Sunil and his dogsSunil and his dogs

First International Employee at Helsinki Office

We had a chat with our Software Developer Sunil Shrestha who is from Nepal and has been the first international employee at Oivan Helsinki office.

How long have you been with Oivan?

I joined IWA (pre-Oivan started in 2009) in 2012 as a trainee and in 2013 started full-time as an employee. When I started at that point, there were no international team members at the Helsinki office. On my first day, it was a little bit odd because it was new for me to be in an environment that I was the only person who doesn’t speak the local language. But later on, I understood that there is no need to speak Finnish, so it was a boost for me when I heard that.

How did you discover the opportunity to work at Oivan?

The way I found out about Oivan was when I met one of the Co-founders Jussi Virtanen and we agreed that I could do my training at Oivan.

How has your career progressed since you started working at Oivan?

I consider it as a technological journey because most of the technology I have learned during my career has been at this current company. Before I joined Oivan, I was a student. So, from there, I have progressed to be a Senior Developer and right now I am taking the role of Team Lead. So yeah, I have got the chance to learn a lot of technologies and had the opportunity to be involved in a variety of projects and technologies.

Sunil international employee helsinki

How is the work culture at Oivan?

One thing that I like very much about Oivan is that employees have a chance to influence the organizational goals of the company. Every employee matters to the company.

I have felt throughout the time that all cultures are welcome. I had seen many times that we are prioritizing English as our main language. For example, I have noticed that whenever we have a team of Finnish people with a non-local person among them and someone starts speaking Finnish, the conversation is soon switched back to English so that everyone can understand.

“I see that the company is focusing on the international team and it motivates all the team members to be involved in all matters.”

What do you usually do in your free time?

In my free time, I like to go for walks with my dog. I also like watching movies, TV series and hanging out with my friends and family.

What advice would you give to others interested in joining Oivan?

One big reason why new employees would want to join Oivan is that there is a big chance to grow. “Grow with Oivan” program in the company provides great opportunity with career growth for its employees. We have chance to attend various training as well as learn new technologies via online courses such as Coursera, Udemy etc.

At Oivan  we work with wide range of technologies and constantly adopting new technologies such as Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence etc. So, there is a chance to learn and work with latest technologies. Also, Oivan is a multicultural company so the atmosphere is pretty nice to be in.

Interested in joining Oivan? Check out our open positions.

Follow Oivan on LinkedIn.