Diversity in Montel Intergalactic

Diversity is one of the seven core values for Montel Intergalactic. Therefore, we disapprove of discrimination based on ethnicity, age, religion, sex, or sexual orientation. In Montel, you can indeed be yourself.

There is no need to play any diversity games as diversity has always been one of Montel’s key strengths. We are a team of 25 with 11 different nationalities, and that’s a fact of which we are very proud. In addition, half of our management team members are women. We also have a wide range of ages from 24 to 46 in our company. In Montel, you are more than welcome if you are a skilled worker with good English skills.

We wanted to stop and think about the diversity aspect even more as it could be an important matter for so many people when looking for new paths to follow. For us, diversity is much more than policies and headcounts. Montel is a place where you can join, be and influence as you are. We are more than happy to learn best practices and develop our ways of working from different cultures and it’s essential to us to have a culture that looks like our people.

While having a conversation regarding diversity matters, we are also talking about inclusivity. As we are a diverse group of people and a flat organization, everyone’s opinions are asked. Communication is a key for us, and we are always supporting Montelieers to bring their views and new ideas to the table. We asked our people to tell us something about themselves and their experiences with Montel’s diversity. With their thoughts, you might understand better how it feels to sit side by side on the seats of our mothership.

Our senior developer Andrey, the Montelieer of the month in February was born in the city called Ufa, which is located in the Urals, where Europe meets Asia. He has done his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at the University of Eastern Finland. Andrey has been a Montelieer since the end of 2021 and has dived deep into our client projects already. "Undoubtedly, diversity is the biggest strength in the modern world. Not all companies in Finland realize it yet, but Montel is flying at the frontier. The Montel team joins together people from all over the world. People coming from different countries have different ways of thinking. When put together, this creates a brainstorming machine, capable of cracking complicated issues quickly and efficiently.”

One of our mothership’s souls, the happiness fairy Alex, is a developer from Guadalajara, Mexico. He graduated in 2018 from Computer Systems Engineering studies with his bachelor’s degree and moved to Finland in March 2019 after having his exchange studies here a little bit before. “I think diversity is one of the key things about Montel. Our day-to-day communications are held in English and most of the development, even with smaller Finnish companies, is done in English. About half of the people who hang constantly at the office (if not more) are not native Finns, which makes a very nice multicultural environment where everyone is welcome.”

Montel’s visual guru Suzana, the Head of Marketing and Communications, has a passion for creativity and owns an excellent design eye. She was born in Slovenia with Finn, German, and Slovenian roots. She has been living in Finland for a long time and has studied Multimedia Production at the Institute of Design. “Montel does not need to underline diversity because it is genuinely part of this company. It doesn't matter where you originally come from as long as you're a good guy or gal and have passion for your work. Diversity is not only just ethnic background; we also have people who like different types of work surroundings, meaning that some like to work fully remote and some like to hang around in the office all the time. You have the freedom to choose what suits you best. That is what makes us happy.”

Our remote software wizard Sivan started programming when he was only seven years old. Sivan is from Tel Aviv, Israel and he is joining this intergalactic development crew from there. Sivan has followed the entire product “life cycle” in his career from technical support to quality assurance, from delivery engineering to developing as a senior developer. He has been a good friend of Montel since 2017 by keeping up interesting discussions and sharing tech ideas with us. Lucky us, we got him on board finally in 2021! “I feel that no matter who you are, what you’re about, and what you’re looking for - Montel feels like a family of diverse members, each member is crucial to the greater whole and completes a part of the puzzle making it feel so cozy and fun, but also productive and efficient.”

As Suzana said, you can truly join by working from a place that suits you best. Even though we have a young, cool, and hippie office in Helsinki, you can work from Joensuu, Kustavi, or any other place you choose. Some of us have worked fully remotely before covid and sometimes we are saying that we were even born remote. When we are saying that we work and communicate in English, we really mean it. And yes, we are communicating and working in English as Alex told us, so on this intergalactic trip there is no need to speak Finnish.

Sounds good right? As a People and Culture person, I just want to add after these lovely co-Montelieers, that it has been a great start here with all of these wonderful people. Our diversity is not just writing responsible texts, taking nice pictures, and representing only a few people on those. We are all different and that’s the greatest richness of our culture. If this truly diverse community of senior developers and other experts interests you, we would be happy to share some thoughts and discuss your future plans. Best regards, Montel’s people person Aino.

If you feel like working with this fantastic group of people, please check our open positions on career page or apply via LinkedIn. You can also contact Aino, aino@montel.fi.