Experiences of our employees

On December 31, 2019, I walked out the door at Stater, the last day of employment for just over 5 years. I had mixed feelings; a lump in my throat on the one hand and butterflies in my stomach on the other.

The craziest thing is that this move wasn’t really planned either. I wasn’t like, “in 5 years I’m going to be looking for a new job.” I am (was?) more like: “If I’m enjoying myself and the work is fun (and challenging), then time doesn’t matter.”

I have now been working at OptimaData as a DBA since mid-2017. In my previous working life as a DevOps and Developer, I have always had to deal with databases, but never specifically engaged in deep technical content that involved maintenance and management of the database itself.

When I got into conversation with OptimaData and they offered me the opportunity to develop into a (multi-platform) Database Reliability Engineer, I didn’t say that twice.

We are living in a crazy period right now, yet the coronavirus could not stop me from looking beyond my former job. Not that I wasn’t enjoying myself at my former employer, but I was looking for more of a challenge.

Did I want to become self-employed? Did I want to start my own business? Was I going to look for another employer? I was still in doubt, and then I was approached via LinkedIn by Pieter, the recruiter at OptimaData!

At the end of 2022 we were pleased to welcome Harry Splinter to our team. The arrival of Harry with his years of experience as a DBA is a nice and solid reinforcement of our multi-platform database expertise. With a number of extensive migrations in the pipeline from Sybase and MS SQL to open source solutions, among others, plus a number of complex (cloud) database issues, Harry can be of immediate added value. But above all, we are very happy that Harry has chosen us as his new work home. In this article, Harry tells us what he thinks of his new employer.