“It’s important to share information with the whole team”, says Trustmary’s Lead Developer Tero.

Tero Lindeman works as a Lead Developer at Trustmary. In this episode of the People-Led Insights newsletter, he tells us about the typical day in Trustmary’s product team and shares his best practices for software development.

Who Is Tero Lindeman?

Tero Lindeman is passionate about computers and coding. On top of his work as a Lead Developer at Trustmary, he likes to have some projects to work on in his free time.

– I’ve been interested in everything you can do with computers since childhood. I started tinkering with them in the late 80s and looking back, it was a good thing. I was able to learn a lot of things young, Tero reminisces.

Tero has over 15 years of work experience in software development, in different roles and environments. His last job was as a consultant, but he started to long for a position where he could get hands-on tasks again.

– One of my colleagues at the time had interviewed with Trustmary for a Software Developer position, and they told me about the company and the product. I wanted to apply as well. I had thought about changing jobs and this sounded like a good opportunity.

Tero started as a Senior Full-Stack Developer and started working on the software. Last August he was promoted to Lead Developer, as the team experienced changes.

– The new role didn’t change my everyday work too much, but it did bring some team leader responsibilities, he says.

It’s clear that the new role suits him, as Tero was one of the few people who got special recognition as the employee of the year.?

– It feels nice to get such recognition, but I don’t consider my personal input to stand out too much. It’s always a team effort when things go well, and I would rather share the recognition with the whole team, he says humbly.

What happens in the product team daily?

Tero’s typical work day starts with coffee and checking out what has happened during the night.

– The software is always being used, as we have customers all around the world. I spend the first moments in the morning to see if anything curious has happened, like bugs or incidents. I also check my email and Slack messages. Then I continue with the task I’m currently working on. I write code, usually for a feature on the software, he says.

The workday also ends with coffee. Tero says that even though workdays usually have the same structure, they are still versatile.

– I work quite independently on tasks but I also try to communicate and exchange thoughts with my team. It makes the work more effective and nicer, too. It’s important to keep up with the team, as most of us work remotely.

Tero highlights a couple of projects that he has enjoyed lately.

– We have been updating the front end of the software using an external UI library. It’s made developing very nice and smooth, as we can fully focus on developing the front end and not managing the library ourselves.?

– I’ve also been excited about leveraging the real-time data we have about our widgets. It’s interesting to think about how to manage and store a vast amount of data, Tero says.

How to make software development as smooth as possible?

One of Tero’s favorite things to talk about and improve is making his team’s job as convenient and smooth as possible.

Now he shares three tips and recommendations for fellow developers.

1. Use tools and minimize manual work.

– We try to use different tools as much as possible. We use unit testing and software testing to keep everything running smoothly. The tools will pick up any mistakes and malfunctions in the code, and we can focus on fixing them.

2. Monitor the software and predict future problems.

– The software communicates to us what is happening, so we can forecast problems that might occur in the future. For example, we can predict if the functions slow down because of a growing amount of data, or stuff like that.

– This is a very important factor you need to keep in mind. If you can’t predict issues and try to solve them before they escalate, they can get pretty bad and are difficult to fix later.

3. As a team leader, enable your team to improve their skills.

– I find it very important that as a team leader, I enable others’ work. Instead of doing all the interesting tasks myself, I share them with the team so that everyone has the chance to learn. Information should be shared with the whole team, as it develops everyone’s skills, and makes the work faster and easier in the long run, Tero explains.

Do you agree with these tips? Feel free to comment and share your additional insights!