In February of this year, Daan Paardekooper became the newest addition to our DevOps team as a Senior Software Engineer. Only three months have passed since then, and we are eager to introduce him to you all. Meet Daan, our talented, and sweeper-keeper.

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"I’m always eager for variety and enjoy learning new skills and taking on different projects. In my career as a software engineer, I have had a diverse background, encompassing roles such as full stack engineer, software consultant, content creator, front end developer, and software lead. But I prefer to combine all of my skills in one position."

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Daan’s desire for variety seems to have been a reoccurring theme in Daan’s personal life; growing up, he lived in New York for five years, the Netherlands for six years, and Brussels for seven years. Although Daan has been back in the Netherlands for over ten years now, and considers it his home, Daan explains that, "It took me some time to get used to really settling down here. I have Dutch parents, but I grew up in different countries, went to an international school and have many international friends. Socially and culturally, Amsterdam was a bit of a switch for me in the beginning. I spent a few months in Sicily in the meantime and I had plans to move to Berlin just before the pandemic, but that has been put on the back burner. I've been in Amsterdam for a while now, and I’ll be staying put in the coming years."

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The Rush Goalie

"I've been involved in software engineering and development for over ten years. My role at Grexx came my way because I was looking for a new job with more variety and responsibility. Right away, I was impressed by the high-quality product that is the Grexx Platform, particularly from a technical standpoint. It's an interesting concept; we're building a platform, and that platform is built on that same platform. That's a unique set-up which I hadn’t seen before.

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Within the DevOps team, I'm a kind of rush goalie, a flexible goal-keeper. I do a lot of different things - backend, infra, ops - and that's exactly how I like to work. I’m a full stack engineer and can and always want to work in different areas, which keeps it interesting for me. However, I also find it just as important to work together as a team to continuously improve our work. This includes improving processes, implementing best practices, introducing standards for tooling, and promoting knowledge sharing. I enjoy guaranteeing the quality of the end result on a technical level and I think it's important that we pay enough attention to that."