Information security only keeps gaining importance. Here are 10 of the best cybersecurity experts in the Netherlands to follow on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Certainly, information security only keeps gaining importance as more and more business-critical processes move to the cloud and hackers get more sophisticated. For this reason, you should stay up-to-date with best practices, top threats and emerging trends. That is why we at Mindquest suggest you 10 of the best cybersecurity experts in the Netherlands to follow on LinkedIn and Twitter.
10 of the Best Cybersecurity Experts in the Netherlands to Follow Online
Cybersecurity has become crucial in recent times, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. As more and more companies had to implement their own virtual work environment, the need for cybersecurity experts grew exponentially. At Mindquest, as IT talents experts, we know the importance of getting the right contact to stay up-to-date and always match the top candidate for the best IT positions.
Therefore, take note of the 10 best Cybersecurity experts in Netherland to follow online.
Also, Sanne has recently joined Mandiant, now a part of Google Cloud, as a Senior Analyst. In this role, Sanne brings her expertise in cybersecurity to the forefront, contributing to Mandiant’s mission of providing cutting-edge security solutions.
Astrid is currently serving as the Corporate Social Responsibility Officer at ESET Nederland. In this role, she focuses on measuring the impact of the organization’s activities on society and the environment, promoting transparency and ethical behavior to contribute to sustainable development.
Floor is a senior privacy advisor at data protection services Privacy Company He also specialises in high-impact projects combining technological and organisational solutions.
Joost is a tech editor at Dutch news organisation NOS. He writes about security and privacy issues and also reports on the country’s latest cybersecurity news.
Marjolijn is deputy director at ECP, a public-private platform for the development of the information society. She is also the winner of Women in Cyber Security (WiCS)’s 2016 Woman of the Year Award.
So, Lodewijk is a senior public prosecutor at the Dutch Public Prosecution Service specialising in combating cybercrime. He is also part of the supervisory board at the DIVD.
Then, Anna is a privacy law expert at firm Allen & Overy, where she focuses on European Union regulations around ICT & Telecom, data protection and cybersecurity.
Last but not least, Rickey works as Incident Responder at Responders.NU. Founded with the mission to elevate Incident Response to new heights, the company breaks away from traditional approaches to deliver unparalleled expertise and service.
What is the role of the AngularJs developer? Discover in this job description his missions, his skills, his training or his salary.
Use our template to create a compelling and comprehensive AngularJS Developer job description to attract top talent.
With the appearance of new frameworks, the professions around web development are more and more specific and a large number of professionals specialize in a particular technology. Among the different possible specializations is the front-end developer AngularJS.
AngularJJ is one of the JavaScript frameworks. It is a free and open-source framework created by Google in 2009 and is used for the development and creation of web applications. It is a complete, solid and homogeneous framework that is one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks, being used all over the world by many companies.
But what is the role of the AngularJS developer? Discover in this job description their missions, skills, training and salary.
Interested in exploring more roles within tech? Take a look at the role of the C/C++ Developer
The profession of the AngularJS developer
Professionals choosing to become web developers have the possibility of focusing on Front-End Back-End or Full-stack development; in a particular programming language or in the use of a specific framework in order to become an expert.
The profession of AngularJS developer is part of front-end development. That is everything related to the design of the user experience of a web page or application.
The AngularJS developer is a specialist in the JavaScript “event programming” language and in particular its AngularJS framework. This is one of the rarest professionals in the field of front-end development.
The AngularJS developer works with JavaScript, but their work doesn’t end with just playing around with this programming language. They are in charge of all types of front-end web development. With their main role being the creation of a Single Page Application (SPA) linked to a RESTful API. They also bring their mastery in the validation of communications between the Front AngularJS application and the RESTful API.
Required Skills
Expertise in the ecosystem
The AngularJS developer is an expert in the AngularJS framework, so they must, of course, know and fully understand all of the specific components of the framework. But that’s not all. This professional must master front-end development and have a perfect knowledge of the JavaScript event programming language. But also mastery of the HTML and CSS languages.
In order to carry out their missions, it is important that these developers have knowledge of Bootstrap and know how to manage interactions with third-party systems via APIs (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Maps, etc.).
In addition, if they have in-depth knowledge of Agile best practices and are able to offer an effective development methodology, their market value will only be greater.
