About Me

Hi, I am Rob,

I am a software architect working for a company called ilionx located in the Netherlands.

Since I was a little boy, I was interested in technology. My father bought a computer when I was around 7 years old. It was a ZX Spectrum Home Computer. We joined a hobby computer club and had lots of fun programming the thing. A few years later the Personal Computer came on the market and every year they got better and better. Nowadays, almost everyone has a computer in their pocket and that opens up a world of possibilities.

And so, I became a software developer.
I started my career as a software developer in September 2001. To be exact, September 11 was my first day at work. I never forget it because of what happened that day. Not a very good day to start but an easy one to remember.

The market for software development at the time was also not very good because of a recession we were heading into. But fortunately, my employer at the time (Atos Origin) had enough confidence in me to give me a permanent contract after 3 half year contracts.

The first assignment was for PHILIPS. An application to manage server naming conventions in Active Directory. I had to build it in Visual Basic 6. The application was used all over the world within PHILIPS, which made me proud and gave me a satisfied feeling that I had succeeded in delivering this application. It gave me the drive to become even better at it.

But... this was the first and last time I build an application in Visual Basics. The next version was knocking at its door. The Microsoft .NET Framework came out in February 2002 and I was lucky to be able to use it immediately on my next assignment.

From that moment on I stuck with .NET and all the facets it provided, all the way up to the currently released version, .NET 6. I worked with ASP.NET, Web Services, WCF, WPF, WinForms, Entity Framework, Service Fabric, etc.
Next to .NET I was active with frontend development and used libraries like Knockout.js, Vue.js, Angular, Webforms and Blazor. I've seen cloud computing emerge and the benefits it brings to the industry.

Another .NET project I am very proud of, is the DAF Truck Configurator I helped designing and build.
If you want to see it in action, visit this site: DAF Truck Configurator - DAF Nederland

After years of developing and engineering software, I became an architect. Struggling with the question, what it is exactly, an architect does, I came accross a course for the Architect (not about architecture), given by Juval Löwy of IDesign. It was the Architects Master Class about the responsibilities of the architect, system design and project design. It has accelerated my career in a way I never thought possible.

If you want to know more about me, or maybe about IDesign. Do not hesitate and contact me on LinkedIn.

Now, head over to my blog and find you something interesting to read 😊.

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