Common values
As we have talked to a number of people around the world, we have noticed there are many ways to interpret remote work. Therefore I see a need to clarify how we see remote work, how we work in this environment and how values play a key role in this.
In this post I’ll go through what it means to be a remote company, why we hire only senior developers and a little bit about our position in Finnish software consultancy scene.
Hearing our company name, Nordic nomads, one may imagine Viking-like people wandering around Scandinavia, picking berries and hunting deers.
Well, the truth is actually somewhat more boring. We are ordinary software professionals who have homes, families and cats, for example. We all value work life balance and want to work in a company where we are among like-minded people.
Are we anti-office?
We are not against offices, it’s rather a matter of being able to choose freely. I would personally prefer to work in a nice office than from home. But to me, it’s more important that I don’t have to commute to an office everyday. Living in the backwoods of the Helsinki Metropolitan area with two kids also affects my thinking. Having said that, I do work at a coworking space from time to time when I need a change to the work environment. But that’s the key, the choice is mine.
The majority of work time of a software consultant is spent on customer projects. Back in the days it meant sitting at a customer’s office. Nowadays it usually means a hybrid working model: partly remote, partly on-site, depending on the customer. If a software consultant is lucky enough to have either a customer site or own office nearby, commuting there is probably not a big deal. Either way, the consultant is actually working remotely either towards the customer or own company.
We are all about flexibility and choice
We have chosen to be fully remote in our own company. It means we are not leasing any downtown office with amenities. In addition, it also means everything we do in our own company is done in a virtual environment and is accessible by anyone in the company. It does not mean we have to work from home. We can, if we want, work from a cowork space even five days a week. Our model does not even forbid you to go to the customer site. We are not dogmatic about working from home and we do what is the best for the project or our company. However, we do not accept 100% on-site projects because it is against our values. For practical reasons we aim for fully remote projects since our developers are around the world and we can not promise on-site presence.
Our commitment to quality
Getting your first job as a software developer can be a daunting task. An old joke is that you have to be 25 years old with 15 years of experience in technology which emerged 10 years ago. When we founded Nordic nomads, we gave a lot of thought to what kind of a company we wanted to be. We decided to hire only experienced developers and have set the limit of being experienced to 5 years of work experience.
Our reasoning is that in 5 years a developer has seen enough of their work life and knows whether a remote company is a good next step in their career. Another reason is that, as we are a new and still small company, we unfortunately can not offer good enough support for junior developers. And finally, since we are a remote company, we don’t want to be perceived as a cheap offshoring company. Quality is very important to us, that is why we have set our bar a bit higher.
FOMO does not apply to us
At least in Finland the amount of software consultancy agencies has skyrocketed during the last years. Every company offers exciting projects, fancy offices and most exclusive coffee roasted from a sustainable source. We also like good coffee, but we have decided to not to have a static home base. Our strength lies in the fact that we can offer a Nordic workplace for practically every senior software professional in the world. We offer full-time employment that conforms to your local legislation (and taxes). You get a salary and accumulate vacation days even if you are not in a customer project. There is no fear of missing out on anything if you do not live in Finland. We are all equally remote and close to each other, regardless where we live.
Interested?
If you want to know more about us, please check our open positions here and let’s discuss more.