Curiosity and passion
Because of their job, the AngularJS Developer must be passionate about new technologies. They must enjoy logic and have a sense of design. It is important that they are curious and enjoys learning and discovering new things continuously., as technologies such as front-end frameworks, tools and best practices evolve very quickly and constantly. It is therefore essential to be curious, to constantly be on the lookout for information and stay informed about the latest releases and updates so as not to fall behind or be overwhelmed.
Salary
The salary varies greatly depending on the company, region and level of experience. The salary of a junior AngularJS Developer typically starts around €35,000 annually. However, based on experience, this salary can very quickly increase up to €75,000 per year. On the freelance side, the average daily rates vary between 300 and 600 euros.
AngularJS Developer in training
There are several ways to become an AngularJS developer. This professional can pursue a university degree specializing in computer science and then complete a master’s degree in IT. They can also go to engineering school, specialising in computer science and in this framework via online training.
The first part of our interview with Olena Drugalya, a Berlin-based, self-taught front-end developer who just recently managed to go from being a stay-at-home mom to a full-time dev. Born in Ukraine and having lived and worked across Europe, Olena discusses her transition into tech, the barriers she encountered along the way and how other women can overcome them.
Interview with Olena Drugalya: Congrats on your new job! You made it. How did you go from stay-at-home mom to full-time developer?
Thank you! My transition into tech was a long and winding road of failure, hard work and, eventually, success. So, let’s start from the beginning.
I graduated in linguistics and law, but I never worked as a lawyer. Fresh out of university, I found a job at a trading company as a translator, as there was a huge demand for speakers of foreign languages at that time in Ukraine. I worked in the company for 10 years and was promoted a couple of times, ultimately becoming an executive manager.
What happened then?
Then I met my husband and we got married. We moved to another town, and I worked remotely for some time, but it didn’t go too well because my daughter was born, and I didn’t take maternity leave. Not long after that, I was already burned out from the job, from having a baby, from the move. So, I quit my job.
But, after some time, my daughter had grown older, and I started to think about what I would like to do next in my life, my career possibilities, etc.
My husband is a software developer, so he suggested that maybe I could find a development job in our city. There was a coding academy that offered a course on software development on the weekends, so that worked for me as my husband could watch my daughter during the weekends. I learned there for two years and graduated as a .NET developer. After that I graduated, I participated in several projects. I even built an online game and actually got some money for it. So, I was like, OK, I can do it.
And
then…
Then I decided to try to get a job at a company, not just freelancing. But at that time, in Ukraine, it was very difficult for a woman to enter the tech world if she didn’t have a computer science degree. So, I had a couple of interviews, and that was a failure. A total disaster.
So, after a range of failed interviews that got me discouraged, I decided that tech was not for me. I always thought that, for being a developer, you needed a special mindset, and that I just didn’t have it. And everyone around me seemed to think the same, except, of course, for my husband. But I was too unmotivated and frustrated. So, I stopped. I decided it was not for me, that I would try something else.
Women in tech
We moved to Denmark, where I got a job as an office manager. I was quite happy with the job, since we had just moved in, and I could learn Danish and do something useful instead just sitting at home. But while working there, I realised that, in western Europe, the situation with women in tech is totally different. In fact, tech companies encourage and offer women enormous possibilities in the tech industry. That made me think about tech again, and I decided to give it another shot. This time I started with web development and that’s what I’m doing right now. We moved to Berlin, and I recently got a job as a junior software developer at IT services provider Novatec. And I love it.
You
mentioned how hard the interview process was at times. What would you say to
people who are going through failed interview after failed interview? How can
they keep their spirits up?
Above all, that you just must keep going no matter what. If you really want this job, if you really want to work in tech or in any other industry, you just need to learn from your failures and just move on and try again. Failing at an interview doesn’t mean that you are not good in what you are doing. Sometimes there is just a better candidate, or the company has a different profile in mind. It often just means it’s not the right time or the right company for you because they are looking for something else.
Do
you think your background in humanities has helped you in tech?
Absolutely.
Knowing a lot of languages, for example, has helped me a lot. Speaking English
is a big plus in this industry, and I can speak German too. There are a lot of
wonderful developers out there who are missing out on great opportunities
because they don’t know languages. All technology now is made in English. Plus,
if you know how to learn a language, you know how to quickly learn new
structures and words. You can directly apply that to learning a programming language.
