Patrik Hirvinen

For free?

Leading with this instead of my value proposition maybe feels odd. It is a calculated risk I am taking. I know I would be a good hire for a lot of things, but I also know something of the other side. I have worked in recruiting and management. Hiring too many people is bad, hiring is always at least a small risk, and gaps in working are scary.

If you could hire someone for 3-6 months for free(not unpaid, paid by someone else), that should make it easier to consider hiring in general, hiring me in particular, or maybe hiring two people for the price of one!

Think of the opportunities

In addition to your usual projects, this presents a rare opportunity.

If you were to ask around, you might find a surprising amount of mostly internal things that could be improved, at least a little bit. Better tooling, systems, documentation, processes etc, which would improve efficiency, reliability and quality of life.

Maybe there is even agreement about working to improve such things, but progress is slower than you would like. No matter how justified each delay is, people feel bad.

I am the kind of person who works on things like that anyway, getting someone to help on those would improve things all around, and it would be cheap. Win-win-win.

My professional interests

One of my biggest passions is solving real problems and making lives easier. Sometimes the best way to do that is by building software tools, systems and services. Sometimes not. Software is a tool, not an end goal.

In general, whatever I do, at least a small part of me is thinking "how could this be better, easier, more reliable, and could it be achieved without too much of a hassle?" This applies to almost everything from customer business processes to security to internal workflows to end user UX.

What I am best at, and generally most interested in, is software development and related things, like the software layer of IT infrastructure management, but I do have experience in other areas as well, such as project coordination, management, contracts, law and regulation. Since I am mostly looking for software and other IT work, my CV does not focus on these areas. But if you have something in mind where these other skills play a larger role, I'm happy to expand on them.

Artificial intelligence

AI is both awesome and terrifying. Due to recent progress in AI, it is finally starting to be feasible to use it to be really useful in a wide variety of problems and tasks. At the same time, malicious or careless application of this power is a huge concern. In order to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms, we must rush in some areas and tread very carefully in others. I don't think either consideration is receiving the attention it deserves, and I would love to help change that.

Ideal features of my next job

I'm not picky about particular technologies or fields where the things I'm working on are used. I am open to many kinds of possibilities, but ideally, my next job would include at least some of the following:

• Helping realize benefits of AI
• Helping avoid risks of AI
• Helping solve real world problems and making existing tasks easier, whether it is for individuals or organizations