About me

My name is Tero. I was born in Finland anno domini 1990.

Career

My professional background is in IT. I started my IT-career in 2012 when I was employed to a MSP. My main responsibility was to provide IT support to the MSP’s clients, about six in total. In 2013, one of the MSP’s clients had a job opening for an IT support role. That client was Auto-Suni Oy, a major car retailer and OEM-authorized workshop operating in southeastern Finland. Little did I know back then, but Auto-Suni would become my employer for years to come.

From the year 2013 up until 2019 my job title was IT systems support. In my heart, I am a problem solver and during the course of the years my responsibilities grew. I had operational responsibility of our networks, servers, Azure-cloud, end devices, IT support, IT project management, vendor management - you know, the works and then some.

In 2019 I found myself at a crossroads - do I want to pursue my career with a different employer or stay with Auto-Suni? During the open and honest talks with the company’s management and owners, I was presented an opportunity to become a CDO (D as in Digital), taking over the company’s digital strategy and digital marketing. My contract started on 10-2019. My responsibilities were an addon, not a replacement, so I was still the acting sysadmin and IT support for our staff of 150 employees.

In the end of 2024 I found myself at yet another crossroads. The years spent on C-level had cleared up my plans for the future quite well. I learned that what I love most about IT is solving problems and helping people. I had established a totally new sector of IT for Auto-Suni: internal software development. The internal development started, much I like imagine in a lot of other companies, as a tangible problem that needed to be solved. The problem was very industry-specific and there was no ready-made solution. During the years I worked as the IT support+ I had created a load of scripts automating server and network management, but this time I produced an app used by our employees directly. You can read more about my projects in the Projects-page.

I decided to stay with Auto-Suni and asked to step down as the CDO and resume my career as an IT systems specialist. This change took effect on Jan 1, 2025.

Here are a few technologies I have been working with recently:

Microsoft Ecosystem

Software development & DevOps

Databases

Personal life

On a more personal level than the section above, I consider two of my hobbies to be selfhosting on my personal little data center and cars & motorcycles.

Selfhosting and open-source

I started selfhosting around 2024. The initial kick-off for me to start hosting my own services was Apple’s decision to partner up with OpenAI which was disclosed in WWDC in June 2024. I had been an Apple user in my professional life for years, but that decision changed the game for me and I decided to ditch Apple devices from both my personal and professional life.

Apple’s walled garden provided a home for my data for a long period. Opening up a partnership with a 3rd party to provide Apple AI services opened the possibility for my personal data to be used by OpenAI to train their LLM’s and that was the cutoff line for me personally. One of the main attractions in Apple was that they made their money with beautifully crafted devices and software - not their user’s data.

I setup my own little data center in the comfort of our home and started hosting Open Source services like a cloud platform, media server, home automation server. The personal data center has grown over the years and currently I am hosting more than 30 services for me and my family. Shouldn’t come as a surprise then that this site is hosted on my own servers.

In my personal life, I have been a Linux user since the age of about 13. Started off with Ubuntu, transitioned to Debian and have had a few sidetracks with Arch Linux throughout the years. FOSS has played a big part in my life in IT, both personal and business. FOSS is an ideology for me, so I am approaching this as Free as in freedom, not as free beer.

Motorcycles

I dipped my feet in the world of motorcycles back in 2018. Before 2018, I was an avid car guy. The world of motorcycles had always intrigued me but taking the dip turned to be a full deep dive very quickly. Started off with Harley-Davidsons, had several different styles of them before venturing out to the world of adventure motorcycling. This took me by a storm, and I was a goner for everything two wheeled that could go off-road. From dual sports to bigger ADV bikes, I found my inner peace and the perfect balancing actor for my intense job.

So whether it’s servers, networks, selfhosting or motorcycles, there’s a good chance we could spark a lively discussion. So feel free to hit me up - my contact details are in the Contact-section.

My motto?

Treat the word ‘impossible’ as nothing more than motivation.

Out & about

Picking up a Datsun Bluebird