Meet Etteplan’s design team Finland - A tight-knit community of self-guided professionals who support each other

“Even though we are assigned on multiple different projects as individuals or smaller teams, the Design Team provides a low-threshold support network for both professional and non-work-related issues,” says Janne Suontaus, Senior Visual Designer. “We strive for constant development of our skills but also of our ways of working. For us, it is crucial to have the time needed for helping each other, but also other teams and individuals among Etteplan.”

Hanna Remula, Head of Design, Cloud and Applications, agrees, “We have our cozy team room, so even if we’re working on different projects, it’s easy to ask for advice or feedback from the designer next to you, or via our team chat, if you’re working remotely.”

One of the best things about working at Etteplan is the diverse customer and project base

“Longer projects can take 1-2 years, but they are often accompanied by shorter pre-study projects, where we concept new solutions for clients, or internal work, so there’s some refreshing variation in our work weeks,” Ella Kaugin, UX Designer, explains.

“As designers, we can also take on varying supporting roles depending on the project. We can help the project owners in prioritizing the backlog and writing JIRA tickets and we can help testers with at least visual quality assurance,” Riina Kahala, Senior Visual Designer, concludes.

The team always tries to keep in tight contact with each other despite having a busy schedule

Ville Toivonen, Senior UX Designer, and Team Manager says, “Even though our workdays can vary a lot, it's quite typical that we have 15 minutes daily meetings with project groups in the morning, design status meeting with a customer or internal design review during the day and then time to work on the current design problems. We also have our design team's coffee break
two times a week and a weekly meeting with the design team.”
 

Etteplan has size that works to its and its employees' advantage

“Our diverse clientele brings a multitude of possibilities to daily work, which freshens our day-to-day work,” continues Ville, “Projects can differ from one another greatly, which keeps spirits up but also widens our expertise in different fields. While Etteplan is a big company, we also have our quite small, cozy, and homely software community on which to depend and have fun with.”

Markus Turppa, Lead Visual Designer, agrees, “Etteplan is full of talented and passionate people that create a relaxed working environment when you know that you can find answers and help to almost any question imaginable just by sending a message or tapping a shoulder of a coworker.”

Learning and growing at Etteplan is part of the job

 “Starting as a Junior Designer, I was welcomed to a team where I was given the possibility to grow. During the first year, I learned a lot about being a designer in several projects. Coming from the world of administration, all domains were new to me, and in addition to all the design knowledge gathered, I have learned more than I could’ve thought of about our domains and the businesses of our customers,” tells Roope Hurting, UX Designer, about his career at Etteplan.

Janne says about his learning experience, “I have learned a lot about design tools and processes from my wonderful colleagues. Coming from a different domain onboarding and blending in have been smooth and I have had all the support imaginable. At the moment I am developing my professional skills even further by part-time studying and both my supervisor and company have been amazingly supportive.

Etteplan is a place where collaboration, curiosity, and continuous learning are valued

“We have an open, helpful, and caring community among the design team. When we discussed our culture together, it was said that our team is like a home away from home,” explains Ella, “Our team is very active and open to new ideas. We are constantly developing our working methods together to become even better as a team and as designers."

At Etteplan, people are down-to-earth and are caring about our culture

“We have great people in our team but also overall within the company. We have high standards for the quality of the work and the results we are delivering. This means that we need to have people who are willing to expand their knowledge all the time, which Etteplan supports,” says Ella.

Hanna also shares her thoughts on culture, "It is really important to have a culture which supports curiosity – expanding knowledge, deepening understanding and adopting new perspectives. I believe that true innovations are born by building bridges and bringing diverse minds together. We, as design thinkers, can help customers in creating value and future proof solutions also in complex and uncertain conditions."

Interesting domains and wonderful people are one of the reasons to work at Etteplan

“How did you know there were wonderful people in Etteplan before you set foot in there?”

“Ever heard of stalking? The all-favorite LinkedIn is a perfect place to get to know what kind of people work in different organizations. Etteplanians’ posts were insightful, which lead to the growing interest towards the company,” explains Roope.

Heli Sillanpää, Senior UX Designer, who just started at Etteplan also reveals her reasons for joining Etteplan, “I’m curious to learn new domains, see behind the curtains of different professions, and learn what it feels to use different services as a customer. I felt Etteplan can provide me with wide opportunities for that enabling me at the same time to improve my design skills to the next level.”

The design team feels that Etteplan as a whole is going forward

“We pay attention to megatrends and apply that knowledge to our business and competence development. We also have several internal development projects ongoing, where we aim to improve how we work and the wellbeing of our employees,” concludes Roope.

Want to be a part of our design team? Check out our open positions!