Nokia

Got to create software that had a lot of users.

There were many very talented teams and colleagues (however, only in Nordic countries. Colleagues from the US, India, or China were not that sharp; it seems that Nokia wasn't able to hire similar talent from those countries that it was able to do in the Nordics).

Also, contractors got to attend most of the after-work activities (it isn't like this in all other companies).

Work times were human; there was working overtime, but not that often.

Nokia used a lot of contractors. In many projects, 80% of the workers could be externals. From the company's point of view, this must be expensive, but then again, I don't mind, as I was a contractor myself.

I worked on multiple projects during my many years, and one thing that was sure was that projects were cancelled at some point, even if they were successful ones. I cannot link any of my works to my CV because none of them are online anymore. (Here Maps is maybe the only product that has been running for multiple years).

Contractors were kept on a very short leash, with only 1 to 3-month contracts for years, making it very difficult to plan ahead.

Internal deadlines were pretty hard when working on embedded software. From a developer's point of view, they felt like "rushing for nothing."

Listen to the employees. Do not purchase all the companies that are for sale. Only some acquisitions have been really clever; many of them have been stupid and a waste of money.