Motivation and ambition
More than 25 years ago I began to embody my interest in object oriented software development by learning Java. Since then I worked on many projects in the Java Enterprise field. My main expertise is business modelling and software architecture. In that, I am used to cooperate closely with domain specialists of a client, making sure that design and implementation respect the overall enterprise architecture of the company involved. As a teamlead I like to give direction to the elaboration of the design and the programming. Important in this process are the application of design patterns, doing code reviews and refactoring from time to time. They often come with a testdriven approach and the practices of continuous integration and deployment, with which I am familiar. It goes without saying that an agile method like Scrum is used to direct the software development process.
Education and certification
- Apr 2008: Course Websphere Process Server / Websphere Integration Developer
- Oct 2005: Certification as IBM Certified Solution Developer Websphere Portal 5.1.
- Dec 2003: Certification as SUN Certified J2EE Architect.
- Sep 1983 - Sep 1984: 2nd year of study informatics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
- Sep 1983: Graduation in mathematics as a principle subject, informatics as a subsidiary subject, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht.
Technical knowledge
- Modelling: Unified Modelling Language (UML), Model Driven Architecture (MDA), DDD, design patterns
- Frameworks & tools: JEE, Springframework, Hibernate, webservices, Laravel, Vue JS, React JS, Docker
- Programming languages: Java, Delphi, C++, PHP
- Front-End: HTML, CSS3, Javascript
- Application servers: Tomcat, JBoss, Websphere, Weblogic
- Portal servers: Liferay Portal, Websphere Portal
- Databases: Oracle, MySql, MS SQL Server
- Operating systems: Windows, Linux, Ubuntu
- Cloud: Amazon AWS, Red Hat OpenShift, OKD
Employment history
Zebrashop
- Oct 2021 - now. The product suite XMAPS (see Crossmedia Automated Publishing System) has a portal interface, which is completely generated from the backend. As a proof-of-concept I develop an alternative front-end in Vue JS.
- Jan 2021 - May 2021. As a software architect I was involved in consultancy for Trinity Software in Ghana. For web development they mainly use the Laravel framework for PHP together with Vue or React as Javascript frameworks.
- Mar 2020. As a teacher I trained a group of students in software engineering for the Maxim Nyansa Foundation in Ghana.
- 2020. Earlier mentioned GhanaDriver was rewritten in Laravel (sources on GitHub).
Finalist
- Mar 2018 - Jan 2021. As a Java software engineer I worked on various Liferay projects in the fields of education and health care. Moreover, I contributed to a new dossier system for youth health care, which Finalist is implementing for GGD Hollands Noorden and aims to productize for other health care institutions.
GhanaWeb
- Jun 2014 - Feb 2018. GhanaWeb operates ghanaweb.com, the leading news portal of Ghana. From its early days on, almost two decades ago, it has played a role in promoting freedom of speech and giving a fair representation of the country to the world and vice versa. Since may 2014 camerounweb.com is live, which has similar ambitions. In summer 2017 we ran GhanaWeb on Amazon AWS during a few months. My role was diverse, doing web operations and maintenance of infrastructure as well as architecture and design of new functionality using the Laravel framework for PHP.
Wolters Kluwer
- Jul 2011 - May 2014. Kluwer has a number of sites running on Liferay, most notably the Kluwer main site. During 2012 we (re)created 3 important community news portals: Plein+, Taxlive and AMWeb. My job was to define and maintain architecture- and development-standards, perform proofs of concept, promote reuse of components.
Zebrashop
- Jan 2017 - May 2017 and Jun 2018. In Suriname I taught the following ICT courses for Hogeschool Janssen & Partners:
- HTML 5 & CSS 3
- Agile development with Scrum
- Programming with Java
- Oct 2010 - Feb 2011. Projects for ExplainerDC, Ghana. Take a look at my Ghana Blog (NL).
- Apr 2010 - Jun 2011. Based on Liferay Portal I created GhanaDriver, which supplies information and testfacilities regarding road signs, traffic rules and regulations, meant for all who prepare themselves for their drivers license in Ghana. A bilingual www.cameroondriver.com has been alive until 2019.
- 1995 - 2010. The Zebra Verkeerstheorie for Rijbewijs B and Bromfietsrijbewijs sites (see also portal www.rijexamen.com) were web applications supporting people in their study for their driver's license. Versions for British Petrol were also made, the latest in summer 2004. The application uses Stxx (XML/XSL version of Struts) as its presentation framework and a custom persistence layer on top of the MySql database. Production runs on Tomcat/Linux. Niceware produced the content, I designed and programmed the application. CD-rom versions of the Zebra products are also available in retails stores.
NUON
- Oct 2009 - Oct 2010. The International Quoting Engine (IQE) is an expert system supplying quotes for power (electricity) products. During the past year this system was enhanced to be able to do pricing for gas products as well. My role was to develop special components for temperature-dependent remapping of dates and for imbalance calculation.
iProfs / Pijlhove ICT
- Mar 2009 - Jul 2009. At iProfs we continued the projects we started earlier at Pijlhove ICT. They were small-scale projects mainly serving the healthcare branch, but also projects for human resourcing. This was done with Liferay Portal and the open source product Tolven. In my role as a software architect I was involved in application infrastructure with an emphasis on security components.
