Howdy, I'm Juhani
I am a Software Developer based in Helsinki, Finland. Currently working at leading Finnish digital services and media company, Alma Media.
I have 10+ years of industry experience and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, building on a foundation that started as a hobbyist programmer.
This site is my weekend long 'forgot how it felt to only use HTML and CSS' project to create a mini-CV in cyberspace.
This PDF document is printed from my personal website.
Experience #
Tech Lead
I work strongly between business and technology. I have a clear business focus - developing business entities to which I bring a technology perspective. Making sure that the technical implementation meets the needs of the business and that the work is prioritized appropriately is one of my key responsibilities.
I have been involved in several acquisitions doing technical due diligence and long-term integration planning, with familiarity in buy vs. build decisions. I have conducted technical interviews, successfully been part of building multiple teams, and managed multiple concurrent software projects, coordinating the efforts of several teams.
As a Tech Lead, I am responsible for the overall architecture, technology solutions and working methods together with my team. I remain "hands-on", actively contributing to all parts of the software development and deployment lifecycle, programming on a daily basis. See Projects section.
My role requires a combination of excellent hands-on technical skills, understanding of the big picture, business-oriented thinking with a focus on value and strong communication.
Software Developer
Designed, developed and maintained dozens of browser-based B2B applications and infrastructure around them running on AWS and on-prem, including code reviews, documentation, mentoring team members and internal support.
The work involved client-side programming with JavaScript/TypeScript, and React, as well as server-side development using Java, Spring, TypeScript, Node.js and Python. Databases such as PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, MongoDB, DynamoDB, and others were used.
Experienced in a variety of operational tasks such as Bash scripting, Docker, CI/CD, IaC, creating test plans, monitoring and alerts, troubleshooting network problems, and utilizing HAProxy and Nginx, among other operational necessities.
Applied a wide range of AWS technologies - including CloudFormation, CloudFront, IAM, serverless solutions, ECS, EC2, ELB, RDS, VPC, and more - to design and build secure, high-availability products and supporting internal software.
Software Developer
Designed and developed new features across various types of applications.
Tech: React, JavaScript, Java, Spring, SQL.
Projects #
This section highlights a few overlapping projects from recent years, representing only a portion of my work during this time.
If it feels like too much of a wall of text, you can toggle the TL;DR switch.
Map Product
I worked as a Tech Lead on a map solution, designing architecture for vector and raster data processing. I implemented geohashing and caching strategies. I built automated ETL pipelines using Python and GeoPandas for daily data processing in AWS.
Our business's map application suffered from poor user experience, lacked scalability to integrate with other products and had outdated infrastructure that made developing new features difficult.
As Tech Lead, I designed a completely new architecture hadling both vector and raster data. I developed geohashing and caching strategies to optimize performance. I created automated ETL pipelines using Python and GeoPandas, processing geospatial data daily through AWS Batch, Elasticsearch and Lambda, with a design that made scaling to new datasets straightforward.
New solution delivered faster load times and smooth user interactions with geospatial data. Architecture enabled the development of complex features on top of the map that were previously impossible. The solution became the foundation for future products across the business.
Tech: Java, TypeScript, Node.js, Python, GeoPandas, OGC (WMS, WFS, WMTS), geospatial data, ETL, geohashing, caching, performance optimization, AWS (Lambda, ECS, Batch, OpenSearch/Elasticsearch, S3, etc)
Front-End Product
Our business acquired an external product built on Azure with C# and MSSQL that needed integration into our existing product portfolio. The product relied on manually configured infrastructure and its architecture couldn't support new business visions like easily embeddable deployments for customer websites.
As Tech Lead, I led the platform migration from Azure/C#/.NET/MSSQL to AWS/Java/Spring/PostgreSQL, while rebuilding core services like authentication and geocoding integrations. I implemented Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to replace manual configurations and handled the AWS CloudFront/ECS/ELB implementation to enable customer site embedding.
Re-built application successfully integrated into our product portfolio and AWS ecosystem. IaC enabled reproducible deployments by eliminating manual configuration steps, which together with Multi-AZ architecture improved product reliability. The redesigned architecture enabled new kind of features that were previously impossible to do.
Tech: Java, Spring Boot, PostgreSQL, IaC, Multi-AZ / HA architecture, AWS (CloudFormation, CloudFront, Route 53, ELB, RDS, etc), Azure.
API Product
I worked as a Tech Lead on a high-SLA customer-facing API product with NIS2/DORA compliance requirements. I designed a hybrid serverless/containerized architecture with JWT authentication. I created a custom testing framework with OpenAPI validation, which prevented multiple production incidents and maintained our SLA commitments.
Our business needed to launch a new customer-facing API product with high SLA requirements, along with NIS2 (2025) and DORA (2025) compliance.
As Tech Lead, I designed and implemented a half serverless and half containerized solution to support the requirements. I implemented JWT-based authentication, backend logic, integrations and monitoring/alerting integrated with external 24/7 support. I also created a custom end-to-end testing solution for serverless testing with OpenAPI schema validation to ensure API contracts stayed in sync with the implementation.
Product scaled automatically with customer demand while keeping operational costs low. Testing solution running in CI/CD proved invaluable, catching logical edge cases and API contract violations that conventional tests would miss, directly protecting our SLA commitments and trust in our product.
Tech: TypeScript, Node.js, Vite, Java, JWT, REST, OpenAPI, Docker, Bash / scripting, AWS (API Gateway, Lambda, DynamoDB, ECS/Fargate, SAM, SNS, VPC, etc)
Front-End Product
I worked as a Tech Lead transforming a legacy AngularJS/JSP monolith into a modern React and microservices architecture. The new architecture reduced complexity while maintaining shared backend components across teams.
One of our key products was built on legacy AngularJS/JSP with a stateful monolithic backend that stalled development velocity. The complex network of background services and in-house libraries as dependencies had become difficult to maintain with unclear responsibilities.
As Tech Lead, I led the transformation to a modern React and domain-driven microservices architecture. I streamlined the architecture and established clear responsibilities between services.
Successfully transformed the legacy system into a more modern platform. The streamlined service architecture reduced complexity while preserving team synergies - every team does not have to build same frontend and backend components.
Tech: React, Java, Spring Boot, MongoDB, TypeScript, Node.js, REST API, microservices, DDD / Domain-driven design, CMS, AWS.
Contact #
Feel free to contact me at [email protected].