What is your role at Devoteam?
Within Devoteam I am Principal Consultant within the IT Consulting unit; my focus is on project- and program management. For example, I am currently working as a Program Manager at VodafoneZiggo and I am also the Delivery Manager for this major customer.
What is the achievement at Devoteam that you are most proud of?
What I am most proud of is the DevOps Integration Team that I set up together with a client. Here internal employees and Devoteam employees (both on-site and from Serbia) work together as one team.
This team started out relatively small, but thanks to Devoteam as a ‘flexible shell’ it grew to about twelve people. This was the first real DevOps team at this customer, our colleagues have shown that DevOps works and it even led to a significant reduction of (management) costs!
Based on this success, several teams have started at the customer according to the same concept. We are now also deploying this operating model with other customers.
What is your favorite technology?
Not a technology, but a method. I am a big supporter of DevOps and the mottos that go with it: ‘You build it, you run it’ and ‘You break it you fix it’. This blurs the traditional dividing line between development and operations. In addition, I like to work Agile in my projects, because when working on a project of a certain size you must have the opportunity to make adjustments together along the way. In any case, well-cooperating teams are a key to success!
What are the most important skills you need for your position?
I think that listening carefully to the customer and what he/she really needs is very important. In addition, I think it is important to bring the right people together in order to create a strong team. Finally, you have to be able to separate the means and ends: what do you want to achieve and how are you going to do it?
If you had to choose again and you couldn’t go into IT for work, what would you do?
I like being involved in sports (I’ve always played baseball), if I hadn’t worked in IT I probably would have started doing something with coaching to get the best out of athletes. And as an amateur barista, I might just pop up with my own espresso bar!
Arjen is part of the IT Consulting unit at Devoteam
The IT Consulting team consists of about 15 Senior and Principal Consultants who focus on IT Strategy and Business Process Management.
Will you strengthen our team?
