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An honest look at life at Recordly: transparency, trust, real benefits, and Juhla Mokka. Milla Wood shares what truly makes work meaningful.
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What is life at recordly really like, Milla Wood?
There’s no shortage of flashy claims out there about what makes a workplace amazing. This is an honest look at what it’s really like to work at Recordly. From belonging to benefits, from transparency to continuous learning, here’s a peek behind the curtain at how we try to build a company where every employee can contribute to what Recordly is and what it becomes. Our People & Talent Acquisition Lead Milla shares her thoughts on these subjects below.
Recordly’s best policy is honesty, which also includes transparency. In what ways do you think transparency can make a company stronger?
We aim to be flat, fair, and radically transparent: you’ll know where we’re going and why. When employees have a lot of insight into what’s going on in the company, they understand the bigger picture and feel a sense of shared responsibility. That’s why we openly share our financials, have a transparent career framework with salary ranges, and make decision-making processes visible and inclusive. It builds trust, reduces second-guessing, and creates an environment where people feel respected and involved instead of feeling left out of the loop. That said, we’re not claiming to be perfect; we’re on a joint journey that requires continuous effort and sometimes we mess up. We’re still learning, still improving, and sometimes still figuring things out in real time. But we believe being honest about that, too, is part of what makes transparency meaningful.
What do you wish people would understand about employee satisfaction?
That it’s about creating an environment where people have autonomy to shape their work, a sense of purpose in what they do, and a community where they belong. It’s also important to remember that satisfaction isn’t a fixed checklist, it’s pretty personal and varies between people. What motivates one person might not mean much to the next. I believe that true satisfaction comes from feeling seen, trusted, and valued as a whole person, not just an employee. I always try to prioritize conversations with Recordlians, those moments matter more to me than perfectly polished processes or ticking off admin tasks. People come first, and everything else can wait a little if someone wants to talk with me. I’d also like to add that employee satisfaction goes far beyond benefits, even though benefits are great.
Talking about benefits, companies sometimes list ‘free coffee/tea’ and ‘nice colleagues’ as part of their benefits package. While some companies really offer their employees pretty unique benefits, such as cryopreservation after death, some might surprise you with a not-so-nice holiday gift.
The below quote below is borrowed from Reddit, sounds like a fun company to work for, huh?
"We got an email telling us to click on a link for a holiday appreciation gift from the company. If you clicked on it, you had just fallen for a phishing test to see if you would click on links in emails. Your gift was three hours of mandatory security training."
So, in all seriousness, what do you consider to be real employee benefits?
Free beverages are nice. So are friendly colleagues. But from where I’m standing, those aren’t real hard benefits. They’re in many places, at least in the tech industry, considered the baseline of a decent workplace. Of course, what counts as a benefit depends on the industry standard, and luckily in tech, we’re in a good place. I’d like to see my colleagues' faces if I’d ask them to bring their own package of coffee to the office… which reminds me of a small coffee mishap I had when I joined Recordly. During my first week here, I noticed there was a single package of Juhla Mokka in the kitchen cabinet. Wanting to be helpful, I ordered more, only to find out it was sitting there because no one wanted to drink it in the first place. So instead of fixing the coffee situation, I just accidentally doubled the office’s unwanted Juhla Mokka stash. I’m a tea drinker myself, so I didn’t realize people had such strong feelings about coffee.
To me, real benefits are those that support your wellbeing, growth, daily life, and ideally save you some money, too. I think the most important thing to consider is how relevant and genuinely valuable a benefit is - especially in today’s benefit jungle. In reality, Finland’s pretty strict tax guidelines limit what you can actually offer your employees, at least if you want to keep it tax-free. Within those boundaries, we’d rather focus on benefits that truly support people’s everyday lives. So no, we won’t be freezing any Recordlians after death… but we will keep investing in things that matter while you’re very much alive.
At Recordly, we’ve tried leaning into the individuality of our employees by, for example, moving away from the “one-size-fits-all” mode when it comes to our benefits. We’ve introduced a Pimp My Benefits plan in addition to a strong joint baseline of benefits. The Pimp My Benefits plan lets people choose what benefits support them best from a joint benefit offering, whether that’s e.g. a gym membership, a museum card, spring cleaning, or better tech equipment at home. I’ll admit, from an HR admin perspective it’s not the simplest setup, but it’s definitely been worth it. Recordlians appreciate having the freedom to choose and knowing that we recognize that people have different needs.
If you'd sum it up, why is Recordly a great place for senior data & AI professionals?
We’re a senior house, which means you’re surrounded by some of the sharpest minds in the data and AI space. You collaborate with people who both challenge and inspire you, and who genuinely care about doing great work together as a team.
We also believe continuous development is essential to make sure we don’t lose our edge. A lot of learning happens naturally through challenging customer projects across industries, but we also invest in things like frequent hackathons, retros, and a variety of knowledge-sharing sessions. There’s dedicated time and budget for self-development, access to a wide range of learning resources, and support through peer groups and our Buddy Program, where you’re paired with a colleague who supports your personal and professional growth.
More than anything, we’re all motivated by shaping the future of data and AI. We help humans and data cooperate, not just coexist, and we work with our customers to find what really matters so we can solve real business challenges - not just technical puzzles. And most importantly, we’re built by our people, for our people. Our culture of collective versioning means that everyone contributes to what Recordly is and what it becomes. That shared ownership empowers us to grow, not just as individuals, but as a company.
If that’s the kind of impact and environment you’re looking for, this is a pretty great place to work, at least in my opinion.
Would you like to work with us?
Check out our very open positions here!
