Nathan Bijnens

Introduction

Name: Nathan Bijnens
Address: 9042 Ghent
Belgium
E-mail: nathan@nathan.gs

Website: nathan.gs
GitHub: github.com/nathan-gs
Twitter: @nathan_gs
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nbijnens

I am Nathan Bijnens, a software developer turned Solution Architect with a passion for Business, Cloud, the Internet of Things, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. As the Lead Cloud Solution Architect for the European Union Institutions and NATO at Microsoft I help the European Union and NATO become a Data Driven Government. I drive customers initiatives, leveraging Microsoft AI on Azure to solve the biggest and most complex data and IoT challenges faced by Microsoft’s strategic public sector.

As a solution architect I help my customers on their Digital Transformation journey. I guide my clients to Artificial Intelligence, share data more efficiently, and to become Data Driven. With a successful track record of building innovative systems in highly political and complex environments, I not only help on envisioning what data can do for business, I analyze, give recommendations, design architectures and help with data implementations.

My focus is on data analytics and building Big Data systems, especially real-time Big Data and messaging-based systems. I am actively developing applications on top of Spark Streaming, designing Lambda and Kappa-like architectures. I am experienced with Java, Scala, Functional Programming, Linux, DevOps, Containers and of course Cloud.

As part of my role as Lead Solution Architect, I coach and mentor my colleagues and set-out the strategy and go-to-market towards our strategic public sector customers.

I enjoy working with clients and partners, from giving advice, talking about the Business and Technological value of Big Data and Internet of Things, to Requirement Analysis. Working in an entrepreneurial, data driven, innovative environment gives me energy.

I am a passionate speaker and evangelist, on AI, Big Data, IoT and Cloud.

Experience

Since February 2016 I joined

Microsoft

, currently I am the

Lead Cloud Solution Architect

for the

European Union Institutions

and

NATO

. I drive customers initiatives, leveraging Microsoft AI on Azure to solve the biggest and most complex data challenges faced by Microsoft’s strategic public sector. I position, advise, guide and implement architectures which help EUi and NATO become a Data Driven Government, enabled by Artificial Intelligence, more efficient Data Sharing and Cloud.

As part of my role as Lead Solution Architect, I coach and mentor my colleagues and set-out the strategy and go-to-market, work closely with external and internal stakeholders and partners.

Sr. Cloud Solution Architect, Data & AI

July 2019 - ...
Cloud Solution Architect, Advanced Analytics + AI

July 2017 - June 2019
Data Solution Architect

February 2016 - June 2017

As a Data Solution Architect I drive high priority customer initiatives, leveraging Cortana Intelligence on Azure to solve the biggest and most complex data and IoT challenges faced by Microsoft's enterprise customers. It is a technical, customer facing role, accountable for the end-to-end customer deployment and usage experience for cloud data and IoT services.

From October 2013 till January 2016 I worked for

Virdata

a start-up funded by

Technicolor

, as a

sr. Big Data and IoT Engineer

, previously as a

DevOps Engineer

. Virdata was an Internet of Things Cloud platform, scalable to millions of devices, from tiny sensors to TVs and Cars.

I worked on our Data Processing stack, on top of Spark and Spark Streaming, mostly in Scala. I also worked as the lead on our Spark as a Service offering.

Data Engineer

From January 2014 till January 2016.

As a Big Data Engineer, I worked on our Data Processing and Analytics stack, creating a Lambda and Kappa Architecture. Working with Apache Spark, Spark Streaming, Storm, Cassandra and Kafka. We mostly used Scala and bits of Java. We deployed using Chef on Mesos in the cloud.

IoT Big Data Data Analytics Lamdba Architecture Software Architecture Scala Java Spark Storm Cassandra Mongo Mesos Docker
Spark as a Service Lead

From May 2014 till January 2016.

We created a Spark as a Service exploratory environment for Data Scientists in the Cloud, based around Mesos, Docker, iPython (now Jupyter) and Spark Notebooks.

DevOps Big Data Data Analytics Scala Python Spark Cloud Mesos Amazon AWS Linux Docker Project Management
Cloud & DevOps Engineer

From October 2013 till December 2013.

As a Big Data and DevOps Engineer, I was responsible for the scalability, quality and Operational Intelligence of a new platform. I introduced the Continuous Integration platform, using Jenkins, added unit tests. The platform is build using Chef, tried to be cloud independent (ran on Amazon AWS, Softlayer, ...).

DevOps IoT Big Data Scala Jenkins Unit Testing Storm Spark ElasticSearch Ruby Chef Mesos Amazon AWS Linux Docker

At the end of 2013 I co-founded lambda-architecture.net, a website about the

Lambda Architecture

. The Lambda Architecture is a data-processing architecture designed to handle Big Data by combining both batch- and stream-processing, while attempting to balance latency, throughput, and fault-tolerance. Batch Processing is used to provide comprehensive and accurate (although slightly out of date) views, while simultaneously using real-time stream processing to bridge the gap.

