Professional Experience

Here you find an overview of my professional history.

Backbase

Senior Technical Consultant

May 2007 - July 2010

For just over three years I was working for Backbase. It has a very innovative and dynamic environment and is one of the key players in Rich Internet Applications. It evolved from a client-side framework to complete solutions for maximizing online customer experience. Lots of nationalities, lots of talents packed in one Amsterdam office. Within Backbase I could further improve my web development skills, while especially in the areas of communication and (technical) leadership I noticed I am able to deliver more than the average developer.

Besides more abstract skills just outlined, I focused mostly on all aspects of RIA, UX, integration and performance tweaking using Javascript, HTML, CSS, XML and XSL. Usually based on progressive enhancement and supported by the Backbase Client Framework 4 and the Rich Portal 4.

Projects

Absa Internet Banking

Large Rich Portal project for a South-African Bank. In this project I was working on-site as a team and technical lead for 10 front-end developers. It was a challenge advocating best practices and reusable components to developers relatively new to AJAX and relevant languages like Javascript and XSL. Expected go-live in 2011.

Ziggo

Another large Rich Portal project for a large telecom company in the Netherlands. In about a year, I had various roles ranging from team lead and "planning desk" to front-end development and technical lead. After go-live I initiated and led the subproject to further analyze and improve the performance on primarily the front page.

KPN vandaag

Portal project for the other large telecom provider in the Netherlands. This was one truly innovative project with perhaps the first true UX-based portal open to a large audience back in 2008. In this project I was technical lead.

On-site consulting & training

At various locations I gave full classroom AJAX trainings and short on-site consulting jobs (both usually took one week). Customers include Wood Mackenzie (Chester, UK), Bank of America (Edinborough, Scotland), Digiplug/Accenture (Paris, France), KPN, Philips and last, but not least, new Backbase hires. I truly enjoyed the flexible and spontaneous nature of these usually sudden needs, especially abroad.

eFocus

Front-end & back-end developer

August 2005 – May 2007

For almost two years, eFocus was a great company for me to start developing my skills in a more professional environment. I quickly moved to larger projects and bigger teams, while finding my way between perfectionalism and pragmatism.

Projects

  • Erasmus University Rotterdam. Role: front-end development.
  • Wegener DM. Role: front-end development.
  • Bloomberry. Role: front-end development.
  • An Inquiry Management System for various customers (e.g. Eén Vandaag). Role: back-end and front-end technical lead.
  • A Newsletter Management System for Ernst & Young, including HTML mailings. Role: back-end and front-end development.

For eFocus I concentrated mainly on web development using PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS and Javascript.

WebPro Internetdiensten

Owner

February 2001 - December 2009

Early this millennium I started my own company, comprising of a webdesign and a webhosting unit. The latter, although successful in some ways, has been terminated end of 2009. Delivering hosting services is simply not my passion.

The "webdesign" unit derived its title from some vague term people usually associated with "building websites". I am not specialized in creating visual design for the web, yet more in translating these visuals into a website or application that works and interacts with people.

In August 2010 I will start as a full-time freelancer with a new, internationalized brand and more specialized services.

The next page is a list of competences.