Last modified: 9 May 2011
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Personal Details

Surname Willems
First name Bert
Initials B.
Date of Birth 4 July 1985
Place of Birth Drachten
Nationality Dutch
Address Sinjeur Semeynsweg 209
Zip code 2524 EJ
City Den Haag
Email Address b.willems@premotion.nl
Telephone number +31 (6) 30 71 96 16
Skype ID Trilobyte64

Skills

  • Java
    • J2EE
    • Spring
    • Liferay Portal
    • JBoss, Tomcat, Jetty
  • Microsoft .NET Framework (1.x, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0)
    • Microsoft Winforms
    • Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation
    • Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation, Web-Service Enhancements 3.0
    • ASP en ASP.NET
  • SOAP and several WS-* Specifications
  • XML, XSD, XPath, XSLT and XML-FO
  • SQL – MySql and MS SQL
  • ATL (Active Template Library) and WTL (Windows Template Library)
  • COM (Component Object Model)
  • Macromedia Flex 1.5
  • Castle Project (Active Record, Monorail, Windsor Container, Micro Kernel)
  • NHibernate
  • Rhino Mocks
  • NUnit and MSUnit
  • Lucene (.NET) and Solr
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

Development Methodologies

  • Domain Driven Design
  • eXtreme Programming
  • Test-Driven Development

Experience

Software Development

Liones Internet BV

Period September 2007 – Now
Job title Lead Developer, Outsourcing Team Lead
Actions Developing web application for publishers, Managing projects, Innovate
Contract type Fulltime

Description

Liones Internet BV is a company which develops custom web application for publishers and other organizations who have a considerable amount of content.

My job title is Lead Developer. It is my responsibility to deliver high-quality applications according to their specifications, on time and within budget. I manage a team of developers including front-end specialist and back-end engineers as well as managing outsourcing projects with companies from around the world including India, Ukraine and Vietnam.

My job included:

  • Analyzing the functional requirement.
  • Write technical specifications for the complex part of the project, for example integration, search and content migration.
  • Break down the project into workpackages for developers.
  • Manage technical risks.
  • Communicate with the client about technical issues.
  • Guide/coach developers.
  • Assure quality and customer satisfaction.

One of my biggest accomplishments was starting the Java development team (Liones was a .NET only company) from scratch. This included defining and installing the infrastructure (hosting, source control, build tools, dependency management tools) as well as the development process (developer training, framework/platform selection). From the first project on we were able to deliver projects on time and within budget resulting in satisfied customers while yielding a net profit equal to that of projects of the established .NET team.

Some of the project I did:

One of the projects I am particularly proud of is the architectural design and implementation of the Liones Standard Publication Platform. The platform is meant for publishers support the printed publications online for a really competitive price and with great speed: We can bring a publication online within 2 weeks. The platform is modular and supports multi-site. To name a few modules: Registration & Profiles, Content archive, Polls and a Webshop (including different payment and shipping methods).

DATS DATA

Period January 2005 – February 2006
April 2007 – Januarie 2010
Job title Software Engineer, Advisor, Project manager
Actions Design and implementation of several software packages and their underlying infrastructure. Multiple-Choice software. Report Engine. Design for a Service-Oriented Architecture.
Contract type Partime/Fulltime

Description

The DATS DATA project is an initiative to improve sharing of knowledge in the broadest sense of the word. Its purpose is to create software which allows everyone to gain and spread knowledge. We have plans for 4 applications which together will achieve that result. There are currently 3 project team members: Rob Schuil (initiator), Harmen Kooiker (UI/Interaction designer) and myself. In addition there are 2 advisors in different fields attached to the project.

Rob Schuil started with the project in the early 90’s. At that time the project was focused on devising a way to tackle the environmental problems, the software which was developed was an MS-DOS application and got certified by the Dutch government. However, it was never widely-spread used because of the major biological crisis’s in the mid 90’s. In begin 2004 Rob Schuil decided to start with the reimplementation of the software to leverage the power of the internet. In January 2005 I was asked to join the team because they needed a developer.

Currently, we decided to restart the project and do it all again in a more organized and formal way. At the moment we are working on the functional and technical design documents for the programs. DATS DATA is not yet a company but it will be when the first version of one of the programs is completed.

Until DATS DATA is an actual company, I work free lance at my own risk on the project. We made the agreement that if the project would make profit we would all get a fair share in it. I use this project to gain valuable experience in very different fields: software development, project management and personal development.

Multiple-Choice Application
Time: 2 months, May 2005 – June 2005

The first application I was working on was an application for creating multiple-choice questionnaires. The first thing I had to do was to decide which architecture and technologies to use. I choose a two layer application with a Macromedia Flex front-end and a PHP/MySql combination back-end communicating with each other using a custom XML protocol. I choose Macromedia Flex because it allowed us to create user interfaces fast and with ease.

For the back-end I designed and implemented three layers. The first layer translated the XML messages into the appropriate domain objects and function calls, the second layer contained the business logic and the third layer contained the database abstraction code.

It took about 2 months to complete the application, however it lacked some features, like the WYSIWYG editor, that were necessary. The reason why those features were not implemented was that it was technically very hard to implement and there was no time because we had to implement the report module for an another application.

Report Module
Time: 1 month, July 2005

I had to rewrite the reporting module for on of the application. The input for the report module was a filled in questionnaire in a XML format and it needed to transform that information into a PDF file.

Apache FOP (XML-FO to PDF converter) was already available so I used that application. The first step was writing the XSLT transformation style sheet which converted the input XML document into a XML-FO document.

