Tycho Nijon
Where it all began
Unlike most of my colleagues, I did not really take an interest in computers during my early years. Whilst I did enjoy playing computer games and learning how to download and play cracked copies, programming was about the furthest thing from my mind. It was not until my final year of high school, where I switched from a failed experiment with philosophy to a “computer programming” class, that I learned that programming could be fun.
Where it went to from there
After just one course in computer programming, I decided that I wanted to make my living creating software. To get myself up to speed, I started the Computer Science bachelor’s programme at the University of Amsterdam in 2012. During my study and afterwards, I began working as a junior software developer, putting my newfound knowledge to the test and gaining valuable real-life work experience in the process. After I finished my bachelor’s I started working full time at a company that had just recently gotten out of its start-up days. In that position, I was able to quickly grow from a junior developer to a team lead, learning not only the best practices and skills for writing code, but actually mastering all the steps required for (efficiently!) building software.
With my newfound knowledge and the feeling that it was time for a fresh start, Max introduced me to the team at Outflank, who were looking for a software developer to take their codebase to the next level.
My specialisms
As the only person on the team without security/offensive-focused knowledge, my specialisms lie in the realm of software development. I am passionate about not only creating exciting software, but making sure it is maintainable, scalable, and testable. Additionally, I strive to teach others the value of holding on to these principles.
My coolest project ever
My coolest project has to be the first project where I was appointed technical lead. Suddenly I had to make design decisions and prepare user stories for the rest of my team, manage the customer’s wishes and expectations, and also make sure the resulting codebase was keeping up to standards. While overwhelming at first, recognising that I was able to juggle all these balls simultaneously definitely released some endorphins.