Saku Laitinen: Data analyst fighting financial crime

- I also work closely with my clients, and right now I’m part of the anti-financial crime unit in one of the biggest banks in Finland. It’s the perfect combination of a technical role and the business and financial domain. I get to use all the topics I learned at school.

Saku’s mission is to use risk models and analyze data to better detect financial crime and financing of terrorism. No small task in today’s world.

- The most important thing to me is that the tasks themselves are interesting, but it’s a huge bonus that I also contribute to something important, something that benefits society. Our job is to stay one step ahead of criminals as they get increasingly creative and apply new methods and technologies.

The risk model uses a broad array of indicators to detect suspicious behavior. To stay ahead, Saku and his team constantly conduct performance and impact analyses and add new indicators to refine and improve the model.

- It’s often the combination of various indicators that trigger warnings and tell us how risky a customer might be. It’s a complex set of data we analyze, which makes the job very interesting.

Playground of ever-evolving technologies

Saku uses several different technologies in his job, and the development within the field is fast paced.

- We use anything from Databricks to Snowflake, via Power BI, SQL language and Python. We also have AWS and Azure cloud solutions and SAS EG.

Saku goes on to list other technologies he uses to help him work.

- We use Jira, Confluence and git, and I have used different AI tools to make work run more smoothly and efficiently. In this line of work, it’s important to be curious and open to new technologies.

Challenges

Saku doesn’t shy away from challenges, in fact he seeks them out. For him, it’s one of the best ways to learn.

- What I like about this job is that there are new challenges every day. We constantly run into problems we haven’t worked on before, and having to think about how to solve them is great. We’re given a lot of freedom to figure out hove to solve the problems in the best way, which I also like.

Saku spars with his colleagues when needed, but also enjoys tackling challenges on his own.

- I like to try to solve problems alone, it’s a great way to learn. Many of the certifications I’ve taken while at Tietoevry have been through exploring technologies on my own. Azure is one example. I prefer learning things on the job, not only theoretically.

Learning new things and technologies is important to Saku, he views development as one of the biggest perks of working at Tietoevry.

- There are countless opportunities to develop your skills here. You can change projects, clients, industries and technologies you work with. My managers are very accommodating, giving me the opportunity to explore my interests. In return, they get a very satisfied employee.

Join our team and reinvent the world. For good.
Visit our career site!