Introducing Antti Larjo: Tech Maestro with a Heart

"At the moment, I am handling things related to machine learning in several customer projects. As example, implementing a novel AutoML solution. At Tietoevry, I work as a consultant on data pipelines and integrations. At Veracell I am doing sales and recruitment. You can find me conducting, for example, technical interviews of job applicants. My palette of skills in daily use includes coding (Python, Scala, Spark), data processing (databases, data sheets, data pipelines) as well as general reasoning and figuring things out."

Antti has a background in physics and mathematics and strong expertise in the areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning. As technology director, he plays an essential role in developing Veracell's skills and supporting less experienced coders.

"I have a PhD in technology and the most relevant areas in my studies were signal processing, computational biology, bioinformatics and applied mathematics. In high school, I was still considering either theoretical physics or philosophy, but I drifted to Tampere University of Technology to read physics. In the end, after changing a couple of majors, I ended up working with computational systems biology, which seemed like the most interesting option at the time. From there, I started to accumulate skills in mathematics and data processing, which set a natural basis for moving to data science jobs. The most interesting part of the studies was the combination of mathematics, information technology and biology."

"My special skills are machine learning, AI and data science. For example, I build data pipelines and produce visualizations of different types of data. I especially enjoy doing challenging projects not everyone can solve. I have created a machine learning solution from start to finish, implemented data processing, and prototyped machine intelligence solutions. I can also do model training, monitoring and finish up everything in production-level. At work, I have been doing research, data science work, and currently also data engineer tasks."

Today, Antti works with patient data in Tietoevry's projects and participates in the development of Integritas product analytics in Veracell's implementation team. Tasks have included, for example, the definition, implementation and maintenance of the OMOP data infrastructure, as well as the customization of open-source applications to work in a data lake environment.

"In recent years, I have jumped from a consultant in a very small company to a very large one. I work in a high performance computing environment and process a lot of healthcare data. In most projects, you have to take a lot of responsibility and be self-directed so that things run smoothly. The most useful skills at work are coding and data processing, knowledge and familiarity with mathematics, the ability to explain and justify things clearly, the ability to adopt new things and especially be perseverant."

"By nature, I am analytical and somewhat zen, which means I can solve complex things under pressure. If necessary, I can be very meticulous and pay attention to details. I have accumulated expertise in many fields, so I communicate seamlessly with domain experts, for example clinicians. When working in a team, I am very cooperative with different people. I can communicate comprehensibly about complex concepts and make experts from different domains understand each other."

Antti's programming languages include Python, R, Scala, Java, C/C++, Matlab. Spark is used for data processing. He easily handles also SQL databases, AWS and Azure (GCP).