You learn the grammar, the syntax. The same goes for fluency. In order to get
fluent, you just need to write code often. You just need to treat programming
just like any other language.
How
do you combine your job, learning and raising kids, especially during lockdown?
You need to have a daily routine. Otherwise, you will always feel like you don’t have enough time. I was lucky to have the help of my husband. When my son was little, I usually studied for two hours after he went to bed.
That was, of course, tiresome, because usually you don’t feel fresh anymore in the evenings. But I had no other choice. But the first lockdown actually helped me a lot with goals, as my husband started to work from home, and we shared the time with the kids. From morning until noon, he was with the kids, and I was with the kids from noon until the evening. I had my two or three hours to myself every day, and that was fantastic. Then I jumped right away into the 100 days of code challenge. I made a habit of coding every day for at least one hour. And I have been doing it every single day since. So, yes, the daily routine is very important.
You
are very active in the dev community, sharing development tips and your journey
into tech. Why do you enjoy blogging, how has it helped you?
I started my blog when I started my studies as a web developer. First, I wanted people just to know my story about being a stay-at-home mom and learning web development. I was hopeful it could encourage other women like me who were afraid of transitioning into tech. But as I proceeded with the study, I started to write posts about topics I was learning at the time.
I thought that many blog posts or YouTube videos out there were not really that beginner-friendly, often being written in a rather complicated language. So, I decided to try to write down these difficult concepts just in a simple language, just for myself. If you manage to understand something by writing about it, you actually learn it more deeply. Then I saw others were struggling with the same problems and decided to share these materials with the broader community.
I encourage everyone to start writing the blog. It’s one of the best ways to learn by yourself because you need to research something and then you have to explain what it is and what it does, and how you can use it. It’s also a great way of holding yourself accountable and make sure you keep progressing towards your goals.
Mindquest is now a member of APSCo, a British association which promotes the values of innovation and excellence in the field of recruitment.
We are pleased to announce that Mindquest is a member of APSCo, a British association which promotes the values of innovation and excellence in the field of recruitment. This membership, subject to numerous eligibility criteria, highlights the professionalism and quality of our services and is fully in line with our internationalisation goals.
APSCo (Association of Professional Staffing Companies) is a British association that brings together the most successful players in the professional recruitment industry and defends the values of excellence of our profession.
Founded in 1999, the association has rapidly grown to become an authority for the professional recruitment industry, representing a wide range of organisations and trusted partners.
The APSCo accreditation is thus recognized by candidates and employers as a differentiating quality mark in the acquisition of professional talent.
Why did Mindquest join APSCo?
A pledge of seriousness and quality
Mindquest is now a member of APSCo. The APSCo membership gives Mindquest an internationally recognisable quality and reliability stamp; that acts as a real differentiator in the recruitment space.
This is recognition of the great added value that our services bring to both our clients and candidates. But also the high levels of satisfaction these have with our work.
Access to a wide range of resources
APSCo is also a large platform for discussions and exchanges; that brings together the best players in the sector around a common goal. To innovate in our job as recruiters and constantly improve our service.
The association also offers a whole range of quality services and gives our teams access to numerous resources and market studies. In order to better understand developments in the world of recruitment for the benefit of our clients and candidates.
One more step towards the international
Joining APSCo strengthens our presence in the UK market. Where Mindquest and its parent company Club Freelance have been established since inception.
This membership is fully in line with our international development ambitions. And gives us access to a multitude of resources to strengthen our European presence through the Mindquest brand.
The freelancisation of tech roles: how teleworking and the war for talent in IT are pushing for more flexible working conditions for employees.
The ‘freelancisation’ of tech roles. How the spectacular democratisation of teleworking and the war for talent that is raging in the technology sector are pushing companies to offer ever more flexible working conditions to their employees.
Freelancisation of Tech Roles: Teleworking and flexible working hours as the new standard
Long before the global pandemic, remote work and flexible working hours were already major trends in the creation of the world of work of tomorrow. But the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of these ways of working. For a large majority of employees on permanent contracts, in all sectors. No more traditional working days at the office from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a break by the coffee machine, etc.
And this is obviously to accommodate their demands. According to a study conducted by Malakoff Humanis in June 2020, 84% of employees wanted to request telework after confinement.
