Niko Heikkilä

October 6, 2023

Feedback Friday

Every year, Futurice hosts a ceremony called FutuAwards with several excellent awards:

People Person Award for recognising the efforts made to make a co-worker feel cared for, welcomed and accepted at work.
Tunkki Award, aka Keep the Jack, for a team that has gone through some dark times but lived to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Modern Alchemy Award for people who have seen some serious shit, things you wouldn't believe.

I'm grateful to have been one of the Modern Alchemy Award nominees in 2023. While the victory itself went to another co-worker, it never stops being heartwarming to hear feedback from my past projects and how I succeeded in the goals I set out to make.

Here's the whole nomination text.

***

During 1.5 years working in a project at client (name removed), Niko has done such an incredible job that I don't think the project will be nearly as solid as it is now. As the most senior member of the team, he managed to build great quality software applications that are testable, maintainable, with sound architecture standing on a solid framework shared between the applications; while at the same time having to navigate the client's waterfall-like backlog and ways of working. His greatest contribution however, is coaching the team with the techniques that enabled us to achieve so much with a only 4 (most of the time 3) member team.

Niko brought in pair/mob programming as a way to vastly increase collaboration, trust, and knowledge sharing, while shortening feedback loops and eliminating tedious code reviews and branching issues altogether. Niko has played a crucial role in changing the way the client does software deepening and widening their understanding of how to properly be agile.

He fearlessly brought up problems with the clients, and spearheaded the effort to bring in Futurice's expertise to help improve the project. Not only did this change our ways of working significantly for the better, but also helped build a more solid, trusting relationship with the client. 

Niko is always happy to provide guidance, coaching and feedback, he's more than ready to be there with you and help you write code, down to the most trivial line. Without Niko, we would have never been able to do this, and that is something both the team and the client agree on.

***

Remember to give feedback — both kind and constructive. Have a great weekend!

P.S. If you're interested, I've been collecting recognitions from people to my blog as well.

About Niko Heikkilä

Hey there! I'm a Software Craftsman and Extreme Programmer. Currently, I do DevOps at Polar Squad. I build proprietary software for a living and loving it as much as free and open-source software. Follow this blog for insights on tech, culture, politics and all the small things.

For shorter ruminations, follow me on Mastodon and Bluesky.