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Arjen Wiersma

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. Roles that I like to fulfill: (C)ISO, Security Engineer, Engineer Manager, Senior Developer (Java or Rust).

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, Big Data
  • 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

  1. The things I read (week 26)

    My reading list is a bit shorter this week, mostly because I’ve fallen down a deep, deep 3D printing rabbit hole. (My desk is now covered in very handy 3d printed tools for the printer itself and one glorious OctoRocktopus).

    Still, between prints, I managed to find some absolute gems. This week’s theme seems to be the practical, sometimes harsh reality of AI adoption, mixed with some fascinating policy decisions in the open-source world.

  2. The things I read (week 25)

    A little later then usuals. Yesterday I was at the Dutch ComicCon, and I forgot to post. Here is my reading of last week.

    The Real Impact of AI

    I think we’re all wondering about the deeper effects of weaving AI into our daily lives. This week, I found a few articles that really made me stop and think. The first was a standout study from MIT that suggests using tools like ChatGPT for writing could lead to a kind of “cognitive debt.” They literally measured brain activity and found that relying on AI can cause the parts of our brain responsible for deep thinking to become under-engaged. It’s a fascinating and slightly worrying idea.

  3. The things I read this week (24)

    Software Engineering

    In my feed the opening talk by DHH at Rails World 2024 popped up, most notably due his stance on the reduction of complexity in running an online business. He promotes running your own (virtual) hardware, reducing build pipelines and not using Platform as a Service providers (#nopaas). Watch it below.

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