On the business side, the flexibility of work also seems to convince. According to a recent study by Capgemini, employee productivity increased by 63% in the third quarter of 2020. Better still; 70% of companies seem convinced that the productivity gains generated by teleworking can be sustained once the pandemic over.
The employees of tomorrow will see their daily working lives marked by an increasingly flexible framework similar to that of freelancing.
The IT talent war and the “freelancisation” Tech Roles & of job vacancies
In the world of tech and IT, another phenomenon reinforces this tendency towards flexibility: the talent shortage.
Companies are struggling to recruit technical profiles and are engaged in a fierce battle to attract the best candidates. As a result, they are sometimes ready to bend over backwards to meet the requirements of the most popular professionals. And that includes offering more flexible conditions to candidates.
To recruit the best developers on a permanent contract; for example, some companies are ready to offer them full remote control and total flexibility in their working hours. This is attracting profiles who were already partial to freelancing.
“Freelancisation” or simple flexibilisation?
So yes, in the world of tech and IT, the trend is undoubtedly to make working conditions more flexible. But to speak of a “freelancisation” of tech roles would amount to reducing the status of freelance to remote work and flexible hours.
To work independently is to have an entrepreneurial mindset. It is to wear several hats including that of accountant and that of commercial, it is to alternate periods of mission and periods of inactivity… In short, a very different reality to that of a permanent position even with very flexible conditions.
It should be noted that the opposite phenomenon also occurs: freelance work sometimes takes some resemblance of a permanent gig. This is particularly the case of very long-term assignments under management. Working for example on large-scale SAP projects over several years.
Tech and IT: the classic permanent contract has not said its last word
But speaking of a widespread flexibilisation of jobs in the worlds of technology and IT would be wrong. The reality is in fact more nuanced.
Not all professions are suitable for teleworking, and flexibility generates many points of friction within organizations. The cohesion of the teams is weakened by the distance. Management methods are struggling to adapt.
Most IT departments are not ready to perpetuate the flexibility of working conditions across all workstations. And even less to abandon the traditional model of face-to-face work and fixed hours.
On the employee side, we find a bit of the same. Telework yes, but not too much. According to a survey conducted by Apec in mid-December, if the vast majority of private sector executives now want to telecommute. Nearly half want to use it only “two to three days a week”. In fact, not all employees enjoy teleworking, and some even dream of one thing: being able to return to the office.
Additionally, the freelancisation of tech roles is rather relative: salaried employment as we know it still has a bright future ahead, and the “traditional” permanent contract is not about to disappear. However, it is obvious that the worlds of classic salaried employment and the freelancing model are increasingly coming close to one another. Businesses and workers alike want the best of both worlds now more than ever.
In tech and IT more than in any other sector, we are now juggling the two statuses. The silos between freelance and permanent contract are gradually disappearing, offering ever greater flexibility and possibilities to both professionals and organisations.
The second part of our interview with Microsoft cloud solution architect Wesley Backelant, in which he talked about his role, what the job entails and what’s ahead for the cloud industry.
A Microsoft insider, Wesley Backelant is a Belgian cloud solutions architect who works together with the company’s customers to engineer and deploy impactful data and advanced analytics projects. Among other things, Wesley is an expert on the various components of the Azure AI platform. He is also a frequent speaker at numerous community events and regularly shares Azure news and tips.
Interview with Wesley Backelant: What part of being a cloud architect at Microsoft do you enjoy the most?
There are a couple of aspects that make it very interesting to me, personally. One of them, and that’s probably one of the benefits of being at a company like Microsoft, is leading the space in terms of innovation and cloud. You are at the forefront of technology, and that’s what I like. I like new stuff. Every time I get to learn something new, I see it as an incredible challenge, and I really love doing these things and getting my hands on new stuff and new technologies. That’s what drives me from a technological standpoint.
But the other thing that I really like about being in the data and BI space is that it puts you in a position where you are not just talking about technology, you’re also talking about business and societal outcome. One of our customers, for example, is in the public transportation space, and the fun part there is that, when you do something that’s innovative with them, you know that it´s going to have an impact on people and that it’s going to improve the experience of a hundred thousand or millions of people. To me, that’s one of the more rewarding parts of my job. Seeing a project succeed is fun, but seeing it drive real impact is the real deal.
At the technical level, what do you love most doing as part of your job?
