I'm one of the three founders of Johku. I'm responsible for everything that happens beneath Johku's surface: servers, databases, APIs and integrations. In short, I make sure everything runs reliably even at the peak of the season, when bookings are pouring in from every direction at once.
From hardware to the web
I founded my first company, Bytech Computing Oy, in 1997. I started out on the hardware side and learned what really goes on inside a computer.
Around the same time, the internet was making its way into homes and businesses. I studied information technology at Lappeenranta University of Technology, and as networks grew, my interest naturally shifted from the devices themselves to what could be built on top of them. I got into software development through web applications. Soon there were more projects than one person could handle, so I asked my fellow student Saku to join me. That was the start of a collaboration that continues to this day.
Layer by layer
In the early 2000s, Sami, Saku and I founded Aptual Oy. The division of labour has stayed the same ever since: Sami is responsible for the concept, Saku for usability and the frontend, and I for the backend. In practice, the backend is everything the user doesn't see: databases, APIs, server environments, and the logic that keeps bookings, payments and tills in sync.
Over the years, we've built everything from the Jalusta content management system to metro simulators, mobile games and business management systems, for clients ranging from small businesses to large corporations. Having worked with hardware, networks, servers, databases and applications, I see a system as a whole rather than as separate parts. That pays off when a system needs to keep evolving for years to come.
Under the hood
At Johku, I'm responsible for the technology as a whole, and most of Johku's code has been written by me. The online store, bookings, tills, payment terminals and reporting all run in the same system. On top of that, Johku constantly talks to external services: payment providers, OTA channels, smart locks, accounting systems and tour operators. My hardware background still shows here, because in Johku, software meets the physical world at the till, in payment terminals and in smart locks. Every integration is built so that merchants never have to think about how data moves from one place to another.
Johku's platform is built on modern foundations, too. Johku runs on Kubernetes, the same container technology that powers the world's largest web services. For merchants, this means capacity is added automatically as demand grows, and updates go live without maintenance breaks.
Contact
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tukiainen