We would like to introduce you to the faces behind CrossBreeze. Today, that is the versatile technician, Jacob. As a Data Solution Consultant at CrossBreeze, Jacob not only helps organizations work more efficiently and faster, but he also likes to help develop tools. With his broad interest and passion for the profession, he always ensures great results and satisfied customers.
A passion that was instilled in me from birth
The 35-year-old Jacob is of Polish descent, but with more than 22 years of living in the Netherlands he can be called a true Dutchman. His passion for computers and information technology was instilled in him from an early age. As a child he already watched his father and helped repair broken computers. He soon also got his hands on programming books, with which he learned to write code and discovered how everything worked.
“Harmen was my guru, I believed in his vision”
Jacob started his career with his own computer repair company and then moved to a software development company, where he further immersed himself in databases, information provision and the development of various products. His interest in databases then led him to a job as a consultant in the Business Intelligence (BI) world. Here he met Harmen quite quickly during a project at Rabobank. Jacob: “During this time I learned a lot from Harmen. He was a bit like my ‘guru’. I adopted a lot from him, because I really believed in his vision and way of working.” Coincidentally or not, but shortly afterwards Jacob also met Willem: He moved to another consultancy party. Willem was also employed there at the time and conducted one of the job interviews with Jacob.
After crossing paths several times, Jacob ended up at CrossBreeze
In the years that followed, Jacob worked at various companies. There too, our paths crossed again, because at two of these companies Jacob worked with Harmen and Willem, who had started CrossBreeze in the meantime. When Jacob reached a point where he was no longer in the right place at his then employer, he ended up at CrossBreeze. Jacob: “Harmen and Willem were looking for someone at that time, so I was soon allowed to start as a Data Solution Consultant. Because we already knew each other, I think I had a good head start.”
An efficient data solution for the bank
Jacob started his CrossBreeze career developing open source tools, such as CrossTest, and did some small jobs for clients. He has now been seconded to Volksbank for over 4 years, where he works in the automation team. Jacob: “We ensure that other teams within the bank can build their data solution as smartly and efficiently as possible using the Model Driven Data Engineering (MDDE) method.
From hobby to a great career
In the future, Jacob would like to help more with the development of tools and products. Willem: “We can make good use of Jacob’s broad interests and many ideas for this. We are constantly surprised by his interests and hobbies. Did you know, for example, that he plays pool at a high level? When he joined us during the corona period, he was actually going to play professionally for a whole year. This did not happen due to corona. A missed opportunity, but we were very happy with his arrival.” Jacob: “My interests are indeed very broad, from trees and plants to pool and music. My work was also a hobby at first. I was already working a lot on software development from home. Now I like to use this passion within CrossBreeze and spend my free time on other hobbies.”
Jacob has become a permanent face in the CrossBreeze team and we hope that he will continue to inspire us with his ideas for a long time to come. Would you like to know more about Jacob and are you curious about the solutions he can develop for you? Feel free to contact him!
