In the summer of 2025, ATR Soft welcomed two new summer trainees: Eerik as a UX/UI designer and Leevi as a full-stack software developer.
Below are some reflections and insights shared by them.
How We Ended Up Applying to ATR Soft
Eerik: In the spring of 2025, I had already looked for a new job for a while, but without success due to the ongoing scarcity in job vacancies nationally. However, one day when I was checking my email, I noticed a teacher at my school had sent an advertisement regarding new summer jobs at a local IT company, ATR Soft. I had not previously heard of the company, but after doing some research, I noticed plenty of promising aspects in ATR, and decided to apply for the UI/UX designer trainee position.
Leevi: As a recent graduate, I had already been searching for jobs in my own field for some time and was very eager to finally start my professional career. I thought that a trainee-level position could be a good pathway to it. ATR was already familiar to me, as the company had done a company presentation at TUAS a few years back during my studies. Back then, ATR’s presentation stood out positively from all the other companies in my opinion, so the name stuck with me. When I later noticed that a summer trainee position for a software developer role was open, I quickly sent my own application.
Recruitment Process
Eerik: The recruitment process started with a recruitment task, followed by an interview. Naturally I felt a bit nervous going to the interview, but more so I was looking forwards to the chance to have a good discussion face to face with the people at ATR. What had really stood out so far in ATR was the very active and pleasant communication during recruitment, which had given me a very positive image of the company. In the interview, the same theme continued, with the occasion being very laid-back and more akin to just a casual discussion between me and the people from ATR. I especially appreciated how they had reserved a significant part of the interview to introduce the company to me. Overall, I really enjoyed the interview, and shortly after I got the email I was waiting for, confirming that I was selected for the position.
What was already made very apparent in the recruitment process was how people-oriented and empathetic the company is as a whole. The very active communication and pleasant conversation immediately gave me a warm and welcoming feeling that I had not experienced to this degree at other companies. Extra effort, like sending me a welcoming postcard when I started or remembering me with flowers when I got married later in the summer, were small things, but made a huge difference in how I perceived the company and how at home I started feeling there. In my opinion, this warmth with which employees are met is the single best aspect of ATR as an employer.
Leevi: The recruitment process in my case consisted of an interview and then a programming test which I did using C#. I felt that the interview went okay, but the test went especially well, even though I maybe panicked a bit in the beginning due to the time limit 🙂
Perhaps a week later I received the news that I had gotten the position. While signing the contracts, I also had the chance to see some of my future colleagues over a coffee break – which I thought was a nice touch in the recruitment process. The actual work did not start until a month later in May.
How the Summer Went and What We Worked on
Leevi: The summer began with company orientation, which me and Eerik both felt was implemented very thoroughly. As the summer progressed, during status meetings we were asked several times whether we had any suggestions on how to improve the onboarding process. I personally found it difficult to come up with anything, since for me the process was already very well implemented.
Next, we moved on to actual work. In my case, two larger software projects had been planned, each intended to take roughly a half of the summer.
The first assignment involved backend development for an application using Python. My Python skills were definitely a bit rusty, but I was still able to get up to speed quickly.
The project lead provided valuable feedback on my code and overall working style. For example, even though I was able to implement working features, they were not always fully in line with so-called “industry standards”, so feedback of this kind – explaining how the same could be implemented in a better way – was very useful from a learning perspective and so I was able to improve my skills.
After that, I moved on to the second project of the summer. The task was to modernize the many-years-old documentation pages for one of the company’s core products. Not so much in terms of content but just updating the overall look and feel to match ATR’s new brand. Eerik was also involved in this project, designing the user interface, UI components, and other usability-related aspects.
At first the project seemed straightforward – just update the frontend visual appearance and that’s it!
Rather soon, however, it became clear that the task was not so simple. The problem was that the old documentation consisted of hundreds of HTML pages that were all disconnected from one another and quite inconsistent in terms of styling standards. If you wanted to change the layout of all the pages, you had to make the same changes to every single file. This would be rather painful and unmaintainable, so a different approach was needed.
