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Meet our summer trainee Waltteri!

Today it is the time to introduce our OTA team trainee Waltteri! He has worked for Verkotan for the summer 2021. Continue reading to find out what was the most surprising thing at Verkotan in his opinion!

By Lotta | on 14.10.2021 at 09:04 GMT+0200. | Modified 18.01.2022 at 10:59 GMT+0200.

Meet our summer trainee Waltteri!

Who are you and where do you come from? 

I am Waltteri, and I am an OTA test engineer trainee at Verkotan. I am currently studying electronics and information technology at the University of Oulu. I have studied there for two years and will continue to my third year on autumn 2021.

What made you decide to apply for Verkotan? 

University of Oulu organizes an event called Pesti Career Day every year. Pesti career day is a day, where different companies present themselves and some of the companies are looking for summer trainees. This year Verkotan was there presenting their company. I asked couple of questions from them and decided to apply for the job. Verkotan’s presentation left me with an impression that in here you can do actual testing, not just programming, which sounded great to me.

Describe your role and your everyday tasks and responsibilities? 

My tasks include test automation, running tests and debugging, reading specs and doing programming based on them. I also do basic OTA tests on base stations. A small part of my work also contains R&D.

What do you enjoy the most about your job and Verkotan? 

I like the programming and test automation programming. One of my favourite things is building test measurement systems. When building a test measurement system, variety of things must be thought. For example, how a chamber should be prepared for the test, how the measuring is implemented programmatically and physically, and what antennas should be placed and where. It depends always on the test case. It is nice that here you get hands-on experience!

Best experience at Verkotan so far? 

The best thing at Verkotan is the ability to work as a group. I like that we can brainstorm here together. And the fact that I do not have a lot of experience from the work in this field, can be considered as an advantage. I can bring fresh attitudes and perspectives to this workplace and at the same time learn from the experienced professionals.

What was surprising?

I was surprised how much programming is done in here. Also, the amount of automatization surprised me. For example, we will not do individual test cases manually, instead we try to make the test system software to be as self-guiding as possible. Then the system will do the testing. Also, the flexibility was surprising! I did not expect that I would get a chance to do so much so independently. I have done some test system software and edited the systems and test programs. Even though Verkotan is not a huge company, they are extremely adaptive. Everything new is implemented smoothly and quickly; for example, the new 5G testing robot! It came in the beginning of the year and has been taken to full use very quickly! The company is developing all the time.

What was your biggest professional challenge?

I think most challenging was to learn how to make full use of Python. And in the beginning, it was challenging for me to ask help from others because I am more of an introvert by my nature. But here everyone is always ready to help!

What did you learn as a trainee at Verkotan?

I have learned a lot about information technology that I probably would not have learned at school. I have also learned a lot about the programming languages used in this field. When I came here, I had only the basic programming skills, but they were enough to get started. The skills will improve. I have learned a lot about the programming language Python, because that is the one I have used the most. But other programming languages have become familiar to me too.

What is next, future aspirations? 

I would like to work alongside my studies. Next big steps are probably writing my bachelor’s thesis and after that the master’s thesis.

What would you say to future trainees? 

Come here with an open mind, even though you would not have any former experience from the field. First week can feel quite overwhelming because everything is new and everyone else are professionals. But it will get easier after the first week. It is important that you stay sharp and try to understand. I would recommend applying here even though you would not be sure if you meet all the requirements!


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