Ossi Lerto describes his path to the world of software development as quite traditional. He started to code in the 90’s, after which his career has taken him to team leading roles and little by little towards managing large-scale projects. At the moment Ossi is working as a part of the Customer Sales Engineer team at Unikie, where his role is to support Unikie’s project deliveries and sales, and work in the interface of business and technology. Ossi is doing delivery projects for Unikie’s clients and he’s also developing Unikie’s internal digital abilities.
Ossi’s expertise combines business-oriented thinking and technical expertise. The grounds for his architectural expertise were built during the time Ossi was working as a freelancer around the 2010s, when he had the chance to build information management capabilities in a global environment.
“There I understood how data is built within an organization and learned the foundations for business-oriented technology management. I learned also how the data is utilized to support decision making and process control, and through that my interest towards business grew.” Ossi describes.
He is interested in how people, data and technology can be combined into value adding activities and how it can be used to create a solution or product that serves a real need.
Exceptional skills and exceptional solutions
Ossi found his way to Unkie through old colleagues.
“For a long time, me and my colleague were working in the same companies. Usually, one of us went in first and the other one followed at some point. I had a few former colleagues who had started working at Unikie already, and through them I ended up discussing about job opportunities and what I could bring to Unikie” Ossi says.
In Unikie, Ossi was intrigued about the exceptional ability to get close to the hardware and make applications, that utilize machine learning and artificial intelligence.
“Previously I have been in companies where we have built great concepts and digital revolutions, but the ability to build these solutions close to the hardware was missing. That is possible at Unikie, we have the ability to solve the issues all the way. That intrigued me.”
Ossi has a long background from consulting business, and before joining Unikie he had been working as a consultant for 20 years. The thought about transferring to the other side of the table had been on his mind for a while, but the interesting opportunity Unikie offered to him made him stay in the consulting business. The possibility to work in the interface of technology and business sounded interesting.
“The role supports both sides, when we understand what we are trying to sell and can communicate the value promise to the development team and communicate what it means from technical point of view”, Ossi says.
In a growing company there has been some surprising moments along the way, and Ossi’s role got new directions from supporting a new IT transformation project. He is leading a project which purpose is to ensure that the IT supports Unikie’s growth during the upcoming years.
“I have formed a few nice routines to my work, but the days include also fast-paced moments when there is a need for ad hoc support in sales or there comes some issues that needs to be solved right away. It keeps the work interesting”, Ossi says.
Unikie provides globally interesting expertise
The work at Unikie is very versatile and challenging, but still a good change for Ossi.
“Unikie is working a lot with low level technology, dealing with hardware and sensors. There is a huge field of things that you need to master from a technical point of a and have a broad understanding of the business in different industries.” Ossi says. Although he had good visibility to Unikie as a company and to Unikie’s business through his contacts, he was surprised how high-level technology Unikie is developing. “Unikie has globally interesting expertise in multiple areas of technology”, he says.
According to Ossi, you can sense an electrical atmosphere at Unikie and there is this feeling that now we are doing right things at the right time, and people are positively tuned towards their work.
“You can feel that there is a sense of strong enthusiasm and strong growing business with its own natural strengths. We really are moving forward to do things and solve challenges. It has been a pleasure to follow”, Ossi says.