I was given the freedom to come up with a more efficient solution. After some consideration, I decided to use a Node.js-based static site generator library. It made it possible to create layout templates among many other modern development features – such as components – that all greatly reduced code duplication. From the end user’s perspective nothing really changed, but the development experience was improved massively.
After creating the base project structure, the remaining task was to migrate the old content into the new templates. Since there were hundreds of pages, doing the migration manually did not sound very fun – but nonetheless I tried for a while, quickly realizing it would take forever to complete. Once again, a different solution was needed.
The solution came from AI – perhaps one of its best use cases: migration work. I managed to create a prompt-process that did all the migration work nearly fully automatically.
A human would only need to do some copy-pasting and ensure the results were correct. Occasionally, the AI would make small mistakes, which then required some manual tweaking. In the end, this AI-assisted workflow made the migration work time estimation go from months to just a couple of weeks. A very significant time save indeed!
The result was a renewed documentation site with a modern look, but perhaps the most important change was that the pages could now actually be maintained and developed further due to the new structure.
Somewhat surprisingly, this project turned out to be an interesting and fun challenge. The result was something to be proud of. In my opinion this project also highlighted the freedom ATR offers to influence one’s own work, even in a trainee-role.
Towards the end of the summer, I worked on ATR’s internal time-tracking application. The task was to perform a major version upgrade to the project’s Java version, which also required rewriting several features and updating/replacing some libraries.
At first, the work seemed honestly quite hopeless, as I had practically no experience in Java or its ecosystem. The codebase was also quite large, which didn’t make things any easier. After a few frustrating days, I had to approach the task differently: learn the basics and tackle it piece by piece. Gradually I was able to form an understanding of the project as a whole and from there the work started progressing smoothly.
Eerik: My main project during the summer was building an internal design system for ATR. The project was massive, but I got up to speed very quickly and started working on it with another colleague. Already from the very beginning, I strongly felt like my skills were appreciated and my voice was heard, and I was given plenty of responsibility and freedom to tackle the project as I saw fit. The project itself was highly motivating, since I had the chance to make important decisions on it, and mold the design system to my liking. I worked on the project for the entire summer and even continued with it after the training period.
During the summer I was also at times given other projects that needed my input. As the only UI/UX designer, I was in the position where if a project needed design work, I was often contacted to take a look. This gave me great variability in my work, as I got to work on multiple different projects. I especially appreciated the fact that I was invited to plenty of customer projects already in the summer, since even though internal projects are often also interesting, I always feel more motivated when creating something for an actual client. Overall, the summer went by very quickly with a plethora of interesting projects and varied projects to dive into.
After the Summer
Eerik: When my training period ended, I was happy to be given the chance to continue working at ATR. The decision to continue was something I did not even need to think about, and I was excited to continue seamlessly in the autumn. I’m still yet to graduate, but combining studies with working at ATR has been very easy, and the company is exceptionally supportive with my studies.
Another great aspect of ATR is the colleagues you work and interact with. The atmosphere at the office is fantastic, and it really encouraged me to work on-site as much as possible. Lunch and coffee breaks, and the frequent company events, are great moments to catch up with other ATR Softers, and to have a small break from work. Once a coffee break starts, there is almost always a group of people at the pool table or just hanging out at the main hall enjoying each other’s company. People at ATR are very social and welcoming, and already since my first day I have been welcomed with open arms.
ATR Soft as an employer is exceptionally welcoming and supportive, and it is a company I can definitely recommend applying to. Overall, I am very happy to be working at ATR Soft, and I can really see myself continuing here far into the future.
Leevi: After the summer, I have continued at ATR as a permanent employee, now working on a new project. Overall, I can warmly recommend a summer job at ATR and also in general just working here. The people are great, the work atmosphere is relaxed, and there are many different types of projects that you can be part of!