Making it all work together. Azure is a continuously evolving platform. New things pop up all the time. Figuring out where all those things fit together and how you can make things more efficient and cost-effective is one of the role’s key drivers and, honestly, quite fun. Matching what we deliver as a technology to something that can actually provide value to the customer by leveraging existing building blocks.
Also, coding is not so much part of my job officially, but it’s still something I love to do, because it’s quite tangible. You get to see the result pretty immediately, and that’s a lot of fun.
I would be obliged to say Azure
SQL Database is my favourite tool, as SQL is my old love, but that wouldn’t be
entirely fair, especially, if you look at what we’re doing today with open
source. I’d like to split my answer between cloud and open source.
Containers and Kubernetes are
clearly changing the way people are building software these days. I talk a lot
with start-ups and partners, and pretty much all of them are building stuff
based on containers and mostly Kubernetes as an orchestrator. It’s impressive
to see what the impact of these tools has been in the relatively little time
that they’ve been around for. We are also seeing them as a big foundation for our
own services.
Then there’s open source. For example, something people sometimes forgets is that, whenever you have a service that has to run in production, you need proper monitoring and alerting. It’s not the most fun part of building a solution, but it’s one of the most crucial steps when you want to do something seriously. We have Azure Monitor, which is a great tool that I strongly recommend, but at the same time, I’m a huge fan of open-source solutions like Prometheus and Grafana. Luckily, they have integrations with Azure Monitor, so that makes them even more interesting. What amazes me of the open-source world is the community, and the power of the community, how the community sets the direction in a lot of ways. Even the big players follow the direction set by the community. That’s quite nice to see.
As a data expert, what’s the biggest issue you are seeing with data these days?
I think we all know the challenges from a more technical point of view, so data quality, governance, etc, to me things that between quotes we can easily solve with technology. But one of the biggest challenges I see with customers is being more data-driven. It sounds like a marketing term, but it really is not.
I really believe most companies are aware there’s a lot of value in the data they have, in applying machine learning or even good reporting. But getting into thinking what’s the difference I can make with this data, and do I have the proper environment and organisation in place to really benefit from it? That’s where I still see a lot of companies struggle. If I were a c-level person, that’s probably the question I would ask myself – are we organised to benefit from all the data and what it can bring to our company? Becoming data-driven is more than just saying you are data-driven. It also means having a proper organisational structure in place together with technology and tools.
Interview with microsoft Wesley Backelant: What’s next for cloud?
One of the things is that I still
see too much of is that there’s still a strong focus on infrastructure. I still
see a lot of IT departments that can tell you what server or specific IP
address is hosting an application or service.
Things can change, the infrastructure can scale in or out. It shouldn’t matter to you. I really believe that infrastructure part is one of the things will see disappearing over time. One of the best things about cloud is agility, and when people start really to adopt the whole serverless idea, and also DevOps as a philosophy, that’s the point where we’ll really see the whole power of cloud.
Secondly, at Microsoft we strongly believe in the intelligent cloud and edge. Bringing some part of that computing power, or at least how it works closer to where the data is, is definitely also an area where there is a lot of innovation happening these days. The big challenge is, obviously, making it all work seamlessly together. We are definitely doing progress there. But I still think there’s going to be a lot of new developments in this area still. And, thirdly, there is the abstraction of where things are running. If you look at tools like Azure Arc, basically, Kubernetes is having a big impact on that whole story. Being able to host your solutions be it on the public cloud, your own cloud or multiple clouds and having it all seamlessly work together from an operational standpoint and management point of view – that’s also where cloud is going.
Discover the missions, skills, training and salary of the VoIP Engineer in our job description with Mission Control Center by Mindquest
Use our template to create a compelling and comprehensive VoIP Engineer job description to attract top talent.
Discover the missions, skills, training and salary of the VoIP Engineer in our job description.
VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) is a technology that allows voice to be transmitted over IP compatible networks. For example, this is the technology used by the Skype communication service or which enables millions of people to make calls through Whatsapp every day.
VoIP, therefore, represents an alternative to traditional telephony and has many advantages; which is why more and more companies are turning to this technology. Consequently, the role of a VoIP Engineer is to manage its deployment within the organisation.
At the cutting edge of network technology, the VoIP Engineer’s main role is, thus, to manage voice calls over wired or non-wired IP networks, private or public, and over the Internet.
