Anna Puura. Designer. Started as a trainee in 2019.

When I applied to Reaktor for a summer job, I was shifting careers, and at the time, I had just started to study interaction design. I remember writing my application one evening on a whim and not really believing I would get in. My cover letter was three sentences long. As it turned out, this time, not overthinking it paid off!

I stepped into a workplace and a community unlike any I had seen before. My new colleagues were these brilliant, competent, and self-reliant people, with so much know-how on topics still quite foreign to me. So when, after a week’s onboarding, I was given real client work and a team to join, it felt encouraging but somewhat terrifying at the same time. I was painfully aware I didn’t have much of a clue about the work I was about to be doing.

Luckily, I got to witness that a team is a great place to learn – and Reaktorians are willing to help their teammates succeed. 

No trainee is seen as insignificant, and everyone gets to contribute. Watching and listening to my colleagues, I picked up useful, hands-on ways to do my design work. I learned a ton from designers, developers, and trainers who helped me understand the gist of good software development. But I also came to realize that it’s not just the technical and creative talent that matters. 

Sometimes our meaningful strengths lie in things that we ourselves tend to overlook – paying attention in the right places, having the courage to drive things forward, or simply being the person who cheers others up. A skill or trait you might think is irrelevant or not enough might turn out to be exactly what your team was missing.

One thing that really struck me about Reaktor’s culture is how deep it goes into these kinds of things – developing one’s soft skills, fostering collaboration, and helping each other out – underneath everything, we have a community that cares. 

After six years here, I feel this place still pushes me to grow not only as a professional but as a human being. And the learning never stops. 

If I could give one piece of advice to my younger self, it would be this: you don’t need to have the same skillset or follow the same path as someone else. 

Just use what comes naturally to you. Be yourself, put yourself out there, and dare to care. Something good will follow.