The Gears of COMODULE: Taavi - Engineer with an Eye for Beauty
The Gears of COMODULE is a fantastic opportunity for everyone to meet and understand who are the people moving COMODULE forward. Meet Taavi, our Firmware Engineer whose mission is to understand how things work and also make them look nice.
Who is Taavi?
Taavi grew up near the “summer capital” of Estonia - Pärnu. He was a shy kid who did well in sports and chemistry. Already in the early days of his life he preferred the “hands on” approach and was constantly trying to figure out how things work. When he wasn't busy helping out his uncle building houses, he was taking bicycles, old speakers or whatever he could get his hands on apart.
His life changed when he got a hold of a computer. Besides gaming, he was eager to know how it worked. He started cleaning it, improving it and studying it. When I asked how did he know what to do, Taavi simply answered: “I took the trial and error approach”.
Taavi is also into photography. “I really enjoy being in nature, capturing the sunsets and early mornings” said Taavi. In addition, he was also the sound technician for his school and similarly to our other engineer Ahto, he enjoys folk dancing. Now, besides photography and folk dancing, he enjoys playing disc golf and putting together puzzles.
Taavi has a Bachelor Degree in Computer and Systems Engineering from TalTech. For his love of nature, he almost chose geotechnology, but his brother insisted on him going to study something that has more use in the future. Taavi enjoyed programming classes the most and by his second year he was already teaching freshmen the entry level subjects. “I enjoyed teaching others, but I would not do it as a career” said slightly introverted Taavi.
In addition, to school, Taavi was taking online courses in hardware programming, which lead him to the field he is now working in. “Embedded programming combined my 2 main interests - programming and seeing how hardware devices work” said Taavi.
In the end of his studies he got a chance to be an intern for ABB. He was even offered a job there, but he knew that he had to serve in the military first. Overall, Taavi values his experience in the military very much “I learned how to use a gun and survive in the woods. In addition, I was a medic, so I learned all the basics of first aid, which was very cool”.
Before COMODULE, his first job was at Metrotec, where he had the role of offering technical support to the customers. His main responsibilities were figuring out why the GPS devices were not working. “It was a very interesting first job experience, but after a while I felt there was no room to develop and started to look around for other opportunities“ said Taavi. Fun fact, since Taavi was a little bit bored and Christmas was around the corner, he decided to make these awesome lamps for his friends.
What does Taavi do at COMODULE?
“After the military, one day I saw my old schoolmate Marten Muru, who is working for COMODULE and he said they were looking for new people and after talking to the CEO - Kristjan Maruste, I was hired”.
Taavi wanted to work for COMODULE, because he was able to work in the field that he had studied and enjoyed doing. Even when working at Metrotec, on his spare time he was still improving his skills in different programming languages.
“My main responsibility is to integrate our hardware with different vehicles. In simpler terms, I make the hardware communicate with the vehicles of our clients” said Taavi. His most used integration is the Ninebot electric kick-scooter that is being used for most of the kick-scooter sharing projects and also GoVolt electric scooters.
“The favorite part of my job is making the hardware communicate with the vehicle and seeing that the code I wrote is actually working. For example, seeing the vehicle or its lights turning on and off. Seeing something you worked on working in real life is the biggest morale boost you can have” said Taavi enthusiastically.
The biggest challenge for Taavi is integrating a vehicle that has no documentation. “You have to be like a detective who has to test and hack his way to a good solution” said Taavi. Also, he sometimes goes to help out clients, whenever they are having more serious issues with integrating the vehicles. Taavi said that: “I enjoy the experience of seeing the clients first hand and my experience with teaching in the university helps a lot”.
How would you describe the experience of working at COMODULE?
“If I would have to describe COMODULE as a person, I would say it is much like our CEO - Kristjan, youthful and energetic with a hands on approach to work” said Taavi. Taavi enjoys the experience very much, mostly because he has the ability to develop and has very helpful co-workers. “Compared to a big corporation, there is almost no hierarchy, there are few restrictions and it is exciting to see the company growing” said Taavi.
In your own words, what is the mission of COMODULE?
Develop and improve electric vehicle implementation and sharing. So, there would be less congestion and also improve the experience of transportation by getting more data about your journey and your vehicle.
Favorite form of transport?
Taavi similarly to Ahto, likes the Grace e-bike, because it is insanely fast. Other than that, he likes the Ninebot electric kick-scooter and e-scooters. “You can easily get past the traffic jams and reduce the time of your commute” said Taavi.
Thoughts about the future of mobility
“I hope and think that there will be more electric vehicles overall when they have solved the initial battery issues. In addition, there will definitely be more ride sharing solutions on a global scale” said Taavi.
