Hello again and welcome back! Today you will get to know UX & Service Designer Matias Näveri during our #Whoseday. Are you ready? Hopefully, because that’s where it starts!

Matias puts together the mindsets of Design, Agile, and Tech, mixed with empathy, business thinking, and a healthy drive. He serves others in the middle of development teams, customers, and end-users. Valuing those people, their knowledge, and feedback, as it’s that shared trust and collaboration that makes him stronger and ensures value to any size project.

🌏 Where do you come from?

My journey began in a small town called Orimattila. Countryside life for the majority of my existence until it was time to leave to the grand metropolis of Helsinki (Finnish scale applied). Honestly, video games and a fascination with tech stuff in my early teens (Commodore 64 being my first crush) got me into the ICT industry as a hybrid of a web designer, PC builder & cleaner, coder, and all-around chop-shop tech janitor for the first 7 years. Now, after ~15 years of working in-house R&D to consultancy, I’ve found my strength as a bit of a generalist and some form of a flexible “glue” in-between developers, customers, and users. I dedicate most of my time to becoming a reliable team player with a heavy focus on service design including user-centered, functional, accessible, and enjoyable app experiences.

🎙 Why Zure as an employer?

There were already a handful of my old colleagues at Zure. I knew that they are good peeps and professionals, so it was a no-brainer to go and see what’s up. The whole Design as a part of quality application deliverables at Zure had been recognized to be important and growing of it started earlier in the year 2020. I joined the small group in late 2020 to grow the design area with few others. The one thing which made me particularly interested, besides great humanized work cultural fit, was the simple sentence from Zure’s CEO Sakke at my first interview: “We believe that design is and will be an important part of Zure’s future and we also believe that you can tell and show us how to do it”.

Sold.

All I really need is belief, respect, and support. I’ll gladly take the challenges and responsibility.

🦸 You have started at Zure during Korona. Was it difficult to get to know your co-workers and actually start working?

I do normally prefer meeting and interacting with people in the same physical space, but I had already adapted well enough to the Covid-19 remote situation. I was able to get my hands-on work really fast. That’s a really great way to just start off by getting to know through the first team you work with. There’s a bit of chaos with some fear and uncertainty hovering anywhere you go, but I felt like I was welcomed really well and the fact that there are a lot of internal motivation building and socializing events through video chats makes it feel like I’m part of the group. It’s also handy to realize when talking to others that very often, many have been also under a year working at Zure, so we all can relate. Special shout out to Annika for helping me with noobie questions in the beginning!

🎵 Where do you get strength for your work week?

Music. A lot of music. Small walks around Tokoinranta. Good food. Supportive and straight talk with good colleagues. Deep talks with friends. Snuggling and playing with my cats. Also, the feeling of not having the pressure to overextend. I can just set my own pace for work. It’s cool to say “I got enough work and challenges, thanks”.

🛫 When the restrictions are removed what you do first?

Fly to Croatia, or fly Croatia to here. My dear wife is Croatian and we have not been able to visit or in general see her family in a long time. Distance tends to make it extra crappy. So I’m already looking forward to seeing them again and the great anticipation is going to make it awesome when it happens!

🌸 Any midsummer traditions? Flowers under a pillow?

Oh yeah, for sure! I’m cranking the ultimate summer song “Summer in the city by The Lovin’ Spoonful” in my duplex and dance the night away with a few G&Ts. No one will see it, and that’s honestly the midsummer magic of it.

New job?

Would you like to be my new colleague? We are always looking for new friends to work with us! Click and leave your application!