Anne is developing the eMabler back-end for EV charging services

Anne, What do you do at eMabler? 

I work as a Senior Software Developer at eMabler. As part of the development team, I design and implement our EV charging platform systems. Common standards in eMobility business like OCPI have become familiar during my time in eMabler. I work mainly with back-end systems, including implementing database solutions and creating API integrations.

What is your background? 

After high school, I studied Computer Science at the University of Helsinki (M.Sc.). Since then, I have been working in the software development field for about 30 years mostly in the financial sector. My first job in the field started before I graduated from the university and it was in Nokia, as it has been with so many developers in Finland. At that time Nokia had its PCs and programming language and my department made software for the banking business. After Nokia, I worked for the big Finnish software company called Tietotehdas, currently known as TietoEvry and later for two banks. In all these companies I was involved in the financial business from shares and bonds to the know-your-customer process. Those years have taught me how to develop software that is secure, easy to maintain and what kind of pitfalls you should avoid. Although eMabler is my first workplace that has nothing to do with banking, I can use my previous experience when developing eMobility systems.

Anne, how did you end up working for eMabler?

I worked with Ville/CTO in a previous job some time ago and then in spring 2021, I happened to contact him in another issue and saw that he was looking for software developers. Ville asked me if I would like to apply for eMabler, and first I hesitated a bit because EV charging was not familiar to me. But then I became curious and thought why not. I have always been eager to learn new things, and this was new to me.

What is it like working at eMabler? 

This is the first time in my career when I work at a startup company. From this point of view, it has been fascinating to see the difference between a large well-established corporate and a small startup company. For example, in startups, I don’t need to participate in so many meetings to get work done and when I work in the office the CEO is often sitting next to me. Of course, the pandemic has affected our work a lot, but working from home is not so bad from a developer’s point of view.

As software development has been and still is my passion, I have enjoyed working at eMabler a lot. In addition to just writing new code, I also design technical solutions together with the development team, listen to customers’ needs and most of all learn new things.

We have a great working atmosphere at eMabler and I can count on all my colleagues to help me when I need it. If there is something unclear, and in the EV charging industry there are lots of things I need to learn, we all are encouraged to ask questions.

The industry is so fascinating and I believe electric vehicles are the future. Partly because of this we did change our family car to a plug-in hybrid and now are considering switching it to a full EV as driving with electricity is much more comfortable and economical, especially now with high petrol prices. This is also an excellent way to get end-user experience on electric vehicle charging, which is not always so easy with many different mobile apps, payment methods, faulty charging stations and unclear prices. Therefore, I see that the work I do at eMabler makes EV charging easier for the end-users and promotes sustainability.

What do you do when you are not working? 

When I am not working, I try to avoid computers. There are so many other things that I like to do, for example, my favourite hobbies have always been dancing and gymnastics. From that point of view, the pandemic has been a very hard drawback for me but now I am eagerly waiting for the Suomi Gymnaestrada 2022 festival in June. I also like gardening and walking in nature which has helped me to keep in shape during the last two years.

Another great issue of interest to me has been the question: what is the best way to use my body and mind to do things I like to do, including both software development and all the physical exercises. I had read lots of good advice but there was always the uncertainty that how would I know if I was acting according to the advice. Also, it seemed to me that nobody else did know either. Then about 20 years ago I participated Alexander Technique workshop out of curiosity. Different people benefit from Alexander Technique in different ways but to me, the most important benefit was the answer to the above question. From that point on, I started to go to Alexander lessons and finally even studied to become a qualified Alexander technique teacher. It has helped me increase my well-being and enabled me to further enjoy doing the things I love doing. And you never know, maybe I would not have started at eMabler without it.

About Anne:

Anne Pulkstén is a Senior SW Developer at eMabler. She has years of SW development experience. Anne started her career at Nokia and later worked in the financial sector.

eMabler 

Based in Helsinki, Finland. We believe that eMobility is the way forward, having worked in the industry for over a decade and we see a great boom in eMobility. We’ve also seen many platform providers develop closed ecosystems and realized that there’s a need for a more flexible solution that focuses on end-user experience.

That’s why we decided to build an open platform that lets you integrate your EV charging data into any existing systems, please contact us.