We’re launching our blog today by introducing you to one of our first employees, Gisela Hämäläinen. In this interview, Gisela shares details and some of her memories about working at Bofor. Stay tuned for more blog posts about our staff and what it’s like to work at Bofor. You can also expect insights into Power Platform, Dynamics 365 and Azure. Whether you’re interested in tech insights or our company culture, we’ve got something for you.
Meet Gisela, a Bofor veteran
Gisela Hämäläinen works as a full stack developer at Bofor. She started back in December 2020 when Bofor was a company of six people: four co-founders and two employees. Gisela is an accomplished IT professional with well over 20 years of diverse experience in the field. Both colleagues and clients value her as an employee – she mentors junior developers and delivers quality work on projects.
A lot has changed since Gisela’s first day at Bofor. From a six-person company located in Espoo, Bofor has expanded to a 50-person company with offices in Turku and Tampere besides Espoo. Gisela’s working tasks have changed as well. Now that there is more workforce, Gisela can focus on what she does the best, which is pro-code development.
When asked about the perks of working at Bofor, Gisela mentions being able to work remotely and having flexible hours. Gisela resides in Suomusjärvi, Salo, which is located around 80 kilometers from Espoo and roughly the same distance from Turku. Gisela mostly works from home. This ensures that outside of working hours Gisela can focus on her hobbies, which include gardening, reading, mountain biking and riding a motorcycle.
“Even though I work remotely, communication with my teammates has always worked very well. Everyone is nice to work with and it’s nice to spar ideas with them.” As a developer, Gisela appreciates being able to try out new things – working with new people and technologies. “I think I enjoy programming with C# the most, but the best thing is to have variety. No-one likes doing the same thing for two weeks in a row.”
We are catching up with Gisela at the Espoo headquarters. Gisela visits the office at least once a month to attend Bofor’s monthly meeting, which is followed by activities such as dinner or bowling. Today we are heading out for a two-hour cruise in the Helsinki archipelago.
“My favorite memory from Bofor is when we had the Bofor-version of Amazing Race, ‘Bamazing Race’ during a monthly meeting last year. We completed tasks around Espoo with a limited budget and my team won,” Gisela shares. Besides the monthly meetings, Gisela has fond memories of Bofor summer parties, which have been a company tradition ever since the beginning. “The first year it was only eight of us and we went on a trip to Porvoo. This year we are going to Estonia, which I’m looking forward to”, says Gisela, whose mother is from Estonia.
It’s time to wrap up the interview and hop onboard the cruise ship. Stay tuned for more stories about our employees, the technologies we work with, and what it’s like to be part of the Bofor team. Follow Bofor in LinkedIn to never miss an update!