Inventory and analysis
The first mission of is to make an inventory followed by an analysis of the network already existing within the organization. To then present an analysis of the impact of integrating new networks that will allow data convergence and voice gateways.
Configuration and optimisation
The second part of the job is to start configuring and optimizing VoIP. In order to enable call centers, conference rooms and other mobility issues.
Monitoring and troubleshooting VoIP network gateways
The VoIP Engineer operates a permanent monitoring of the voice over IP network gateways in order to intervene on any breakdowns or malfunctions. To ensure the quality and safety of the network, rigorous monitoring and regular audits are very important parts of its function.
Technical knowledge specific to VoIP telecom support
For the VoIP Engineers to successfully complete the project; it is essential to be familiar with SIP protocol and codecs. They must also have a good knowledge of SIP environments (Proxu / Registrar / SBC); operators (Centrex / Trunk); Patton footbridge; BroadWorks and FreeSwitch, in addition to production tools.
Rigour and organization
Faced with the complexity of this function, the position requires rigour and exemplary organization in the application of protocols. Within a company, VoIP deployment is also an important project which requires a perfectly controlled configuration.
Curiosity and a talent for teaching
Moreover, the VoIP Engineers must systematically be at the forefront of their profession to follow the most recent developments and apply them to his projects. They must also be teachers with the rest of the teams because of the technical nature of their work.
Salary for a VoIP Engineer
The average daily rate for a VoIP Engineer is generally between €500 and €1,000.
Training
Becoming a VoIP Engineer usually requires getting a university degree in the field of networks and telecommunications with a specialisation in information systems security and network architecture.
Are you looking for IT mission opportunities in the Tech and IT sectors on a freelance or permanent basis? Mindquest can help you find your next IT mission opportunity. Find your next mission by browsing our freelance and permanent vacancies available on our digital recruitment platform.
Follow the story of Edna's Garden. An 8-year-old girl with a passion for nature will turn the world upside down with her data experiments. By Horizon 2050.
Edna’s Garden: An 8-year-old girl with a passion for nature will turn the world upside down with her data experiments
The American elms extended their branches across the fence that separated them from Central Park West. Edna thought it was as if they were trying to escape the park’s enclosure and reach the American Museum of Natural History across the street.
“Life seeks like,” she whispered almost inadvertently.
“Pardon me?” Peter was walking right behind Edna with her school bag. In normal circumstances, Edna would have carried it herself, but she was beyond tired of not doing anything at all. Funny how one can be exhausted from a total lack of activity.
“Nothing, sorry. Just thinking of how many things these caged trees and I have in common.” Her sigh coincided with Peter’s.
“Not to say that I agree with the measures taken, young lady, but it must be said that this time you took the antagonising of your stepmother to a whole new level.” Peter could not hide a smile.
Edna smiled briefly as well, but her mind quickly went back to mourning her long-lost freedom. Two weeks of monotony and boredom had gone by since the incident at Bianca’s art party. Edna’s promising live data model of the pond had sucked up all the power from the building in what had turned out to be a textbook example of “don’t bite more than you can chew.” The party’s guests left when it became clear that the power was not coming back any time soon, leaving Edna at the mercy of her infuriated stepmother. Her dad would have plenty to say about this, Bianca had assured her.
But, not surprisingly, Edna’s had not showed up until later that night. His business commitment had taken longer than expected. So, Bianca had had to impart discipline herself, coming up with an inventive solution to which the tired father had had no option but to agree. End result: no park for a month. No playing in the park, no walking through the park, not even speaking of the park. No park at all.
Even though Edna had only endured half of her sentence, the realisation that there was a whole other half still left to endure was almost too much to bear. She could almost hear Bianca’s squeaky voice: always so dramatic, Edna.
Peter and Edna got to Columbus Circle right when it started raining. Just one last stretch and they would be home. Again.
“Who’s that?”
“Ed, get off of me! I’m trying to talk to people.”
“You are just scrolling down your feed.”
Edna loved bothering her sister when she was bored. And she had had plenty of that in the two weeks she had so far been grounded for. Her sister was flipping through her social channels on her wristband, just gossiping around. Edna was proud for not being on those things. If you wanted to talk to someone, she thought, you could do it in person. Best to focus on the real, tangible world when not accompanied. People just don’t know how to be by themselves.
