$WhoisAnssiHautamäki? _

First off, I am a software developer. It has been my day job for the last ten years or so. I’ve done web-related development from the late 90s, and with that history comes a certain knowledge of the underlying HTML, CSS and the vanilla JavaScript; as opposed to the modern way of learning frontend equals React, and it being your only tool, all problems are React problems. But lately the frontend projects have often been React and Angular based, so that’s what I have been doing — although I’m more than interested in some of the newer, more performant frameworks, like Astro with its islands. At times I have done frontend for browser-based applications, sometimes for more snazzy-visuals-oriented (usually WordPress) marketing sites, sometimes for React Native mobile applications. This is probably where I thrive developer-wise; I’m do like being a frontend developer with an eye for detail and a penchant for user experiences — not to forget the developer experience.

Although I think it’s a bit of a dangerous term, I guess by some definition I am also a full-stack developer. After all, why wouldn’t you want to have a unicorn on your team; but one can argue if they really exist. I have dealt with Rails, node/express/NestJS, even some Django-type ORM stuff and GraphQL servers. I have actually worked as an administrator for an ISP. I know about networking. I have an understanding of SQL things. I would say I don’t exactly daydream about relational databases, REST APIs and GraphQL queries; and although AWS, Azure and microservices are the hottest s**t (and they definitely work for some projects), I’m usually a bit skeptical about them and their complexity. You know, even Netflix reverted to monoliths. However, as a developer I think it’s essential to be able to work with these things, too; equally essential is to know your limits.

Here’s a track record of my recent employers:

Although often relevant in my day job, this far I have mostly pursued my design interests elsewhere. I’ve done tons of posters, album covers and other advertising materials related to my musical endeavours; often to my friends and live music organizations I am or have been a part of. This far I have been tasked annually to create and execute the brand for our summer festival Pikipop, which is one of the larger entities I have done, always enjoy doing and have the time for. I have even designed the visuals and the UX for a few applications, using Sketch and Figma. I often work with Adobe Creative Cloud products, but have taken up Affinity products as well; them being fast, not crashing and all that. I often end up OCD’ing about typography. I am no stranger to design systems, and usually design everything with a thought for a unified and cohesive looks and experiences anyway – and with the developer skills, I should think I know how to design something that can be handed over to a developer. Unfortunately, I don’t have a portfolio of any kind yet, but I’m working on it. (Well that certainly doesn’t have a 90’s under construction GIF written all over it …)

Ever the aesthete, I would naturally pick up another pastime of the expensive kind: photography. It is also a thing that’s very hard to advertise oneself as. I’m not exactly a studio photographer; I tend to shoot in the street or in the nature. I’ve been through my fair share of equipment, just to arrive something I am comfortable with: a small and lightweight setup, so the equipment is there when the photo needs taking. What may be more useful in a work-related environment is that I also know my way around post-processing, using a bit of Lightroom magic. You can take a look at some of my photography here, but as of writing, that vault is strongly a work in progress.

A thing I’ve spent most my pastime with. I am an avid music lover, and that means consuming it in most any forms. As hard as it has sometimes been to acknowledge for a generalist aesthete, who has studied the field mostly by putting the cart before the horses – i.e. not too scholarly, I am a musician. What once started by picking up the guitar has become regularly playing the bass and the drums as well, in a number of groups even two hands worth of fingers can’t count.

I am also a producer and an audio engineer. I have no idea what it means to advertise ones skills in these matters, but over the years I should like to think I have amassed quite the knowledge on music history and theory that can be combined to vast knowledge of how instruments, effect, amplifiers, mixing consoles and audio interfaces work – to create something that potentially moves people. I have recorded, mixed and mastered many albums, and I think I may have even found “my sound”, if you will. Other than that it’s probably chemistry and psychology, but I certainly would like to do this in a more day job manner!

Below is some of my work. You can find many of them in popular streaming services, but I choose to link to Bandcamp, in case you would find yourself liking the music as much as to even buy it!

If you’ve read this far, you may have noticed I can communicate quite well in a written form; in English, no less. But trust me, I can do it also in Finnish – and spoken, too! I brush up my … wordsmithiness of course by reading, and I don’t know how to top Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams or P.G. Wodehouse. Although I have no formal training to be A Certified Enterprise Content Designer™, I do often write, even just to brush up my writing. Sometimes it’s something condensed enough to be a toot – you know, the tweet equivalent in Mastodon. Sometimes it’s pages’ worth, although I took my blog off-line because I do not like the freeloading “AI” companies scraping the internet, and it often ends up more or less markuskajo-ish. All this is to say, I should think myself skilled enough to articulate my thoughts somewhat clearly in whatever work-related environment; and even to create textual content.

And of course, now that AI is penetrating our society (although, forgive me for being slight luddite here), interfacing with them does mean you need to know your way around words. They really work better when you describe the tasks thoroughly and understandably.

Something that defines me strongly is that I have HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) traits; I especially recognize the depth of processing associated with it. It’s an urge to know and learn a lot of things, kind of an attempt at building a whole, a coherent image of how everything relates to everything. This goes nicely hand-in-hand with the sensory sensitivity: I am a keen observer. All this is most likely closely connected to how I have had people describe me, too: I am calm, not exactly impulsive, and empathetic. I should think I’m fairly adept at understanding other people’s point of views.