From Coding Pirate to Fintech Developer: Meet Benjamin
Meet the team at Monthio
Expertise in data, banking knowledge, an innovative mindset, and strong development skills all play a part. But most importantly, it is the people who make the difference. Our talented team designs data models, builds intuitive applications, and helps financial clients turn data into insights. Finding the right people is never simple. It requires looking beyond conventional profiles and welcoming diverse backgrounds and perspectives.
Sometimes, however, the right match appears unexpectedly. That was the case with Benjamin Rotendahl, a full-stack developer whose early interest in coding and curiosity have shaped his important contribution to Monthio's product development today.
It Started by Accident. Quite literally.
When Benjamin joined Monthio in January 2021, he was recovering from a cycling accident that had put his studies on pause. Waiting for the next semester to begin, he decided to work as a developer at Monthio for a few months. And what began as an accidental detour became a defining career step that led him to rejoin Monthio after completing his Master's Degree in Computer Science, majoring in Data Science at the University of Copenhagen. His choice of study was not accidental, though:
"I've always known I wanted to work with something mathematical," Benjamin recalls. "Back in high school, I saw a website about a coding course and was immediately hooked. You got a new coding challenge each week, a problem to solve, and had to show how you applied what you'd learned. That structure really appealed to me."
Teaching Kids and the Logic of Code
Benjamin's fascination with logic and learning is also about sparring with and educating others. Just six months after Coding Pirates was founded in 2014, he joined the non-profit as a volunteer teacher and later board member, helping build the organization from a few enthusiasts into a national movement with several full-time staff and more than 1,000 kids learning to code each week. "It was about playing with technology," he explains. "We'd give the kids creative challenges like 'make a game' or 'build a robot'. We wanted the kids to be curious and creative, not just learn the rules of coding."
You can still see that curiosity and creativity in Benjamin's work today, where he and his team develop solutions that help banks get a clearer view of their customers' finances.
Turning Ideas into Products
Benjamin is part of Monthio's international development team, which for the past year and a half has focused on expanding Monthio's products across markets. "We're looking at what can be reused across borders and what needs to be tailored and adjusted in relation to local market needs and availability of data sources, for instance," he says.
Recently, the team has been working on enhancing Monthio's income verification product in new markets and on new products that support the Swedish mortgage process.
Benjamin appreciates the pace and collaborative setup at Monthio. "In some big companies, the oldest line of code is older than you," he laughs. "At Monthio, when I started, the oldest code was maybe two years old. There's very little technical debt, and we move quickly from idea to release."
The team also takes pride in its ability to respond quickly to new client needs. When a customer requested a particular type of verification via a new integration, the developers delivered the feature within a few sprints, roughly six weeks.
"In winner-takes-all markets, having the right data integrations is everything," Benjamin says. "The more sources we connect, the better our analysis and insights become."
Benjamin notes that the team works with modern, scalable systems - "the kind you read about at university" - and that Monthio's approach to development encourages people to take ownership and learn from each other: "Everyone contributes with ideas, and we challenge each other in a healthy way. We test before we build, and if something doesn't work, it can be fixed in less than a minute. We celebrate successes together and share failures openly. That makes the environment safe for innovation."
Sharing is Caring... and it Works!
The developer culture at Monthio is open and iterative. Weekly "show and tell" sessions give team members across backend, frontend, UX, and data the opportunity to share progress, insights, or clever solutions. "It's a great way to keep everyone inspired. You see something another team has done and think, 'I can use that too.'"
That collaborative energy is strengthened by Monthio's flat structure, where decisions are made quickly and feedback loops are short. "It's a modern environment," Benjamin says. "You don't need to wait for permission to improve something."
Rubber Ducks, Swift, and Coffee
Benjamin and his teammates tackle complex problems with a mix of structure, creativity, and testing. "We test manually first, then iterate. Personally, I like to sketch things out on paper and figure out the smallest possible version that could work, an MVP," he says.
His desk also reveals another side of his method: four small rubber ducks, gifts from colleagues, symbolizing his go-to debugging technique known as rubber duck development: Explaining a problem out loud (maybe to a rubber duck?) to clarify your own thinking.
And when he needs to focus? "Coffee and Taylor Swift," he says with a grin.
Finding Focus through Flexibility
Speaking of focus, Benjamin values the freedom to structure his day around both work and family. "I usually work from the office but leave early to pick up my kids, then log in again later. That flexibility makes everything fit together and helps me stay focused."
When asked what keeps him at Monthio, his answer sums up both the company culture and his own mindset: "What I really value is the balance between trust, challenge, and progress. You get to build meaningful products, work with talented people, and actually see the results of what you do."
When Data Models turn into Real-Life Improvements
One example of this is how Benjamin's team recently strengthened Monthio's ability to identify some specific but undisclosed payments in applicants' data. By spotting these transactions, the system can prompt users to confirm missing accounts, giving bank advisors a more complete financial picture, and can even improve the applicant's chances of approval. "Those details really matter," Benjamin says. "They make financial overviews more accurate, save advisors a lot of time, and help consumers get a clearer view of their own finances."
For Benjamin, it's the people and the pace that make a difference. "You can always learn something new here, and it's a place where we build things together that make a difference."
Thanks, Benjamin, for bringing your curiosity and clear thinking to the team.
