Kim Salmi
CTO
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +358 50 524 7597
Website: kimsalmi.com
GitHub: github.com/infr
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/infer
About
I have built software for 20 years and led technology teams for over a decade. I have built products and teams from scratch, taken over legacy systems, consolidated platforms across markets, and kept developers happy and efficient. Most passionate about SaaS, product, and AI-amplified ways of working.
Deep into agentic transformation and how it changes the way software and companies get built. With AI doing more of the building, shipping fast is no longer the hard part. Knowing what to build, why, and building it with taste is. That is why I believe in small teams with end-to-end responsibility for a problem, and in customer proximity: the closer a team is to its customers, the better it understands the problem it is solving. I like to read, build stuff and sometimes write about the stuff I build.
Things I believe in / My values:
- Love; anything you do, people around you
- Be best; at what you do, version of you, father, husband
- Impact > Hours spent > Intent
- Execution > Idea
- Iteration > Perfection
- Better management > More resources
- Better taste > More features
- Go to the forest, Be happy
Work Experience
Responsible for technology development across a Nordic digital recruitment group, supporting multiple marketplaces in Finland, Sweden and Norway. Leading a cross-country engineering organization and the modernization of shared technology capabilities. Also Product Director for Foundation, the shared core platform behind all of the group's job boards.
Selected achievements and responsibilities- Technology strategy and consolidation: Led the evolution of fragmented and legacy technology into a more unified multi-market platform, reducing duplication and enabling faster development and expansion across markets. Responsible for buy-versus-build decisions, vendor relationships and integrating third-party solutions into the shared platform, and contributed to the group's M&A activities.
- AI and organizational transformation: Driving AI across software development, business processes and the products themselves. Instead of automating existing processes, rethinking the work to be done from scratch, and exploring how AI-native ways of working change productivity and organizational structures.
- Operational scalability: Modernized cloud infrastructure, deployment processes and engineering practices to improve reliability, delivery speed and the ability to scale operations efficiently.
- Technology governance and risk: Established architectural governance, technical standards and systematic management of technical debt. Leading improvements in cybersecurity, compliance and cloud cost governance.
- Leadership and organizational development: Leading a distributed engineering team across Finland and Sweden, developing collaboration models that give small, autonomous teams greater end-to-end ownership of business problems and their solutions.
Led technology at a SaaS company helping businesses collect and use customer testimonials and reviews.
- SaaS transformation: Key technology leader in turning a project-based services business into a scalable SaaS product.
- Growth: Helped grow annual recurring revenue from zero to €1M while staying cash flow positive.
- Team: Built and led a product engineering team of 10 developers plus UX.
- Product and commercial alignment: Balanced technology, product development and commercial priorities to keep growth sustainable.
Building Kampus, Sanoma's new virtual learning environment for secondary education. Stepped up to lead developer after the previous lead developer left.
- Discovery and due diligence: Started with discovery work mapping what Sanoma had already built across its countries, then evaluated which existing platforms to build on.
- Team scaling: Helped scale the product team from zero to 25+ people while keeping onboarding fast and effective.
- Delivery: Shipped the product on time despite a tight schedule.
- Full-stack development: Java, vert.x, AWS, Angular, TypeScript, MongoDB and Python, working in Agile, Scrum and SAFe.
Managing the development of educational mobile games and gamification solutions for businesses and schools.
- Product: Led development of Galaxy of Words, a mobile game that makes language learning engaging.
- Support Specialist (Jan 2013 – Dec 2014): various IT administration, support, and development tasks: Windows Server, AD, SCCM, O365, Lotus Domino, iSeries, VoIP, VMware, Cisco, ITIL.
- System Support Technician (Dec 2009 – Dec 2012): IT assistance for internal/external customers: VoIP, O365, Windows, SCCM, AD, Cisco, Lotus Domino, IBM i, VMware, Linux, ~100 services.
- Purchase Ledger Clerk (Dec 2007 – May 2009): handling purchase ledger and related bookkeeping.
