Embracing new challenges in a welcoming environment

Ruben Lelieveld joined Vanderlande just six months ago as a software architect, based at headquarters in Veghel, The Netherlands. It’s been a busy time, but has been made easier by helpful colleagues, great onboarding and the opportunity to develop leadership skills.

Author

Ruben Lelieveld

Software Architect

I’m the software architect for predictive maintenance with the company’s Digital Service Platform. Our team has only been around for a year, so we’re really exploring what’s possible. The current focus is on trying to find anomalies that anticipate when equipment will show unexpected behaviour.

As well as guiding my colleagues, I’m setting some goals that relate to wider issues, such as working in a scalable and cost-efficient way. I also collaborate with teams who collect the data we need, and help my product owner understand what can be achieved to benefit the customer.

I came to Vanderlande, because I wanted to challenge myself, and was lucky enough to know some people who already worked here. I sent one of them a text to enquire about the vacancy, and he replied: “Come and see us, I think you will love it!” He wasn’t wrong, and already I can see that the role will help me develop my career.

Although I have only been here a short time, I’m getting the opportunity to grow and develop new leadership skills. I’m now holding weekly sync meetings with our developers to go through the work we need to complete and schedule. Together with our colleagues based in Pune, India, we are also working on streamlining our hybrid setup.

My biggest challenge is satisfying our developers, data scientists and quality testers, as well as our customers. There’s so much to take into consideration and my first design went through quite a few revisions!

This is a big company, and I get inspiration from working with colleagues from other domains. For example, we have an awesome team of data scientists who come up with the most inventive ideas. It’s great to have conversations with experts who can help me develop a product.

This is a place where colleagues go out of their way to help you solve a problem. All I need to do is send a message, and in a couple of minutes someone will reach out. It’s also a friendly atmosphere to work in generally. Someone you don’t know always says “Hi” – it makes the campus feel like a small village.

Compared to my previous roles, I really like the scale of the work here. I have visited a customer distribution centre to see how all our equipment combines into a complete solution. The complexity makes working for Vanderlande fun, and will appeal to software developers who usually don’t like to be stuck on one subject too long. Two colleagues have recently been promoted, so I can already see career progression is something the company takes seriously.

As a relative newcomer, I must mention the onboarding, which was the best I’ve experienced. You don’t just get shown your desk and given a few videos to watch, it’s much more welcoming and constructive than that. I went through the process with other starters, which was a positive experience, helping me get to know people from day one. I was inspired by the tour of the factory and the Innovation Centre, and our guide told some great stories about the history of the company, as well as a few anecdotes.

In my spare time I like to step away from the computer and I’m currently trying my hand at oil painting. I feel that Vanderlande provides an open working environment in which I can bring some of that creativity to my work as well.

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