“Go play with your things.”
“I would if she hadn’t locked up my computer. in the safe. I hate her, and I hate being stuck at home.”
“She’s not that bad, you know. You can tell she’s trying, just cut her some slack.”
“I am not into cutting slack, or whatever that is, thanks.”
Her sister laughed.
“Plus I am missing out on so much data! Last week was peak migration season for the ducks at The Pond. I need that data to make my model work. How many birds, how many younglings, the food they eat, how that will affect the vegetation… It’s too complex to go around with a half-cocked data set.”
“You are a funny little nerd, aren’t you. No worries, siss. I have an idea.”
Edna’s eyes lit up with the energy of a thousand suns.
Whether it is on Twitter or GitHub, here are 10 of the best developers in Germany you should be following across the world wide web.
Whether you are a developer living in Germany or you would simply like to know what the German dev community is up to — Here are 10 of the best developers in Germany you should be following across the world wide web.
Discover 10 of the Best Developers in Germany to Follow Online
As the IT environment is constantly evolving, it is crucial, if not necessary, to connect with the brightest minds to keep up with innovation. In other words, the more contacts you get, the more likely you are to solve IT challenges. Therefore, we at Mindquest are pleased to provide you with a list of the best IT talents to follow.
Let’s start with a co-founder and digital product development lead at Foundsiders, Ilona. She is a coder and derivatives trader who helps developers become investors with financial tips and software tools.
Then, Amber Fronted Web Developer at Ableton, a German music software company. Former front-end engineer at financial services firm N26. This web dev is an avid blogger and serves as an organiser and coach at codebar Berlin, a series of workshops bridging the tech diversity gap.
A senior Fronted Developer at acb.studio, Stefan is an expert front-end developer who loves sharing his expertise in web development. He also helps maintain Tiny helpers and Random MDN.
Aaron is a creative developer specialising in UI and front-end development. He is currently busy working on several projects, including Done, Check and Shorticons.
Nikita then is a software developer at JetBrains an open source contributor focusing on PHP, LLVM and Rust. If you are looking for PHP tips, you can’t miss this dev.
An iOS developer at Volkswagen’s CARIAD and former SAP senior developer, Denise is always sharing Swift development tips and her adventures in software development.
Lara is a senior Android developer and Google Developer Expert working at Blinkist. She shares Flutter and Dart tips and talks about developer life on Sketchnoting and at the CodeCafeteria podcast.
Besides an expert web developer, Olena is a full-time mom and part-time runner who loves sharing advice on HTML, CSS, JavaScript and React development.
This software engineer at Novatec is an avid YouTuber with a passion for helping others advance their careers and hone their coding skills. She is a full-stack developer specialising in JavaScript and React.
Last but not least, an authority in PHP, Sebastian is the creator of PHPUnit, a standard framework for testing PHP applications and projects. He also co-founded The PHP Consulting Company.
An interview with Microsoft Azure MVP Karel De Winter to discuss his trajectory in IT and how to advance your cloud career.
Karel de Winter is a Belgian cloud solutions architect working at Azure Expert managed cloud services provider DexMach. He is passionate about helping others in the cloud community grow and develop their expertise. Whether it is on Twitter, on his blog, or at an industry event, Karel is constantly sharing news and resources that will help you make the most of the power of cloud.
Interview with Karel De Winter from Azure: How did you get started in technology?
I was about seven when I started to play around with some old computers.
The first things you learn are the basic commands like DIR and CD. And, from
that moment on, I just wanted to learn more about computers in general and what
you could do with them. So, getting into IT was all about doing what I love to
do and the things that I was playing around with. The hardware that was given
to me by family, by neighbours; I was looking to improve that hardware, making
all those things work together.
Then the Internet came and became this living thing. And a lot of things happened from there. I joined some local communities in Belgium and learned about a lot more besides computers. I learned a little bit of programming, I learned to build websites. It was just the beginning of the web, so it was all about playing around, building websites and making music and then putting the music on those websites.
That is how it all started. And now I have around 14 years of experience in IT. I have always worked with Microsoft partners, and every company I worked with had the possibility to try out the Microsoft products, to try new things, to test them, and then implement them together with customers.
Interview with Karel De Winter:What about Azure?