Generating the required graphs was a difficult task because no one knew what the math behind the graphs was. I had to reverse engineer the math from some paper example reports. Once I knew the math I wrote a library which created the graphs in a SVG format (at the time the only format that rendered properly in the PDF document).

Service-Oriented Architecture
Time: 3 months, August 2005 – November 2005

In the autumn of 2005 we decided to stop the development of all the programs and start with a clean code base because the old code base contained lots of legacy code written by the first software development company and it was clear that we could not get support from them anymore and fixing all the problems ourselves was more work then starting fresh with a new code base.

It was my job to create an architecture which could support a very large, worldwide scale. I did research the best way to achieve that and I came up with a service-oriented architecture with a SOAP load-balancer. I choose SOAP because, in my opinion, it is a very flexible, widely adopted and standardized format. When I finished the architecture I wrote a proof-of-concept version using Microsoft Web-Service Enhancements 3.0.

Project Management
Time: 2 months, June 2007 – Now

It is my job to facilitate the meetings, write conventions and guidelines and come up with the best ways to structure the whole project and all the software products. Since I got that role the whole team was able to work much more efficiently. Currently we are trying to capture the essence, purpose and requirements of the whole project and all its software on paper.

Van der Werff Watertechniek BV

Period October 2005 – October 2007
Job title Software Engineer
Actions Designing and implementing a business application
Contract type 24 hours a week

Description

Van der Werff Watertechniek BV is a company specialized in building, maintaining and troubleshooting individual waste-water treatment plants. The owner of the company asked me to build a business automation application which would allow him to efficiently manage projects, contacts, products, reporting, invoicing and planning. The project is expected to be complete in half September 2007.

The application is constructed in two parts. The first part is a client application written in C# and Windows Presentation Foundation. The other part is a collection of web-services and the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database. The communication between the two application parts is handled by Windows Communication Foundation. I am currently rewriting the whole application to leverage better technologies like NHibernate and Domain Driven Design so extending and maintaining the application will be easier.

Premotion

Period December 2005 – Now
Job title Software Engineer
Actions Development of several supporting libraries.
Contract type Self employed

Description

For Premotion, my own company, I designed and wrote some libraries and applications. An example of the library I wrote is the Business Rules library which facilitated implementation of Domain Driven Design business rules. Another is a validation component library for Windows Presentation Foundation. I used the Test Driven Development methodology to write these libraries. I also implemented a proof of concept of an content management system based on the Castle Monorail framework.

At the moment I am keeping a low profile with Premotion: I do not accept any project, because I am currently alone in the company and I do not want to do all the work by myself.

Internships

03-04-2006 – 14-10-2006 E-PC Computers Software Engineer
06-02-2005 – 30-06-2005 Rob Schuil, DATS DATA Software Engineer
18-08-2003 – 31-10-2003 Breman Drachten BV Electro Technician
04-11-2002 – 24-01-2003 Technisch bureau Walda BV Electro Technician

Miscellaneous

Personal Coaching

Period September 2006 – Now
Job title Coach
Actions Helping people with their problems

Description

In September 2006, after receiving a lot of personal training and reading some books about personal development, I came into several situations were I was able to help people with their personal problems and I absolutely loved doing it. Two persons in particular gained so much from it that I was amazed by it. Since that I am hooked by al sorts of personal development: from financial situations to neural linguistic programming. I know what it did for me and I try to share it with anyone who wants to know.

Weblog Dev@Work.nl

Period 2006 – Now
Job title Writer
Actions Regularly posting about my work and personal life

Description

In late 2006 I decided to start my own personal weblog where I could express my thoughts and to get them out into the world, partially because I want to provoke discussions, partially because I want so share my knowledge and partially because I want to show the world who I am. On my weblog you can a wide variety of posts, some are about my professional career and the work I do, some post are about my personal life, some posts are about personal development and much more.

Field Hockey Team Coach

Period Season 2003 – 2004
Season 2006 – 2007
Season 2007 – 2008
Job title Field hockey coach
Actions Coaching of a field hockey team

Description

I love field hockey and I love teaching, combine those two and you automatically get to field hockey coaching. I coached a junior girls team (Age: 14 to 16) and another girls team (Age 16 – 18) and I loved doing it. Seeing a team as well as an individual grow because of my positive coaching is simply amazing. Another reason why I do it is to improve my communication and people knowledge skills. I am looking forward to the next season.

Educations

29-03-2010 – 31-03-2010 Liferay Developer course, see http://www.liferay.com/services/training/topics/developer-training for details
June & July 2009 Object-Oriented Awareness, DNV Academy – CIBIT
2006 – 2006 Applicatie Ontwikkeling, ROC Friesland College, Leeuwarden
2005 – 2005 Cisco CCNA 1, ROC Friesland College, Leeuwarden
2004 – 2006 Medewerker Beheer ICT, ROC Friesland College, Leeuwarden
2002 – 2004 Monteur Sterkstroom Installaties, ROC Friese Poort, Drachten
1997 – 2002 HAVO, Drachtster Lyceum, Drachten (not finished)

Interests and Supplemental Information

Hobbies

  • Field hockey, I have played it since I was six year old at the local hockey club ‘DMHC De Graspiepers’. I practice 2 times a week and play a match on Sunday. Occasionally I referee a match and I coach I junior team.
  • Reading, I really love it, I do it as often as I can. I read books about software development, personal development and fiction. It is my favorite learning method.