This is a guest post by F-Secure trainee Mari Mäkinen.
The cyber security market is extremely fascinating, highly competitive and very fast-paced, which contributes to the fact that there’s never a dull day at work. Since I started at F-Secure two months ago, two huge outbreaks of ransomware have occurred that have shaken the connected world and ruled the news cycles. When WannaCry broke out, it was interesting to see just how fast and determined the response behind the scenes within F-Secure was. The same happened with Petya. I have a company water bottle that says “Relax. You’re in good hands.”, and already after a very short period of seeing how things work here, I can assure you that that’s true.
My name is Mari and I joined F-Secure in May as a trainee for corporate sales development here at the Helsinki headquarters. My traineeship is centered around sales analytics and reporting, and it goes well with my studies in information systems science in business school. Working for F-Secure has been really exciting so far – not only because sometimes there’s really good pizza, but also because the industry we’re in is growing all the time, there’s so much to learn, and the company culture (along with all the amazing people) is great.
My main goal for this traineeship was to learn as much as possible about business analytics and the cyber security industry, and F-Secure has been the ideal place to learn. I’ve also been given a lot of freedom and responsibility in my tasks. As someone who is really excited about data and what can be done with it (this always makes one of my coworkers look at me like I’m crazy), I’m happy to say that data-driven decision making is taken seriously at F-Secure. Whenever a question arises, the first instinct is to look at the data behind the phenomenon. I’d say the most interesting part of my traineeship has been helping with the constant strive to make the quality of our data better and design our systems so that we can get the most out of the information we have.
As if having an interesting traineeship in a company I’ve always looked up to that operates in a compelling industry wasn’t enough, the people are the coolest! In her blog post, our B2B Marketing Director Marita mentioned the fact that at F-Secure, employees are actively called “Fellows” (actually this even applies to our systems, as one of our CRM tools is named after this convention). This may seem like a trivial detail, but in fact it says a lot about the company culture. Joining the company as a trainee, the greatest indication of Fellowship has been the support from my mentors and colleagues. My coworkers are genuinely interested in giving me advice and helping me develop my skills. Whenever I ask anyone to lend a helping hand or explain something, they always find time in their busy schedules to do so. I’ve also gotten a lot of guidance and inspiration from my coworkers regarding my future career goals. As someone who’s nearing the end of their studies, I’ve found the overwhelming support from my fellow Fellows really important.
And finally, let’s face it, what could be cooler than working with people who hunt hackers?
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