Research Scientist Petri Tikka started his career at VTT as a thesis worker in the Production and Machine Systems in 2015. His scope of work has been versatile: within four years, Petri has had a chance to work with such matters as requirement-based mechanical engineering, remote-controlled fusion reactor systems, and social, mobile and industrial robotics.
"In robotics, I am kind of a jack-of–all-trades, since my degrees are relatively wide-ranging and my interests extend in various directions," Petri explains. "Pepper robot and human-robot interaction are part of our field of research. In this task, the need for programming skills becomes emphasised, which is why I have started working on my second master's degree on information technology alongside work. The studies support my work with robotics and give me stronger foundations for programming."
In Petri's opinion, VTT is a modern and absolutely amazing work community. "This is an extremely multidisciplinary workplace: I have not found a field with not a single representative in the house. We have experts in quantum physics, industrial engineers, lathe users, and people with master's degrees in arts and psychology. In projects, there are usually one or two people involved of other than Finnish origin, and the language used is English, which also makes the environment truly multicultural. Different backgrounds lead to extremely interesting points of view, and matters are not examined from the Finnish perspective only."
Petri believes that such a versatile organisation opens up various opportunities for career development. You can personally influence your own professional development and, depending on your level of ambition and interests, you can advance, for example, from research scientist to team leader or seek new research topics and perspectives according to your own interests.
"The teams have their own focus areas, but all in all VTT offers opportunities to look in many directions. The work feels like a hobby in the sense that you are working with the kind of matters you might delve into in your spare time as well. Here, career development manifests itself as increased intellectual capital," Petri sums up his view.
