HMD Global hiring for the newly established Services team

The maker of new Nokia phones, Finnish startup HMD Global is searching for new members that would like to join their newly formed Services team. Thus far, HMD Global, also referred as Nokia Mobile, has mostly been focused on hardware and engineering, while services as products isn’t something the company pursued, or at least monetised as far as I am aware of.

According to HMD Global’s LinkedIn profile, the company is searching for a Product Manager and Product Developer(s).

Our newly established Services team is looking for a Product Manager to drive new connectivity service products. The Product Manager – Connectivity will be responsible for setting up, developing and operating service-based products to deliver value add for our consumers worldwide.

Our newly established Services team is looking for Product Developers to develop and operate new Service based products. Our Product Developers will be building platforms that operate services used by millions of people around the globe.

It stills remains to be seen what “services as products” will HMD offer. The requirements for Product Developer mention frontend, backend of fullstack (both of the previous two) programming experience, as well as knowledge of Microsoft’s Azure platform. From frontend tech, familiarity with Android Studio, Java, Flutter and the Android development landscape is a requirement. These are standard requirement for developing apps in the Android ecosystem, which makes sense considering all Nokia smartphones are Android based.

Apart from hiring for the Services team, HMD Global is looking for a Global Communication Manager, as well as Community and Engagement Manager. The Services team and Community Manager positions are based in Finland, while the Global Communication Manager will be based in London. There is also an open job post for a Senior RF Technology Specialist based in China.

The Services team is something that excites me because today services are becoming more important than hardware in general in my opinion, and every hardware maker needs some services strategy as well. Maybe the value we get with the hardware isn’t enough anymore for mobile vendors and the next battlefield won’t be camera tech, but services and software?

Nokia also recognised that and invested a lot of money in developing navigation and music services. Company HERE is something that was born after Nokia acquisition of NAVTEQ in 2007 and a lot of us remember MixRadio and attractive audio-centered accessories like headphones and speakers.

Anyways, time will tell how the new Services team will impact HMD’s business and what value will it bring to users of Nokia phones.