The golden jacket from Amazon Web Services is awarded to the very few people who have completed all active AWS certifications, of which there are 12 right now. It’s a testament to the hard work and extensive exams you must complete.
- It’s a nice recognition of the effort I’ve put in over the years, says Modernization Advisor Pasi Poisuo. But what matters most is how that expertise translates into real business value for our clients. This also shows how Vivicta is supporting personal growth of their employees.
Pasi has also found a nice balance between theory and practice at the company.
- Certifications are theoretical, and rightly so. But without practical exposure to the same technologies, they don’t mean much. It’s like knowing the recipes, but having no idea how to cook. Hands-on tech work is crucial part of learning and this comes from the customer work and over time.
In addition to training sessions, sandboxes and communities we have different career paths depending on your own personal interests. I’ve seen many a junior become senior in my time here. Senior-level experts also have opportunities to grow."
There are only a handful of people in Finland or even in Europe who share the honour of AWS Golden Jacket.
Let the customer shine
Personal glory is not something Pasi yearns for. To him, it’s more important that his new won competence benefits the clients.
- I don’t see myself as someone who works solely with cloud technologies. I see myself as someone who delivers business value. Technology should not be the first choice when defining the bigger picture. You can’t know that AI is the answer until you’ve defined the question.
To Pasi, the goal is to keep the client happy in the long term.
- We could sell flashy solutions and make quick wins based on all the current buzz words. But that’s not our goal. We want satisfied clients in the long run, and that means delivering what they truly need.
Low costs, high security
The business value Pasi and his colleagues deliver is often connected with cost savings and increased security.
- Security is foundational. It’s easy to deploy workloads to the cloud, but it’s a whole different ballpark to make sure everything is secured as it should. I usually start by analysing where things can be done smarter. Whether it’s security, cost structures, architectural choices, automation, disaster recovery, or governance gaps, there’s almost always room to optimize.
In addition to a specific business need, there also needs to be a governance model in place at the very start of a successful project.
- Without proper governance, solutions can just float around unchallenged and without any surveillance. We go through our solutions with clients every month to look at features and identify pain points, in line with the initial project goals.
FinOps cloud solutions
Pasi and his colleagues have worked extensively with various FinOps projects the past years.
- FinOps isn’t just about ticket handling and change requests. It’s about designing architectures that are cost-efficient from the start as they are part of the business, not just mandatory add-ons. We have proactively broken legacy dependencies, created centralized solutions and implemented hybrid solutions to customer environments creating significant cost savings.
Pasi’s work in FinOps goes beyond traditional cost control. One of his recent innovations is a proof-of-concept AI-powered web application that allows users to interactively ask natural language questions about AWS service costs. You can either use web interface to prompt questions or integrate it with Teams or Slack.
- The idea was to make cost insights more accessible. Instead of navigating endless dashboards, users can simply ask the agent questions or estimations in plain language.
This solution reflects Pasi’s approach to combining technical depth with practical usability, helping clients make smarter decisions without adding complexity.
An open culture
Experimenting with different solutions like the AI agent Pasi has developed is a reflection of the work culture at Vivicta.
- Sure, we are professional and value competence, no doubt about it. I would also describe us as very independent in the sense that people are allowed to make their own decisions. There is a high level of trust. It allows us all to play on our strengths. It’s a great place for anyone who wants to develop.