# Solace Developer Spotlight: Sjaak Overgaauw **URL:** \ **Category:** General Discussions\ **Tags:** developer-spotlight\ **Created:** [February 18, 2021, 4:06pm UTC](https://community.solace.com/t/solace-developer-spotlight-sjaak-overgaauw/608 "2021-02-18T16:06:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![hong](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/solace/user_avatar/community.solace.com/hong/32/1613_2.png) [@hong](https://community.solace.com/u/hong)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 4:06pm UTC](https://community.solace.com/t/solace-developer-spotlight-sjaak-overgaauw/608/1 "2021-02-18T16:06:53Z")
![image.jpg](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/solace/original/2X/e/e4d67699cae0cfab1a9359a815e9659d98fd4b5a.jpeg) **Hometown:** Hellevoetsluis, The Netherlands (40 km from Rotterdam) **Years of being a developer:** 25 **Primary programming language(s):** None. We are a low code company. Past: Java **Social media presence:** [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjaakovergaauw/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/SjaakOvergaauw) **How did you start as a developer?** I started at school in the 80’s. Commodore 64 and 128! ? And later on when I started working with the Oracle RDBMS and Java. **What is your typical day like?** I’m co-owner, architect and CTO at Appronto. We’ve about 30 employees building solutions based on Mendix, Boomi, and Solace technology. Most days are a combination of several things: • Architecture & design for customer projects • Pre-sales activities • Product development • Research: event-driven-architecture, microservices **What is your favorite thing about being a developer?** Exploring new features of platforms, especially in the area of statistics (platform monitoring). **What project are you currently working on?** I’m working on multiple projects implementing Boomi and Solace based on EDA. Other projects I’m working on help customers to develop reference architectures, architectural guidelines, roadmaps, etc. **What new skills or technologies are you learning?** Our company has added Solace to the product portfolio as the standard message. So, Solace is pretty new. Other than that, we’ve a strong focus on Amazon AWS EC2 for our hosting solutions. I’m currently exploring the capabilities of Kubernetes for Boomi and Solace. **What cool tech trends are you seeing?** Event-driven architecture (EDA) is getting more and more traction, especially from developers who had a bad experience with classic microservices architectures ?. Microservices are in trouble. **What do you think is the must-read book for developers?** I’m not reading books anymore, only online articles and blogs. My recommendations are Technology Radar and InfoQ. I spend 30 minutes a day on them and have a good overview of trends and new technologies. **What advice do you have for other developers?** Some advice from my side: • Always ask yourself if there is a standard solution or platform available already. Don’t try to re-invent the wheel. • Many software issues can be avoided by taking architecture seriously. • Avoid over-engineering. Keep it simple. **If you could retire now, what would you do?** Traveling with our camper in Europe and enjoy. Good food, different cultures, nature and silence. There are lots to discover ? **If you were a Solace Developer Community admin for one day, what would you do?** Haha. I actually don’t know. I think the Solace community is working well compared to other community platforms. So that’s a compliment! **Do you have anything else to share with the Community?** I would love to see: • the Solace Cloud platform will develop itself into a more elastic platform from an infra point of view. No more upgrades, flexible infra (RAM, CPU’s, connections, queues) • All Solace CLI features will be added to the Solace Cloud UI • You can manage Solace software brokers from the Solace Cloud console. So, managing any Solace instance from the Cloud. Just like Boomi ?. ---
**Author:** ![hong](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/solace/user_avatar/community.solace.com/hong/32/1613_2.png) [@hong](https://community.solace.com/u/hong)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2021, 2:03pm UTC](https://community.solace.com/t/solace-developer-spotlight-sjaak-overgaauw/608/2 "2021-02-22T14:03:49Z")
@sjaak Thank you for sharing with the community! ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/solace/original/1X/1248f38eea018157e66cc024e8284f3331a54f94.png) [@system](https://community.solace.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2021, 3:56pm UTC](https://community.solace.com/t/solace-developer-spotlight-sjaak-overgaauw/608/3 "2021-02-22T15:56:12Z")
Love this! Thanks @sjaak for sharing. I love the advice - and very applicable across so many domains. ---
**Author:** ![Tamimi](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/solace/user_avatar/community.solace.com/tamimi/32/2190_2.png) [@Tamimi](https://community.solace.com/u/Tamimi)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2021, 5:52pm UTC](https://community.solace.com/t/solace-developer-spotlight-sjaak-overgaauw/608/4 "2021-02-22T17:52:01Z")
Commodore 64 and 128 for the win! Thanks for sharing this Jaak! I resonate with what you said about “Many software issues can be avoided by taking architecture seriously” ?Glad to have you in our community.