Does this tech role need Finnish? Start with the actual work

“Finnish required” can shrink a candidate pool very quickly. Sometimes that requirement is essential. Sometimes it is simply inherited from how the team currently works. The only reliable way to know is to look at the job itself. For a technical role, the useful question is not “Would Finnish be nice to have?” It is: Which parts of this person’s work actually require Finnish, and at what level?

Map the moments where language matters

Take a normal month in the role and list the situations where communication matters. For example:

• customer workshops
• support or incident conversations
• technical planning
• written specifications
• internal meetings
• documentation
• communication with external partners
• informal decisions in chat or around the office

Then ask what language is used in each situation and why. A developer independently leading workshops with Finnish-speaking customers has a different language requirement from a developer working in an English-speaking engineering team where a product owner handles customer communication. The job title may be identical. The actual requirement is not.

Describe the task, not the adjective

“Fluent Finnish” and “excellent Finnish” sound precise, but they rarely tell a candidate what they will need to do. Describe the communication instead. For example:

The role includes monthly technical workshops with Finnish-speaking customers. You need to explain implementation choices, understand follow-up questions and write a short summary after the meeting.

That is much easier to understand and assess. It also allows the team to distinguish between capabilities that are required from day one and skills that could develop with support.

Check whether the working environment matches the job ad

A job advertisement can say “our working language is English” while important decisions still happen in Finnish. That creates a problem even if the role itself does not require Finnish. Review the practical environment:

• What language is used in team meetings?
• Are important decisions written down in a language everyone can access?
• Is onboarding material available?
• Can the new person get context directly from the people who hold it?
• Will one colleague become the permanent translator for the rest of the team?

If you genuinely want to hire English-speaking professionals, the environment has to support them after the contract is signed. If parts of the work still depend on Finnish and the team cannot change that, say it clearly. Accuracy is better than an international-sounding job ad that creates the wrong expectations.

Assess language in the context of the work

If Finnish is important, assess it through a realistic situation. A customer-facing role could include a short discussion about a technical trade-off. A role with written responsibilities could include a brief written follow-up. Be clear about what you are evaluating. Technical reasoning, spoken fluency and written communication are different things. Do not let one general impression stand in for all of them. The exercise should also be proportionate. Candidates should not need to produce unpaid commercial work or reveal confidential material from previous employers.

A simple example

Imagine a product team where engineering works in English, but the company’s Finnish-speaking customers regularly report issues directly to the technical team. There are at least two possible ways to design the role. In one version, a product owner receives customer questions, gathers the necessary context and brings the technical problem to engineering. The developer may not need Finnish. In another version, the developer is expected to join urgent customer calls, diagnose the issue in real time and explain the next steps directly. Finnish may now be a genuine requirement. Neither setup is automatically better. The important thing is to know which one you are hiring for.

Write a requirement you can defend

Before adding Finnish to a technical role, make sure the team can answer three questions:

1. Where will the person use Finnish?
2. What do they need to be able to do in Finnish?
3. What support exists if their Finnish is not yet perfect?

If those answers are unclear, the requirement probably needs another look. A language requirement should come from the work itself, not from habit. → Not sure whether Finnish should really be required in your tech role? Talk to Integrify. We’ll help you separate the real communication needs from assumptions and define the role accordingly.