"I joined a team with many experienced developers and found that quite exciting, but they immediately said: you have gained experience in front-end development during your education, let's see what you can do. I was immediately taken very seriously, could come up with my own ideas and was given a lot of responsibility. That was really great."
OV domain
Given the tight labor market, Marijn could go anywhere after his ICT & Software Engineering studies. "But I was interested in OV because I used it so much myself as a student. I always wondered what systems were all running in the background to make sure everything worked the way it did. Because on such a heavily traveled railroad like ours, to have all the little wheels coming together is very complex. It's cool to be able to see that world 'from the back' now. And it feels like a great honor to be able to develop those systems myself."
"I've always had an affinity for the human side of IT: how do people use a system? What can you do to improve usability and give users a better experience?"
Front-end specialist
Previously, the focus at InTraffic was mainly on the backend, but now we are increasingly seeing requests for the total package. Although Marijn has been working for InTraffic for less than two years, he is already seen internally as the front-end specialist. The CoMo project had only just been completed or he was already being asked to join another team - Spoor Partners team A - which deals with all communications with carriers and other rail users. "I work in the View focus group. With that team, we are developing a tool that allows you to monitor a rail yard. I've always had an affinity for the human side of IT: how do people use a system? What can you do to improve usability and give users a better experience? That's also the role I have now in the View focus group."
Don't be too modest
Marijn advises other software engineers to throw off the modesty and show what you can do. "When I entered InTraffic, I was impressed by the huge amount of domain knowledge and software development experience in the company. It was therefore quite strange to find that everyone encouraged me to speak my mind on things. Now that I am used to that, I see that InTraffic's strength lies in the great diversity in the agile teams. Diversity in domain knowledge, knowledge of development languages, knowledge of back-end or just front-end systems. We speak a lot and are constantly very critical of each other's work. As a result, I have learned a lot in a short time. This open corporate culture suits me very well. I feel like a fish in the water here."
