My name is Arjen. I am a Cyber Security Consultant for Scyon. I help organisations with their Application Security, Offensive Security and (Cyber) Business needs.
I have been in the software and security industry for almost 30 years and have worked in:
- Internet providers (Chello / UPC, Tiscali - NL): Java
- Startups (Personify - USA, eBuddy - NL): Java, BigData
- Healthcare and FinTech (Infomedics - NL): Java and dotNet - Managed the IT and Development teams
- EduTech (NOVI - NL): Managed the development team building in Serverless, Javascript
- Education (Hogeschool van Amsterdan / NOVI - NL): teaching software security and software engineering courses
- Cyber Security (Independent): helping organisations with their security posture
I am a member of:
- NLJUG: The dutch Java user group
- VERSEN: The dutch association of software engineers
- OWASP: The OWASP Netherlands chapter
In 2024 I completed my Masters’ Degree. My research topic was BiDE, a language and architecture for the creation of bidirectional diagrammatic editors. In essence a way to modify program text using diagrams and text at the same time, allowing stakeholders of different backgrounds to work on the same system at the same time. I worked on this thesis with Bastiaan Heeren (Open Universiteit) and Jurgen Vinju (Centrum Wiskunde en Informatica).
In my spare time I love to explore the cutting edge of software engineering, exploring new languages such as Rust, Clojure and Golang in combination with Large Language Models and their novel applications.
I toot on the fediverse as @credmp@fosstodon.org and on @arjenwiersma.nl on Blue Sky.
Find my longer form writings in the Writing Category.
The views on this site are my own.
Recent posts
Will software development change? Yes, of course. Will we stop making software? No, we’ll still be creating software, just not in the same way as before.
For the last few months, a lingering question in our industry has been: is there still room for developers in this AI-driven world? My answer is yes, but we won’t be developing in the same way we have for the past 30 years.
My career dates back to my first professional coding job in 1996. Back then, we created software that had to be physically shipped to customers on some form of media. My most ambitious project was the work I did when the Dutch ISP Freeler was created
. We wrote software and then put it on a CD-ROM to ship to customers. Later, the delivery medium became the web, which transformed all our distribution challenges. Programming languages evolved too, shifting from those focused on single platforms and distribution methods to more web-friendly languages.
I am leaving NOVI. Yes, I know, it is sad news. For almost 6 years I have been building and maintaining an organisation that provides the best cybersecurity and software development (Bachelor) education in The Netherlands. In that time I have done amazing things:
- Created a short course format for people that want to switch careers. With some back of the napkin calculations I have seen over 2500 students pass through one of the programs.
- I lead a team of quality assurance, educational development, EduTech developers and teachers to build an awesome EduTech tool and provide top-notch education.
- Started and hosted the Hack The Box NL meetups
for 4 years.
- I became part of the management team and helped the organisation through an M&A proces
It has been a wild ride, but like all things that begin, it must end.
When I tell people that I like to code in Clojure
the common response is “wut?”. Clojure is not known as a programming language in which you create big systems. As all Clojure people know, this is not true. There are many systems written in Clojure. Let me show you some that are very actively maintained.
First there is Lipas, a Finnish platform that shows you information about sports clubs. The structure and techniques used in this code base I use as a reference implementation for my own ClojureScript + Clojure systems. A screenshot of the application is shown here: