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Interview with Willem Sevenster - Senior .Net Developer at Stanwell Energy



Willem's linkedin profile

Willem is an IT professional with over 30 years industry experience both in New Zealand and Australia. He is currently employed by Stanwell Energy as a Senior .Net Developer. Stanwell Energy was founded in 1997. It currently hosts 945 employees and has a revenue of roughly $222.9 million a year. Willem works for the retail arm of Stanwell Corporation, owned by the Queensland Government. This branch is concerned with renewables such as wind, solar and hydroelectricity. In particular, Willem is working on a project that deals with the trading of electricity on the national electricity market.


In his current role at Stanwell Energy, Willem has largely been working on “Systems Integration”, whereby he ensures that disparate systems can talk to each other and “transform data from one format to another.” His current role can be summarised as Integration Software Engineer where he develops application programming interface (APIs) on the Microsoft stack, his current technologies being ASB .net, C# and when developing in the Front-End, he says he likes to use the JavaScript frameworks including Angular and Vue.


As Willem lists the range of technologies that he uses in his current role, we are reminded of a famous quote by Emmert Wolf, “A man is only as good as his tools” (Stublefield, M 2019), and as we reflect on what it is to be a well-rounded and competent Software Engineer or Developer, it is quite apt that having a deep understanding and a passion for using and excelling at using the best tools available, may be what makes the difference between an average developer and a great developer.


There are many facets to the role of ‘Software Developer’; no longer is a developer a mysterious IT professional who sits alone in a basement somewhere churning out code. Software developers are now intertwined and integrated into all areas of a business. In fact, in Willems new role, he works in quite unique circumstances as Willems’ client is actually the business themselves, and he is embedded inside the business.


The business decided to have a small IT team that works directly in their department in an informal manner. Willem works directly with various traders, at different levels, in the company to deliver the product that they need. The idea of a small team working together in a fairly informal way sounded like a great idea, and when asking Willem if this could be the way forward for IT teams, he politely pointed out that this small bespoke model can only work in very specific circumstances. When working in a larger company, such as in his previous role at the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland (RACQ), Willem said, “everyone had very well-defined and clear roles, and there was not a lot of overlap in those roles, and the process was also very strict”. In general, it can be concluded that a Software Developer in a large company will have very well-defined roles, and specific processes will be followed when delivering a product.


Another aspect of being a developer is planning out elements of design for a project. Willem needs to choose whether they are going to implement web-based or cloud-based infrastructure; he needs to decide whether they will use API’s with “a rich client Front-End” or will they be using “Back-End systems integration work”? As a Senior Developer, Willem gets a large amount of control and creative license in the implementation of the code, as well as the type of design and solutions that will be used in the project’s lifetime.


Willem regularly gets to try out new technologies, not only at work but also in his free time. A new technology that Willem is working with in his current role is the new ‘Blazor’ framework from Microsoft, which he says is “a web-assembly on the client-side which is running on the browser.” Willem gets roughly 4 hours a week, within work time, to explore and experiment with new frameworks and languages. Apart from his time at work, one can surmise that Willem is extremely passionate about software and technology in general.  Passion for your work is not only what makes a person excel in their field, but it is what makes a satisfying and fulfilled life. French philosopher Diderot once said, “Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things” (RightAttitudes, 2021). Willems passion for what he does in the Software Development field is evident with the in-depth knowledge he has of the subject area, as well as his clear enthusiasm during the interview about sharing a part of his world with us. Furthermore, Willem tells us that the actual coding component of the work is what he is the most passionate about and that this is where his main enthusiasm lies. During his free time, Willem looks forward to playing around with the latest version of Microsoft.net framework to stay up to date with the most relevant technologies relevant for his work and personal projects.


During the life cycle of a project, a Senior Back-End Developer works with a large variety of people. Willem spends roughly 60-70% of his time coding, 20% on design work and 5-10% of his time on planning. The various people Willem must work with when he is not coding includes analysts, lead developers and various architects such as enterprise architects, infrastructure architects and security architects. When developing with a cloud-based solution, an integral part of that is security architects who must sign off on the security side of things, in particular, when dealing with publicly accessible API’s. There is also a substantial component of working closely with testers.


A developers time

Figure 1: A developers time in the working week


Willem has not recently worked closely with any investors but gave further details of his work with clients. An intriguing component of working with the clients, in regard to his work at RACQ, was that the team that he was part of held workshops with the public by working through a large number of issues while ensuring a high level of security and privacy. Though Willem was not working directly with the public, his work as a developer directly reflected the results of the work that was done in these workshops


As with most things in life and work, there are aspects that we love and aspects that we tolerate. Willem’s passion for working with coding is definitely an aspect that he loves; the antithesis of this was when asked about the most challenging part of the work; Willem defined it as “working with a lot of people.” This is not to say that working with people is not deeply rewarding for Willem; it just might take him a bit longer to get to the point of being comfortable. Many people struggle to know who they are and what they want out of life, but Willem strikes a person as someone who is deeply aware of what he likes and does not like, as well as what his strengths and weaknesses are. As Aristotle said, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom” (Kapoor, 2020).


When reflecting back on the personality profile component of Assessment 1 of this course, ‘Introduction to Information Technology’, we had to do a few personality quizzes to reveal certain personality traits we may have and how they come into play in our working life. The next step was to form groups and reflect as a group about the various personality quiz results we received. In our group, ‘Fully-Developed’, the majority of us had strong tendencies towards introversion. If Willem were to do his Myers-Briggs personality quiz or one like it, we may find that he is very similar to us, in our group, in terms of temperament and introversion.


Finally, Willem described the essence of what he does as something that is somewhat “hidden” as he does not work on the Front-End, and the challenge with that is that the clients are not actually able to physically see a lot of the work he has done. With that said, Willems’s work is possibly one of the most crucial aspects for a project to succeed as what he does is “enable disparate systems to interact and form a meaningful solution for a business.” Without this integration, a project would not work as one whole coherent system. It is safe to say that there are a multitude of layers to being a successful Software Engineer, from coding to planning, designing and research, working alone and working in a team. A successful Software Engineer is one who is motivated and passionate about the subject area, focused and diligent in their work and able to take fragmented ideas and turn it into a living, breathing functioning project.



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