From April 2012 till March 2014 I worked for

DataCrunchers

, as a

Hadoop and Big Data Consultant

. DataCrunchers was the leading Belgian consultancy firm around everything Big Data. I co-presented our Hadoop Ecosystem courses and I was responsible for our Microsoft Big Data partnership.

Big Data & DevOps Engineer, Technicolor

From October 2013 till March 2014.

As a Big Data and DevOps Engineer, I was responsible for the scalability, quality and Operational Intelligence of a new platform. I introduced the Continuous Integration platform, using Jenkins, added unit tests. The platform is build using Chef, tries to be cloud independent (runs on Amazon AWS, Softlayer, ...).

DevOps IoT Big Data Java Scala Jenkins Unit Testing Storm Spark Ruby Chef Amazon AWS Linux
Project Manager ABBAMelda, Flemish Government (Macq)

From June 2013 till October 2013.

Project Manager and Lead Developer of ABBAMelda, a ticket and maintenance management system, originally developed by Siemens. ABBAMelda consists of a Java EE backend, an Informix database, with a PHP/jQuery frontend. Under my lead, we created an enhanced Tablet intranet site, improved the bulk upload possibilities, additional REST services, introduced unit testing and switched to git. I was responsible for coordinating with different teams within the Flemish Government, as well as the contractor (Macq).

Software Architecture Project Management Agile Scrum Java API PHP jQuery Unit Testing Puppet Linux Mobile Development ETL
A social media startup (2)

From February 2013 till June 2013.

Defining and implementing the architecture for a social media analytics startup. I designed and implemented a Lambda Architecture (in Java), on top of Storm and Hadoop, using Redis, Voldemort as well as Thrift.

Java Storm Hadoop Kafka Redis Unit Testing Puppet> Linux Software Architecture Lambda Architecture
A social media startup (1)

From December 2012 till January 2013.

Java ElasticSearch D3 Data Visualization Software Architecture
Ewals Intermodal

From October 2012 till June 2013.

Developing Oracle database views for integration of Greencat and Crystal Reports.

Oracle Greencat Crystal Reports ETL
Microsoft Big Data Partnership

Responsible for the contact with Microsoft. Speaker at the Microsoft Inspirience Day about Big Data.

Client & Partner Relationships Public Speaking Business Strategy Technology Evangelism Big Data Azure Hadoop
Solution Architect

Discussions, presentations and conversations with partners, discussing potential Business Ideas and architectures. Evangelizing the Belgium market for Big Data.

Client & Partner Relationships Public Speaking Business Strategy Technology Evangelism Big Data IoT
Internal Projects
1. I co-developed on our internal Semantic Analysis Engine on top of Storm and ElasticSearch. The web interface is build around a Java, Jersey backend and a frontend in AngularJS.
2. Setting up an internal Hadoop, ElasticSearch & Storm test cluster using Puppet and Cloudera Manager. I created some Puppet modules to manage Storm, ElasticSearch and Ganglia.
3. I co-developed on IHarvest project. It is a distributed HTTP Fetcher & Parser on top of Storm, written in Java, the results are stored on HDFS for more extensive querying using Hadoop.
Storm ElasticSearch Puppet Hadoop Java

From March 2011 till April 2012 I worked for

iController

, as

Lead Developer

. We build a credit management SaaS application, written in PHP. I managed a small group of developers, took the lead on everything technical and coordinated with the directors, partners and clients.

Lead Developer iController

I developed our credit management web application in PHP, I managed a small group of developers, took the lead on everything technical and coordinated with the directors, partners and clients.

Project Management Requirement Analysis PHP symfony Unit Testing Jenkins git MySQL jQuery XML API
iController Server Automatization

I virtualized and automated the whole iController server setup using Puppet. I created and extended several open-source Puppet modules.

Puppet Linux MySQL PHP DevOps Jenkins git Amazon AWS
Various clients

From July till November 2011.
1. Analyzing the requirements, estimating and taking the lead.
2. Extracting data from various Accounting software to iController, including a complex integration with SAP FI at LeasePlan.
Accounting Software AS400 ETL XML XSchema Oracle MSSQL Navision

From September 2010 till February 2011 I was employed at

Netlog

as a

Big Data Engineer

and

Web Developer

, creating an analytical data warehouse based on Hadoop and Hbase. I deployed the first Hadoop clusters and created large parts of the data processing infrastructure, using Hive and Hadoop Pig. I also advised on new technologies, git migration, best practices & unit tests. Netlog was a social community network, with over 70 million members, mainly active in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Big Data Engineer

Setting up the Hadoop infrastructure, analyzing data with Hadoop Pig and Hive, creating dashboards using Symfony2 and Hbase.

