Meet the team: Mendix Business Engineer Merijn

JAM-IT is growing and our team is growing with it! In this blog series we introduce our people to you. We start with our newest addition: Merijn.

Merijn joined us in July 2020 as a Mendix developer. In this role he develops both internal applications and applications for clients. Below you can read more about his background and his experience at JAM-IT.

The best thing about developing with Mendix is that you can translate the client's question into a working product in a few hours

From theatre to IT

What makes this Rotterdammer special as a Mendix developer is that he has a very different background from IT. Until recently Merijn was a filmmaker in the theatre. With his own company he made videos of performances. This year, though, he became more interested in a career with more security. And since IT is the sector that is growing and thriving in 2020, that made it his first choice.

From cameras, lighting and sound to programming languages and SCRUM: it is quite a career switch. But from that background Merijn had already developed competencies that are useful in IT too, such as collaborating, entrepreneurship and coming up with creative solutions.

Thanks to his hobbyist interest in websites and computers, Merijn already had a fair amount of experience with IT, and at JAM-IT he got the chance to expand his knowledge with Mendix projects. Because Mendix is intuitive to use, Merijn could get started with it straight away, and since then he has already developed several applications.

Starting during the Corona crisis

"This year is turning out differently; because of Corona everything has been turned upside down. But as a team we try, like so many others, to make the best of it. We all work from home now and stay in touch through Teams.

Every morning we have a short stand-up meeting in which we update each other on our work in 15 minutes and discuss what we are running into or need help with. During the week we meet about important matters.

Even so, you miss certain moments and it is different from our friendly office, where besides the work we can also just chat. It was time for more fun! That is why we introduced the Friday afternoon drinks over Teams. Every Friday we raise a digital glass to a good week or play a game together. That keeps it enjoyable."

The future

Merijn sees a good future for himself in IT. He has found his place as a Mendix developer and is looking forward to building many applications for clients. And theatre? He is of course still mad about it, but as a hobby now.