The faces of Mavericks: Morten Falstad
For the frontend developer Morten, problem solving is the most exciting part of the job. This shines through in both the work he does and in the activities he does outside of work. Curious at heart, he always tries to figure out ‘the why’ before jumping to the problem solving.
What is your professional background like?
Before I realized I wanted to work with IT, I studied both biology and electrical engineering. It was during the latter that I discovered how fun and interesting coding was. We had one class with Arduino, where we got to do some coding – and I got hooked. I jumped over to studying Informatics, which was in many ways a project driven study where I got to do a lot of web development. I also volunteered at NTNUI where I, together with a few others, built their member system. So in many ways I was coding all day around – at school in the daytime and for NTNUI in the evenings.
After graduation I started working at TietoEvry as an inhouse developer. Where I worked a lot with bank systems, before I after two years moved to Oslo and started at Itera. Here I worked as a consultant at Storebrand in their B2B team. I really enjoyed working with systems and products that had an impact on people’s lives and that are used by a lot of people.
What are your best skills and abilities? Soft and tech.
If I get asked why I like working with computers and software I always say – even though I’m on the computer I work with people. The code or the product is only the end result. I love creating and especially creating together with people. Challenging each other, getting different views and working on problems until we find the solution.
I would also say that I’m curious at heart and was told by a colleague once that I should never stop asking “why”. Why do we need this? Why is this working or why isn’t this working? As a developer you can easily end up in a place where you are just screaming inside your own echo chamber, and it’s therefore so important to stop and get other peoples opinions and views. And I think that’s one of my best skills.
When it comes to tech skills, I am definitely a frontender and love the visualization you get by working frontend. On the other hand I have done more and more backend development lately and like that since you get to affect more of the product there.
What do you like to do outside work?
Outside of work I like staying active and love skiing, but what I do most is climbing and bouldering. In addition to being a physical activity that doesn’t feel like exercise, it’s both social and challenging. In the same way that I like coding because of the problem solving, climbing is also about solving a problem. How can I get from A to B in the most effective way?
I also like gaming which is both a way for me to be social and disconnect after a challenging day at work. The last few years I have also taken up gardening and gotten a big interest in plants. I have grown tomatoes and other vegetables and also a habanero chili which I’m both excited and terrified to try out when it’s ripe.
What got you interested in Mavericks?
One of the many reasons is the salary model. I saw what my hourly rate was and that I would end up with a bigger cut with Mavericks than other companies. Another reason is that I thought it was an exciting company with a great consultant model, and I wanted to be a part of building the company here in Norway. When changing jobs you always have to evaluate the risk versus benefits and when looking into Mavericks the benefits outweighed the risks by a lot!
Mavericks is the go-to software consultancy for the top of their field software professionals who want to get the best of two worlds: The salary level and freedom of a freelancer and the safety net and sales machinery of a consultancy. We are constantly looking for new team members – are you the next Maverick?