Tuomas Harju

Building Something New | ex-Unity

Helsinki Metropolitan Area

About

TL;DR: I’ve been programming professionally ~20 years and it fascinates me that there’s always something to learn. Nowadays my preference is to develop products in a small expert team. Check the Experience section for details (🤞I recall everything). Now to the TL part: I was 6 years old, when I decided that some day I’ll become a game developer. A year later, I made my first text adventure game. A bit of a bold decision but I don’t regret it a single bit. Later I realized that any kind of programming played to my strengths: curiosity, imagination and quick learning (I’m not 100% sure about CSV parsing but you get the gist of it). Another realization happened when I started my first job and it’s something I tell to junior developers when mentoring. It’s better to be thrown to the deep end and it’s up to you to adapt and find the way. It’s ok to fail but you still have to find your own way. My first project was to create a web app for customizable obituaries to be printed on the newspaper. The next enlightenment happened during one consulting gig. Teamwork is the hardest and the most rewarding part of this job. I’m a sociable person and I have a bad tendency to crack a joke at every possible occasion, but I also love to build complex connections, worlds or pictures in my head. It takes effort to simplify and communicate a complex topic to any group. I’ve noticed that anything beyond 3-5 people requires a different approach / organization. I personally prefer small teams of passionate experts. I know that I’ve left some money on the table with this tendency but I’d still choose the same. My latest introspection revealed that I’m driven by simplicity and there’s a lot to learn. I need to step up my collaboration skills because the current industry wants to create complex, future-proof systems and anything else requires constant alertness and cooperation. If you got this far, hopefully you found it interesting. I’m happy to engage in a more detailed discussion.

Experience

  • Unity (9 yrs 6 mos)
    • Senior Software Developer
      Nov 2023 - Aug 2025 · 1 yr 10 mos

      Developing a novel ad unit (non-provisional patent) to the Unity Ads network.

    • Senior Frontend Developer
      Nov 2022 - Nov 2023 · 1 yr 1 mo

      Developing better UX and workflows for dashboard users (publishers and advertisers).

    • Senior Software Engineer, Unity Research Labs
      Jan 2022 - Nov 2022 · 11 mos

      Research and development: running Unity editor in the web browser.

  • Remedy Entertainment Plc (Full-time · 1 yr 7 mos)
    • Game Developer
      Nov 2015 - Feb 2016 · 4 mos

      Game and UI development for the Xbox game Quantum Break.

    • Game Developer
      Mar 2015 - Nov 2015 · 9 mos

      Game development and prototyping a mobile game made with Unity. Small team with a high agency. Learned a lot about game development, game design and Unity development. The backend was built on top of learnings from the previous project. The project was cancelled when the team was moved to Quantum Break.

    • DevOps Developer
      Feb 2015 - Mar 2015 · 2 mos

      Setting up Teamcity and build screens between projects.

  • Software Developer at Acentra
    Oct 2010 - Aug 2014 · 3 yrs 11 mos

    Multiple client projects with a letter of recommendation. Web applications, databases, back-end systems and reporting.

  • Web developer at TS-Yhtymä
    May 2007 - Sep 2010 · 3 yrs 5 mos

    Web design of customer-facing web pages and applications including, but not limited to, web-based advertisement creation.