Rockstar Interview

IT Rockstar Marnix worked within Technolution’s mobility division on MobiMaestro, a large and complex traffic management product used for the majority of the Dutch public infrastructure, as well as abroad. In particular, he is working on communication with iVRIs (Intelligent Traffic Control Installations), the next generation of smart traffic lights that can interact with traffic on their own and thus work with the traffic control center to ensure optimal traffic flow.

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS PROJECT?

The mission critical aspect of traffic management software – it must never falter, let alone crash, or there will be immediate security risks – means that the company’s focus is very much on code quality. The perfectionist in me feels perfectly at home with this, and I also learn a lot from it.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF WITHIN THIS PROJECT?

Technolution was the first company in Europe to build support for iVRIs and will thus be a pioneer in rolling out and applying these intelligent traffic lights in the rest of Europe.

What techniques tooling did you use?

I have made extensive use of Java, Java Swing, Hibernate, JUnit, Git, Jenkins, Sonar, Gradle, Jira, and BitBucket. In addition to these concrete names, I have worked extensively with multithreading and applying many design patterns.

WHAT DID THE PROJECT DELIVER TO THE TARGET AUDIENCE/USER?

Infrastructure managers and traffic management centers can now control the next generation of intelligent traffic lights using the same software they already know, in addition to the “old” traffic lights, in a way that is already seamless with the way they already work, plus the fact that even more will be possible with these new traffic lights.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN IN THE PROJECT?

In terms of technical content, I learned especially a lot about multithreading in Java and protocol implementation. On a meta-level, I learned a lot about writing good quality testable code, writing tests and working with Git as a version control system.

WHAT MADE TEAM ROCKSTARS IT-WORTHY?

Even within Technolution, the MobiMaestro team is considered the cream of the crop, which only the better software engineers can join, because the size and complexity of the software requires a sharp and communicative mind.

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What does our rockstar say on this project?

I learned a lot about multithreading in JAVA.

Marnix, JAVA Engineer
Yannick van der Wende

Would you like to spar with yannick about your Career Path?