been involved in sales and marketing for 14 years, most of it in smaller software companies. Timo had kept an eye on our Rocket for a while: “I’d been following Rakettitiede’s journey for several years. The company is highly professional and a true forerunner in its field. I’m really looking forward to working with some top experts and taking the Rocket to new heights.”
Joining Timo on his journey are the other half of the Rocket Sales Department, Marietta Johansson, whose also responsible for managing and developing sales and strategic marketing, and our Marketing Department, that is, Elina Turunen. Iida Mustonen from the sales team is now managing and developing our recruitment processes and taking care of managerial matters.
If you want to get in contact with Timo, you can look for him in the command centre as well as at the golf course, where he likes to par-tee year round. “Golf shares some of the charm of software development: it’s a challenging game that always offers something new to learn,” Timo explains.
Great to have you onboard, Timo, and it’s nice to have you back (in line), Juha!