Offer du jour: interesting assignments
Rocket scientists have been known to delve into a wide variety of titillating tasks. But what are these assignments like in practice?
Rakettitiede allows its consultants to focus actively on software development and take part in solving unique problems in the clients’ product development teams.
Our culture dictates that each of our rocket scientists gets to choose their own placement and task. In our experience, this helps to keep the developer motivated, excited and happy – and that’s when the magic happens.
#1 Experiences of a rocket scientist: optimising a telecommunications network
The gig?
Optimising a telecommunications network
Challenges?
Configuring base station operations to adapt according to use. The optimisation model was developed by a team with expertise in telecommunications networks and machine learning. Other interesting challenges popped up as well: an insane amount of configuration data from the base stations that needed to be read daily. Reading the XML configurations quickly enough was no mean feat, and we ended up carrying out semi-manual GC management in a Python app.
Learning points?
I received varied and detailed insights into the workings of 2G, 3G ja 4G(+) networks and base stations.
Technologies
The tech stack included PostgreSQL, ElasticSearch, an ETL process implemented with Python and, as a reference, an old Java implementation that was about to be discarded.
What kind of clients does Rakettitiede have?
We do not try to guess on anyone's behalf what motivates them best. Consequently, we have a wide range of clients from various industries, ranging from startups to listed companies. To ensure things don't get messy, each consultant focuses on one client at a time. On average, people stay in the same place for a couple of years, depending on the rocket scientist's own preferences. We also do shorter assignments, but it often takes about six months to truly get into the swing of things.
#2 A Rocket Scientist's experiences: product modernisation and internationalisation
The gig?
The need was to modernise the client's product offering to make it more maintainable and functional with today's technology. I started as a UI designer, but the role quickly expanded after the first successful phases to a full stack developer alongside the client's own developers.
Challenges?
To begin with, we set out to finalise the first version of our modern product offering on a tight schedule. Once we succeeded in that, the assignment expanded to the internationalisation of the product, which brought new challenges and opportunities.
Learning points?
I learnt a huge amount. Earlier in my career, I hadn't had the chance to be involved in internationalising a product that was previously aimed at a restricted geographical area. It was almost a 'wow' experience when a completely local product was turned into a global one.
Technologies?
The technologies were based on an AWS infrastructure spanning several continents with microservices run in Kubernetes clusters. The infrastructure featured a wide range of tools, from Terraform to Helm charts and Dockerfiles. The back-end languages used were NodeJS and Python, depending on the context, with data analytics leveraging python-specific features, while ReactJS was used as the organisation-wide front-end technology.
Customer Stories
Readpeak
The Readpeak DSP purchasing system is used by thousands of marketers across the Nordic countries, which means the platform needs to be fast, motivating, intuitive to use and able to display a lot of data – even on a mobile device.
GameRefinery
Imagine a situation where your team needs to build a new, long-lasting service while taking care of the operation of the old one at full capacity. A tricky challenge that’s also bound to be stressful for the team. GameRefinery enlisted the support of Rakettitiede veterans for a painless revamp.
Suunto
Suunto and Rakettitiede have worked together for over 10 years. At the heart of their long-term collaboration is Suunto’s implicit trust in Rakettitiede’s ability to solve even the most challenging problems quickly, efficiently, and to the highest possible standard. Their no-nonsense relationship has forged a partnership that is now as durable as Suunto’s best sports watches.
#3 Experiences of a Rocket Scientist: CSP deployment
The gig?hares
Evaluation of a Content Security Policy deployment and assistance with the deployment in the contents of a media service in connection with a publishing platform overhaul.
Challenges?
Over the years, a lot of interactive content that had been implemented in various ways had been published on the website, and the client wanted these to function even after the deployment of the CSP. More recent articles often contain embedded media and content from other services. These content types and their JavaScript libraries and APNs had to be tested and inspected carefully to ensure that their functionality could be verified going forward.
Learning points?
The deployment of a rigorous CSP in an old system can be really challenging or even impossible. We did manage to pull it off, however, since the back-end system was being upgraded at the same time. This enabled us to make use of broader architectural solutions that took the CSP into consideration.
Technologies?
“Browsers offer varying amounts of support to CSPs and their different levels. In the evaluation, I used TypeScript and JavaScript executed with Node. The development team was in charge of adding dynamic rules as a part of the content creation funnel of the production system.
Customer Stories
Fondion
The ERP system provider Fondion is committed to delivering time savings and ease of use to its customers – the very benefits it also sought as Rakettitiede’s client. The collaboration was a valuable first step in finding common ways of working together.
Cactos
Energy sector pioneer Cactos brought Rakettitiede into the fast-paced daily life of a growth company to learn the demanding complexity of the electricity markets. In applying batteries to the electricity markets, even an experienced developer has to stretch their capacity to learn to the limit, when learning comes from left and right.
KONE
Implementing solutions in cities and buildings – both now and in the future – requires extensive programming, data and expertise. KONE and Rakettitiede have been collaborating since 2012 to meet these demands.
#4 Experiences of a rocket scientist: a new reporting and admin tool
The gig?
Around the turn of 2021, we created a new reporting and admin tool for compliance course records for a client. Their existing tool was being phased out and needed to be replaced. The courses and their records were accessible through the StudyTube platform interface, while the business unit hierarchy and course record metadata were managed using an admin tool. This data was used to create the actual reports in Microsoft Power BI. Two other team members were responsible for implementing the reporting component as well as the data pipeline from StudyTube to the admin tool.
Challenges?
The project had a tight schedule, since the new tool had to be ready before the closure of the old one. The budget was also on the small side, so we had to prioritise the features we needed and make cutbacks where possible. The work was made easier by having the old tool as a reference, as it helped us understand the tool’s functionality and realise what was needed.
Learning points?
This was my first ever application running on a cloud platform (AWS, Serverless Framework), so I had the work cut out for me. My colleague’s support with the platform and in understanding its architecture was invaluable. The reporting platform was used relatively infrequently, with reports generated quarterly and the admin tool used only occasionally, so opting for a fully serverless solution (Lambdas and database) was the most cost-effective solution in this case.”
Technologies?
The technology stack used included Serverless Framework + AWS (the database was Aurora Serverless and AWS Lambdas with Node.js) + React (user interface) + Microsoft Power BI (reporting).
