Dirkjan Ochtman (NL, 1983)
- Utrecht
- +31 6 52035289
- dirkjan@ochtman.nl
- https://dirkjan.ochtman.nl/
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Summary
I am a smart, experienced software engineer. I am fascinated by the
tools and processes involved in software engineering, and like to
think about every aspect of the process, including identifying what
requirements will satisfy customers, how to build high-performance teams
and what tools and best practices can support the
business's goals. I am motivated by deep technical challenges and
long-term product thinking on how technology can serve us better.
Professional experience
2001 – present: Owner/founder at XavaMedia Web Services
Starting in September 2020, I am available full-time as a consultant
for software engineering efforts with the Rust programming language.
More information can be found on the
XavaMedia site.
I am currently in the process of rewriting the backend service for
InstantDomainSearch.com in Rust.
Dec 2018 – Aug 2020: Dev Engineer at ING Nederland
I'm currently a development engineer on ING Distributed Ledger Technology
team. In this role, I've been assigned to several different projects, both
on the research side of our team as well as on the exploration side. The
latter involves working on initiatives within ING Labs, the in-house incubator.
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As tech lead for the ValueX initiative, I contribute my expertise
to the creation of a distribution platform for digital assets while also
building the MVP for the platform. It builds on the Corda blockchain
framework and offers a web-based user interface written in Rust.
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Built a microservice for
distributed ECDSA key generation and threshold signing in Rust.
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As a backend engineer on an initiative for efficient handling of
intra-group invoices, I worked on a backend built in
Kotlin, leveraging Spring Boot and the Corda blockchain framework.
2014 – Mar 2018: Software Delivery Director at ActiveVideo
After starting as a senior C++ software engineer, I became a team lead
in 2014. I was involved in guiding the development team through a period of
rapid growth as well as ongoing improvements to our development process and
agile/scrum practices needed to scale the engineering team. I took on the
additional role of software architect and was a product owner for one of
the development teams.
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As lead for the Delivery team, was responsible for improving
release management practices, leading product owners and
setting priorities for the Developer Infrastructure team.
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Substantial experience in hiring software engineers and QA engineers.
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As a lead for different development teams over time, I worked to
grow our use of code review and automated testing. We made
substantial efforts to improve the onboarding experience.
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Took on the role of Software Architect to augment the Platform
Architecture team.
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As a software engineer, I worked on our proprietary
headless browser engine based on the open source WebKit engine,
implementing support for the MediaSource Extensions.
2007 – present: Open source software projects
Contributing to open source software is a great way to learn
new technologies.
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Maintained several open source projects, including Quinn, Askama,
tokio-imap and rnc2rng.
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Contributed to numerous other open source software projects.
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Designed a programming language with a compiler built
in Python targeting LLVM IR.
2007 – 2013: Co-founder, Automation & Operations at KenTyde
As the initial software engineer at KenTyde, an asset management startup,
I designed and built large parts of our software stack. My goal was to
enable quick exploration of problem domains while minimizing the accrual
of technical debt and accidental complexity in order to maintain high
development velocity throughout different stages of the company's life.
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Built a web-based user interface to the
operational environment in Python and JavaScript.
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Built and open sourced fixlib, a Python library for dealing with the
FIX protocol.
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Built a ZeroMQ-based market data network in C++ and Python.
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Served as the primary administrator for all server infrastructure.
Education
2019: Cryptography I, via Coursera
- Completed the course, which was based on Stanford's CS255.
2015: Maximizing Leadership Potential
- Attended the program in Brussels, BE.
2012: Compilers, via Coursera
- Completed the course, which is based on Stanford's CS143.
2001 – 2007, 2008, 2010: Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
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Completed an MSc in Information and Communication Technology in 2010.
- Completed a BSc in Computer Science in 2006.
- Completed a BSc in Psychology in 2008.
1994 – 2000: Gemeentelijk Gymnasium, Hilversum
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Graduated in 8 subjects (one more than required): Math A, Math B,
Physics, History, Dutch, English, French and Ancient Greek.
Miscellaneous
Language skills
- Dutch: fully fluent
- English: fully fluent
- French: reasonably good
Technology
- Expert-level Rust developer
- Expert-level Python developer
- Languages: C++, JavaScript, Relax NG
- Persistence: PostgreSQL, SQLite, Redis, MySQL
- Web technology: REST, HTML, CSS
- Other: Git, Gentoo Linux
Hobbies