How did you get into functional programming?

It was a happy accident. During my computer science studies at Uppsala University, I chose a distributed systems project course in my final semester. We built an e-commerce platform, and that's where I discovered Erlang. It was an intense experience, and I was hooked. I did my thesis on it and naturally started looking towards Erlang jobs.

How did this lead you to Kivra?

After my thesis, I worked at Erlang Solutions in London for a year on various projects. I then got an Erlang job in Sweden, right before Kivra contacted me in 2012. I became employee number 9. Kivra wasn't initially built in Erlang, but we developed it during the spring of 2012 and launched it that summer. In June of that year, we released the first version, which included a digital mailbox that could receive content.

I sensed early on that Kivra would be a huge thing, especially when Stefan Krook joined. He was a visionary and spoke as if we were already the biggest. It was exciting to work with Stefan. I left in the fall of 2014 for other challenges but returned a few years ago.

What has your journey at Kivra been like since you returned?

It's been great to get more responsibility. I started as a consultant and tech lead in the "sender domain." We then started hiring more people, including architects, and I got to lead that effort. Most recently, I gained managerial responsibility for 11 people. It's going well, and I value the team.

How would you describe Kivra's culture?

Kivra has always had a great culture. It's not just about challenging ourselves but also about challenging the world to do something good. Doing good for the world is part of the culture. We care about our employees and strive for everyone to feel good. The feedback culture is also important, and something I missed during the years when I wasn't at Kivra.

People here are very positive. No one says no directly; everyone can come up with suggestions, and we always discuss them. There is a sense of psychological safety, and having that culture allows us to grow both as individuals and as a company. Being able to talk about things also makes you dare to challenge yourself. It's a give-and-take. Kivra cares, and in turn, we care about Kivra.

What is the best part about working at Kivra?

The people we work with. And then there's the product. We had dynamic content from the start, such as e-invoices. Integrating Kivra with other services is an exciting journey. Everyone knows what Kivra is.

How can we get more young people interested in functional programming?

In functional programming, the focus is more on the business logic, the problem and the solution, rather than the object itself. If more people understand this, it could lead to increased interest. We focus on the flow and can write less code for the business logic we need. You can work more with logical problems and create a function that solves them. That suits me very well because I like logical problem-solving. Those who are interested in problem-solving often get hooked on it.