- Jul 2008 - Feb 2009. Pijlhove ICT was a small company offering portal solutions based on Liferay Portal. Projects usually involved configuring and branding a portal, possibly adding components (portlets) from our own library. My role was software architect (see iProfs). In march 2009 Pijlhove ICT was bought by iProfs.
InterAccess
- Sep 2006 - Jun 2008. At the TNO Information Office the leads, prospects and potential projects are maintained in a custom built system, while project administration is done in SAP. The developed Digital Project Form (DPF) application bridges the two systems and enforces a standard in the work processes involved. I was responsable for the DPF design and fullfilled the role of teamlead. The RUP methodology was used. Implementation was done using Struts, Hibernate, Oracle.
- Jan 2007 - Jun 2008. For the Java/Websphere area within the IBM Solutions department of InterAccess I was "knowledge coordinator", charged with the organisation of presentations, the interviewing of candidate employees and the coaching of junior developers.
- Jul 2006 - Sep 2006. For a group of junior Java developers I gave an internal training course. The goal was to assist them in preparing their SUN certification.
- Mar 2005 - Aug 2006. The Transaction Services Fulfilment department of ABN AMRO used a workflow product of Staffware (now Tibco) for it's backoffice processing. It supported in creating new dispatch processes in a quick and flexible way. Many of these processes required interaction with back-end enterprise systems, like checking a customer account. I designed and implemented middleware for this purpose based on J2EE standards, i.e. EJB's and webservices.
- Dec 2004 - Feb 2005. "Knowledganizer" was a stand-alone application for knowledge management, developed by TNO. My task was to make it suitable for the TNO intranet and consequently test and deploy it on the intranet and write documentation for it.
- Oct 2004 - Nov 2004. At the time InterAccess was working on a set of development tools to facilitate continuous integration, a now widely used development style (see Martin Fowler). This set was called crIAte J2EE and was based on IBM Rational products. I drew up use case models and class models to test crIAte.
Electronic Data Systems (EDS)
[note: this employment was a compulsary consequence of ABN AMRO's outsourcing contract with EDS]- Apr 2003 - Sep 2004. The Online Payment System was a rewrite of an earlier, badly designed application. Its purpose was Internet banking for wholesale clients. Development was test-driven, nightly builds were run and Open Source components used (Ant, JUnit, Struts). In my role in the project the emphasis was on the application of the OS components with which there was not much experience within the bank at the time.
ABN AMRO Bank
- Sep 2002 - Mar 2003. The CAB (Customer Activity and Billing) application was a central intranet application used by ABN AMRO branches abroad. It covered billing as well as transaction reporting. Most of the billing rules were kept in an Oracle database. The foreign branches had local AS400 systems delivering data to the central system through MQ. My role was to deploy the application and enforce standardisation of development and change control. Part of that was migration from Windows NT to HP/UX, both running IBM Websphere. Later, I was responsable for the development of the Java/JSP web front-end and co-responsable for MQ connectivity. Moreover, I was source control manager (ClearCase was used).
- May 2001 - Aug 2002. In the WeLPT (Web-Enabled Loan Pricing Tool) project an intranet application to calculate loan-risks in different possible scenarios had to be developped. It started with a business analysis report and an already rolled out MS-Access application covering most calculation rules. I laid out the application architecture, developed UML models (with Select OMT) and deployed the application in Websphere. The application itself was built by AAGITS, a former ABN AMRO daughter in Pakistan.
- Apr 1999 - Apr 2001. The REX (Research Extranet) project was a rich experience in terms of application architecture and the many Java areas it touched. The REX application maintained a library of business-research reports, updated real-time by analysts and available to customers world-wide, by subscription or via searching. It was developed for Investment Banking. My role was senior programmer and later IT-designer.
- Feb 1998 - Mar 1999. The SITE (Secure Internet Trading SystEm) application was built for Investment Banking to process FX-transactions in a highly secure way. I have been programming on both the front- and back-end. In the front-end we used a signed applet to communicate over SSL. In the back-end we deployed the java classes onto one of the first applcation servers at the time, Kiva, not yet J2EE-compliant of course. The application server connected to a database and extract rates from a real-time feed.
The Database Approach (now part of PBT Group South Africa)
- 1997. TJS (Traffic Journalling System) for Telkom South-Africa encompassed the collection of traffic-information about network-calls as well as consolidating this information in an Oracle database, to be used for invoicing. In the six months I worked in Cape Town I designed and built the system's front-end with Delphi.
ING Bank
- 1985 - 1997. 1985 - 1997. My work as an analyst/programmer began in On Line Transaction Processing on Tandem computers. Later I developped client-server applications with PowerBuilder and Delphi. During the last year at ING my role shifted towards functional design.
Cap Gemini
- 1984 - 1985. COBOL programmering on BULL DPS 7.
Other activities
For those who would like to venture into real jungle in Central Africa, a look at my jungle expeditions site is worthwhile:
