Crafting code to make developers’ lives easier

Senior Software Engineer Toni Kangas took a delightfully unconventional path into the world of code. While studying a completely different field, Toni stumbled into a course assistant gig for C++ programming. And just like that, a spark ignited. Coding felt natural. After a few summer programming jobs, it became clear: programming opportunities far outnumbered those in his original field of study. Sometimes, the best detours lead you to your true calling!

Why UpCloud? The freedom. The variety of projects to participate in.

Before landing at UpCloud, Toni worked on an e-commerce-like service where guidelines and directions for their work came from elsewhere. He didn’t get to actively participate in optimizing the product. That’s where UpCloud caught his eye. The chance to build tools for other developers was incredibly appealing.

It’s exciting, he explains, to see what trends are emerging when it comes to developer tools and in simplifying user journeys. At UpCloud, it’s hard to get bored! With multiple products, you can shift your focus from product to product, and there’s always something to improve. Staying current with trends and exploring new technologies also keeps the interest alive.

Deep dives and data-driven decisions: a day in the life of a developer

Lately, Toni has been immersed in working on the Open API, which involves automatic code generation for both UpCloud and its clients. His days often involve investigating new feature requests from support and sales, figuring out if and how they can be implemented.

One of the big perks?:

“There aren’t tons of meetings, so you can really focus on programming.”

Tony Kangas, Senior Software Engineer, UpCloud

Customer feedback is highly valued, and we’re always eager for more of it. While creating the open API specification has been fascinating, Toni admits there’s room for improvement, especially in modernizing documentation to better leverage internal knowledge. It’s all part of the continuous evolution in a scale-up environment!

Riding the growth wave: learning and looking into the future

Working at a cloud service provider means constantly implementing new features and bringing them to end-users. Toni notes that his learning curve has been significant since he joined UpCloud.

UpCloud is poised for significant growth in the coming years, something Toni finds incredibly exciting. We’re entering a phase of rapid scaling. This growth means more users and a wider variety of demands for how our cloud should be built. It translates into more questions for our teams, more feedback, and ultimately, better tools for the end-users. With more professionals joining the UpCloud team, the company is diving deeper into customer understanding. That is what developers particularly need. The entire organization is becoming more data-oriented. Toni wishes to move towards being majorly data-driven.  UpCloud has already become much more organized, and this development is only set to continue, he says.

The perks of being a developer at UpCloud in particular

One of the standout benefits of working at UpCloud, according to Toni, is the freedom that a smaller company can offer. There’s no rigid model for how work should be done; teams have the autonomy to decide their own processes. Here, you genuinely get to influence what and how things are done.

For a developer, there’s an added bonus: the tools that we build are often publicly visible. This means accomplishments are more apparent than at many other companies, and it even provides a direct feedback channel from end-users. It’s a place where your code doesn’t just run; it creates an impact you can see!