Hadoop Hadoop Pig Linux Hive Hbase Thrift Symfony2 Data Visualization MySQL
Web Developer (Netlog) & Twoo Core Framework Developer

Within the core Netlog framework, I worked on Event collection, Unit Testing and the migration to Git. I also benchmarked various caching and NoSQL technologies (Memcached, Redis, Membase).

As part of the launch of Twoo, I was responsible for the design and development of the Request Routing and the security and access control models. I also advised on Design Patterns and Best Practices.

PHP PHPUnit Unit Testing Linux Event Processing MySQL Design Patterns Best Practices git Memcached Redis Performance testing Membase

From October 2009 to August 2010 I started working at

iController

, a SaaS start-up in Ghent, as

web application developer

. I developed a new, greatly improved debtor & credit management web application. We used PHP and the symfony framework to create a stable and easy to maintain application.

From March 2007 till December 2014 I was the

Consultant, Managing Director and founder

Servs

BVBA; mainly active as a (part-time) IT consultant in the field of Big Data & Spark, Scala, web applications (PHP, sql, scalability, …), Cloud, DevOps & Linux system administration and hosting applications.

For the full details, see nathan.gs/cv.

skills

I am very interested in and work with

Big Data

, from the processing and storage of large volumes, to real-time stream processing, and machine learning. I read, tweet, and try out as much as I can about new Big Data technologies, like Spark, Samza, Storm and Kafka, as well as more established technologies like Hadoop and Cassandra and learning as much as I can in the process. I use Scala, Java and bits of Python and Hadoop Pig Latin. I setup, administered and monitored Hadoop, Mesos, Storm, Cassandra & Zookeeper clusters.

Big Data related skills:

Do interactive ad-hoc analytics using Python based Jupyter Notebooks, as well as Scala based notebooks, combined with Spark SQL.
Query the data with Spark, Spark SQL, Hadoop Pig & Hive.
Using & administrating Spark, Hadoop and Mesos clusters, including Storm, ElasticSearch, Cassandra, Kafka and Zookeeper.
- Deploying Hadoop on Azure, Amazon & Softlayer.
- Using HDInsight, combined with Azure Data Lake
- Azure Machine Learning, Azure Notebooks and Cognitive Services
- Chef, Puppet and NixOps to deploy Mesos and Hadoop to the Cloud.
Developing solutions for real-time Big Data using Spark Streaming, Storm, Azure Stream Analytics, EventHubs, Azure IoT Hub and Kafka.
Combining batch and real-time technologies to create a Lambda Architecture (of Nathan Marz), that is resilient to failure, scalable and fast.
As well as using only Stream Processing to build a Kappa Architecture.

Next to programming I have always been passionate about

Linux

and open source. I have used over the last 10+ years several distributions from Debian & Ubuntu, CentOS over Gentoo to Linux From Scratch, lately I am very interested in NixOS. NixOS is a purely functional Linux. I have setup countless servers from Cloud to virtualized to bare metal servers.

I am following the DevOps movement. I am using Puppet, Chef and NixOps to automate and Ganglia to monitor critical infrastructure. I have open sourced and contributed to several NixOS and Puppet modules.

I follow and try out with great interest Cloud related techniques and technologies, in all its forms: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, … I have used as test or in production Azure, OpenStack, Amazon AWS, Google BigQuery (private beta tester) and Softlayer.

I have extensive exposure to

Azure

and

Cortana Intelligence

, including, but not limited to:

Azure Data Lake
HDInsight
Azure Machine Learning
Azure Notebooks
Cognitive Services
Azure EventHubs

Azure IoT Hub
Azure Stream Analytics
Azure SQL DataWarehouse
Azure SQL
Power BI
...

I currently mostly develop using

Scala

. Scala is a JVM-based language, with both full support for OO as well as Functional Programming approach. I started with Scala at the end of 2013.

Using Scala to create Spark and Spark Streaming jobs.
Using Akka and Akka Persistence to create a CQRS application, in Scala.
Creating Thrift based services, using Finagle.
Unit testing using Scalatest and Cucumber.

I am interested in

Functional Programming

, mostly looking at Scala, and a bit at Clojure. Especially functional programming in relation to Big Data has my focus.

I am using

Java

, mostly using Spring, maven and Jersey in combination with the JavaScript MVC framework AngularJS.

Developing a Java EE application, with Glassfish, using JPA with EclipseLink.
Creating Threaded servers, using Thrift.
Autowiring & Dependency Injection using Spring.
Consuming the Twitter & LinkedIn APIs, using OAuth.
Creating a REST and SOAP based services, using Jersey or JAX-WS.
Unit testing using JUnit and Mockito.

I have used

PHP

and

JavaScript

for over 10 years, mostly in a combination with the symfony & Symfony2 frameworks as well as a multitude of SQL and NoSQL databases, as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Informix and Redis, Membase, Memcached and ...