What kind of a career path leads to success?
This was the overarching question we asked Marko Rytkönen from Hidden Trail, one of the companies belonging to the Fusion Ecosystem. Hidden Trail focuses on creating a new path to smart testing and reinventing quality assurance. The Fusion team interviewed Marko on how he felt when he changed his busy and highly responsible position as a Head of Test Automation in a huge international company to being “just” an employee in a new startup-like company.
“Am I important, when I’m not a manager anymore?”
At first, Marko was thinking how the change in the position from a manager to an employee would be seen by others. Would someone think he was forced to step down from a managerial position? Do they believe that he just wanted to work in a smaller company?
Marko was used to having managerial titles for the last 15+ years, but suddenly it didn’t matter anymore. Now he didn‘t even know what his title would be at Hidden Trail. This was not a surprise since there are no specific titles or traditional hierarchy in the company. They don’t even have a CEO.
Currently he uses the titles QA coach, employee, or no title at all. Being free from titles is important, because they may restrict your thinking on what you can do or even what you should do. Having no hierarchy marking titles is a common practice in startups. People are trusted to take responsibility and do what is best for the company and clients. For Marko this meant doing lots of similar tasks that he did in his previous job, including managerial tasks such as mentoring, recruiting and sales. And no, he didn’t need a title to figure that out.
“Happiness is your ultimate compass on your career path”
“Am I important, when I’m not super busy anymore?”
Being busy is often confused with the feeling of being important. When you feel you are needed, you easily connect that with being useful or even irreplaceable. But it shouldn’t define the importance of your work or you as a person.
Marko noticed quickly that he wasn’t so busy anymore, even though there were lots of things to do. This was almost scary in the beginning. No more endless meetings nor heavy context switches between consecutive meetings. He was so used to mail and calendar-driven work that he kept checking his emails continuously to see if there would be something urgent waiting. And there wasn’t. The change took about two months. Now he loves the fact he can focus his mind on finding hidden trails to better testing together with his clients.
“Am I important, when I'm not working in a large company anymore?”
Marko has always worked in big corporations before Hidden Trail. Companies with known brands and solid places in the market. In large teams with amazing bosses and colleagues. He has been happy in every single one of them. But according to Marko, there is no upper limit for happiness. You can always be a bit happier. The scale may stretch up as you go and experience more, but it will never shrink.
It is an eye opener when you know how things must be done in big corporations and when you see how things can be done in smaller companies. It really makes a difference.
“There is no upper limit for happiness”
At the end of the day, it is not about the title, size of the company or number of emails in your inbox. It is about the values and culture people have created in the company. Marko believes that the people-first companies will gain better talents now and in the future. Companies that value people over profits and really put effort into people’s growth, well-being, and happiness will eventually win. Especially when the work is creative, such as software development and testing.
This is something Marko invests in together with all his colleagues at Hidden Trail. It helps when the company is young and there is no historical burden or bureaucracy that would restrict them. All this is fully in line with Hidden Trail’s customer promise: Rethinking quality assurance. To make it happen for the clients, this should first be done internally in the company and at the employee level. You cannot be a forerunner externally if you are not that internally.
Advice to finding happiness on your career path:
Take the leadership of your career; you are the one that has the biggest impact on it.
Don’t expect your boss to create a nice and ready-made career path for you. If they will, it probably isn’t the path you yourself would choose when looking at all the options.
Don’t build career walls that may restrict your way.
Don’t care too much what others think. It is your life, your happiness and your career, nobody else’s.
Follow your heart and what makes you happy. This will eventually show you the right path, wherever it may take you. Life is about finding your own path and making the journey joyful!
So, what is success?
Well, for Marko it’s finding happiness at work. And happiness comes with freedom and freedom comes when you start aiming at finding your happiness instead of climbing a corporate ladder. Work should be more like a climbing wall and trying new paths and learning more by each move. Go forward. Or to the left. Or wherever.
Fusion Ecosystem is all about possibilities. The ecosystem companies focus on their own paths, but the great thing is that the paths cross and complement each other. Together the companies can make a bigger impact and you can be a part of that.
If you are interested in finding out whether your next path is at Hidden Trail or in another future-building Fusion Ecosystem company, check the open positions on The Fusion Ecosystem Careers page!
This Interview was originally released in the Fusion Ecosystem Blog .