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A career in the IT-field is a good choice for all

· Materiaalit · This Is Not a Webinar 2021 · Virtuaalitapahtuma

Jonna Fred-Jokela says that all knowledge outside the technology field brings extremely valuable information for software development.

Jonna Fred-Jokela can be found at Microsoft, working as a Cloud Solution Architect with Azure’s data and AI services. In her work, she helps customers to design and utilize different data and AI-solutions, figuring out together with the customers which Microsoft technologies would be the best choices for their needs.

Fred-Jokela graduated from Tampere University of Technology in 2017 as a Master of Science in Technology. She worked as an analytics consultant and an analytic engineer before starting in her current position at Microsoft in 2020. She praises Microsoft’s working culture and environment and enjoys her current job. Choosing the IT career was an analytically made decision for Fred-Jokela.

“I didn’t have friends or family members in the technology field, so I made that decision on my own by concentrating on weighing different career options and which one of them would secure me a job the best for the future. In high-school, I was interested in mathematics and natural sciences, which affected my decision making naturally”, Fred-Jokela explains.

Problem solving is what keeps her own engine running. She helps a wide variety of customers, and says she is happy to be able to see so many technological problems and their solutions from so many fields.

Any knowledge outside the IT-field is needed in technology

For anyone thinking if they should head for the IT-field, she says: “A good choice!”

“The technology field has so many other careers than just coding as a front or back-end developer. For example, data analytic is a wide and vast field. How to collect and save data, how to process and use it, how to utilize it in the best possible way, how to help customers to apply the data results to their decision making. This is huge. There are also low-code and no-code options relying on UI-based drag-and-drop type of tools, which means that logical thinking is needed but coding skills aren’t”.

She also wants to remind that people with different backgrounds bring extremely valuable information for software development.

“If we think about a health care professional, for example, someone who already understands the field and what the users of these technological services actually need is valuable. They can bring the needed information for the developers so that they can make the services to match these users’ needs.”

Reviving a TV with a straw sparked the passion for technology

Vibha Deshpande works as the Senior Customer Engineer [Azure-Infrastructure] at Microsoft Finland. She helps customers to find the best solutions for their needs with their IT-environments. She is focused on managing identity related advice, security and consultation around user passwords and usernames. Her journey from Bangalore, India, to Finland is the classic and romantic one:

“The short version of my career story is that I followed a man and came to Finland,” Deshpande laughs.

From an early age on, Deshpande was very interested in electronics.“I remember when I was very little the sound of our TV went off. I started poking the TV with a straw – you know how the old TVs had gaps and holes in them – and suddenly, the sound came. I was quite excited that I could fix something like that”, Deshpande says.

From the school to a regression

Deshpande graduated from electronic and communication studies in the middle of Indian regression. She started to work as a concierge, thinking that this really wasn’t her kind of a job. She kept studying, reading and applying for IT-jobs, ending up in a call center job. Deshpande’s friend mentioned that her brother worked in a company that was a vendor for Microsoft. He gave Deshpande lots of tips and advice which helped her to move forward to a customer service job in this vendor company. She was later hired for a position in Microsoft Finland.

Deshpande feels that technology is a luxury. If technology goes away, the world will still work. It won’t stop.

“We should be able to help people to do their work easier with the help of IT, and make their lives simpler, not more difficult”, Deshpande explains.

Technology is a great part of modern civilization

Microsoft makes digital changes real with cloud connected devices and cloud services. The company’s mission is to help people and organizations to achieve more things which are valuable for them.

Microsoft participated in This Is Not A Webinar event because they, as a company, value personal views and experiences in problem solving.  Diversity and respecting people as individuals are daily values in Microsoft’s work environment.

“By helping the women who are interested in the IT-field, we will help the community and our partners to evolve to be more versatile. Our latest campaign Surface the Women reached a million Finnish people in different channels”, Aapo Latvala, Microsoft’s customer engineer, says.

During the constant change, it is important to listen to different opinions and views, as much as possible. The well-being of employees directly affects their work performance and customer experience. Microsoft wants to keep up the good workplace wellness among their employees by supporting their individuality and creativity.

Microsoft warmly welcomes everyone in the field of technology.

“We need thinkers, operators, decision makers and people who make things happen. Everyone who is interested in this field should dip their toe into the waters of technology and develop a technological solution for their daily life problems. If this sparks joy for technology, we are warmly encouraging them to jump into the IT-field either by a re-education or a career change”, Latvala encourages.

This Is Not a Webinar

Jonna Fred-Jokela and Vibha Deshpande was in #mimmitkoodaa event on 2021 spring. They talked about How technology helps to meet the challenge of our lifetime, and the description of the presentation was as follows:

The COVID-19 has brought many changes. It has forced us all to find new ways of working, interacting and living. It has raised questions about how we function as societies, and where we are heading as a human race. We have found new strengths and have been shown our weaknesses. The challenges we face are multi-faceted, and finding a cure has been just one of the challenge. From vaccine distribution to remote work and education, Microsoft and it’s partners have joined hands to meet this challenge of the lifetime. Come to hear how technology can help to solve these massive, unending challenges that COVID-19 has created globally.