- Helpdesk Technician (Apr 2007 – Sep 2007): IT assistance to internal customers.
Education
Projects
- SaturnSQL, SaaS SQL editor for data teams with shared queries, scheduled reports to Slack and Google Sheets, and an MCP server for AI agents, 2025 – present
- Kaamos, developer experience improver, 2024 – present
- Home Automation, 2024
- SaaS Pricing Tracker, 2023 – present
- Sanuli Solver, 2022 – present
- Finnish Companies directory, 2022 – present
- Oikotie Upgrade, housing data Chrome extension, 2021 – present
- Fall Detector, Raspberry Pi + webcam solution for elderly safety, 2016 – 2018
- Arduino Quadcopter Game, 2016
- Elintravike.info - Finnish food market data mining (discontinued), 2014 – 2015
- HouseCat - Finnish housing market data analysis (discontinued), 2012 – 2013
- Spotify ad blocker (discontinued), 2010
- Irc-Galleria modikopsaaja (~10,000 users, discontinued), 2009 – 2010
- noteTree - for sharing classroom notes (discontinued), 2009
- First FPS game, 2005
- First website online, 1998
Awards
- Scholarship from University of Helsinki, 2017
- Thesis scholarship, Haaga-Helia, 2016
- Slush 2016 - Qvik speed coding challenge (1st place)
- Ultrahack 2016 - Top 3 in Open Track & PRH Bonus Prize
- Wellbeing Hackathon 2016 - 1st place
In Media
Languages
- Swedish - Native
- Finnish - Native
- English - Professional working proficiency
- German - Limited working proficiency
Organizations
- Tavastby Svenska Ungdoms- och Allmogeförening rf - Board member (Nov 2023 – Present)
- As Oy Iso-Kaari 48 - Board member (2022 – 2023)
- As Oy Anianpellontie 14 - Chairman of the board (Jan 2012 – Jan 2014, Jan 2016 – Jan 2018)
- TKO-äly ry - Jr. Evankelista (Jun 2017 – Jan 2018), University of Helsinki affiliated
Recommendations
“I worked with Kim when we were developing Sanoma Learning's virtual learning environment for secondary education. I really envy Kim's skills as a developer combined with a twist of hacker mind, in a good way. Kim is one to solve problems, not create them. I would gladly work with him again and am happy to recommend him to any position in the digital development area.”
Matias Vakkilainen, Product | Mobile & Partners (2021)
“I have been working, studying and participating in many hackathons with Kim. He has an unique ability to solve problems, while also teaching others. As a developer I really appreciate how he takes ownership in projects and always has a clear vision of how the projects should go forward. He is a very good listener, takes everyone's opinion in account and is a really trustworthy guy.”
Max Salmi, Advertising Technology Manager at Schibsted Marketplaces Finland (2019)
“It's very unique in today's world that you meet a software expert with combination of tech and people skills like Kim has. We worked together in a scrum team where he took the responsibility of lead developer. I was impressed by his ability to drive for quality software even under pressure. He also makes sure craft burgers are included in lunch choices :) Kim would be a great leadership asset to any team.”
Tolga Tunçbilek, Director of Engineering @ Virta (2019)
“Kim is a colleague which you want to have in your group. He is a real professional and ready to learn something new. Kim is all the time very friendly, very open to other people in a group, and all the time ready to help. He is also a person with a strong sense of responsibility, I appreciate his working style and everything he did very much. I strongly recommend working with Kim, he is a nice guy and highly qualified person with a positive attitude. I wish you work with him, you won't ever regret.”
Anisia Katinskaia, NLP Researcher at the University of Helsinki (2018)
“Kim and I haven't work together on many projects. The interesting thing is that it does not take that much to see his excel characteristics. He is a person with strong ownership and driving for results all the time. His sense of responsibility, his leadership, and his enthusiasm toward work impressed me a lot. I wish Kim all the best and an even more successful career in the future.”
Lauri Korte, ATC & CNS System Specialist (ATSEP) - CISM-Person at Fintraffic Air Navigation Services Ltd (2013)