The same thing happened with Azure. The platform is about 10- or 11-years old right now, so I started to play with Azure in the very beginning. I got interested at a local community event. Somebody was showing something from Azure Storage; you could put your files on a storage account or you could run your SQL environments and servers on Azure.
I was curious about all those things and how they worked together. So, I got involved with the Azure community in Belgium and attended several sessions. And I immediately saw the benefit of cloud products. But I must say that, ten years ago, Azure was not the Microsoft Azure platform that we now know. A lot has changed since then. So, it was a lot of exploration and investigating what was possible, always learning new things through the process. That is how, throughout my career, I went from being a systems engineer to making cloud architectures and other related things.
Interview with Karel De Winter from Azure: And what are you up to these days?
My main focus so far has been on Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). But, since I started working at DexMach as a solutions architect, a lot of things have changed. Now I am focusing more on the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) side of things and everything around governance, making sure that we have a good landing zone and keep security in mind. Those are the things I now focus on.
Now I am designing architectures, but also doing a bit of pre-sales. Together with our team, we help to make proposals for customers so that they are having a clear understanding of the cost and architecture of the Azure environment. Aside from that, I’m also a competence lead, which means that I am responsible for all platform related projects and guidelines related to Azure. So, I am looking at, for example; how we can use Azure Stack HCI as a hybrid solution for our customers, or how we can standardize platform-as-a-service in Azure with Azure Functions, Logic Apps or Web Apps. Even Kubernetes comes into play when a customer wants to keep full control. I am making sure that everything is secure, that everyone who works in the team is on the same page (we have standards that we need to implement with every customer).
What is your advice for more junior Azure experts?
My number one piece of advice for junior Azure experts would be that
learning is important. It is so important that you have to do it for the rest
of your life. Especially because a lot is changing in cloud. It is going very,
very quickly. So, if you are not learning day by day, six months later you are behind
your competitors. You need to keep on learning and keep doing new things.
If you want to start with Azure, just go with Microsoft Learn. That’s a very good starting point. You have different paths you can follow. So, if you are a junior and you don’t know which area or which track you should go for, this is the way to go. You have the ability to sign up for free and have a complete Azure environment in a sandbox and see what is working for you. You can see if you are doing a lot of development things, or enjoying the web development part, or if you are an infrastructure guy like me. Or are maybe more into VMs, more into Kubernetes and managing all those things, networking, storage, etc. Just have a look at that.
What about official certifications, what would you recommend focusing on?
You can’t learn everything in these times of digital revolution, there is just too much information. But when preparing for an official Microsoft you should start by looking at the PDF that’s on the page of the exam. There you will find the exam skills outline. All the topics covered in the exam are listed with some percentage at the end. And you should aim to learn by that percentage. The skills measured with the highest percentage must be also your highest learning priority and the biggest investment in time. That’s something I always do. My main focus will be on the biggest parts, and then, if I have time to go into a really deep dive, I will look into the other parts.
What’s the best career advice you have been given?
Networking is important because, for example, if you are going for a job
interview and they have two people with a very similar resume (same
certificates and experience) but the one person knows somebody within the
company or knows somebody that knows somebody — you know, they will be picked
instead of the other one. I think networking is very important in every job.
But not only in it. If you want to work at another place or you want to take a
career step, it is very important that you know people and that you do some
extra networking as well. Yeah.
Secondly, as you are becoming an expert, you need to share your
knowledge and not just keep it to yourself. Sharing your expertise with people
in your company or even online is very important because you show that you are
doing things. You get on the radar of other people and other people. Create a
blog or do a podcast or make a YouTube video. Just explain something simple. Get
started sharing something you’ve learned, something you worked on, a project.
And the last thing: try to get involved in as many projects as you can.
And don’t be shy to do some complex projects. Mostly you will be working in
teams, so you will learn from other team members, from other people. Cloud is
still very new, so nobody has 20 or 25 years of experience with it, as it
happens with other technologies. Everybody is kind of new to the job. It is by
doing that you will learn a lot. Making sure you have complex projects in which
to get involved. That has worked very well for me in my career.
What would you do if you were not in IT?
That’s a good question. I think I would have a small company that gave mountain biking lessons because I love mountain biking. I imagine this little village in the mountains, where I would have a little shop full of mountain bikes. And I would give lessons, or give some tours. Yeah, that would be nice.