I love coding, working with people and learning new technology.
I've worked in the tech industry since 2006
My first tech job was at Kamahi Electronics where I worked for 7 years. I was involved with many commercially successful product developments. I built, tested and fixed high end scientific equipment and designed multi-layer PCBs for complex mixed signal equipment. I used intuition, tenacity and knowledge from mulitple domains to diagnose and fix difficult technical issues. I learned embedded C programming for microcontrollers and my code is running in the wild on scientific, sporting and safety products.
While working at Kamahi Electronics I ran a small electronics production business with my brother. We contracted to Kamahi Electronics and shipped several hundred research quality scientific instruments to The Netherlands over two years.
After leaving Kamahi and moving to Wellington I worked as a freelance electronics and embedded developer, often contracting back to Kamahi or Hunter Safety Lab among others.
I worked as a facilitating teacher for Enspiral Dev Academy. In my time there I taught or helped teach more than 100 aspiring developers to code. The core of the work involved modelling and solving live coding problems in a classroom environment, but I also facilitated students through difficult conversations, group conflict and emotional breakdowns. My job required that I role modeled vulnerability and empathetic listening which are essential for effective student engagement. I loved working with teams of people, every team was different and had its own unique character.
I'm a founding member of the Protozoa cooperative.
I was the main developer for ~1 year working on the Sunrise Choir project, an ongoing open-source project to re-write scuttlebutt in rust.
My wife Katie and I moved from Wellington to Amsterdam where I worked for funda.nl as .NET backend developer. We've since moved back to Wellington because of covid.
I love learning new skills and I've had a lot of hobbies:
I was nominated for javascript educator of the year at nz.js(con); 2017
"I have worked with Piet in many different contexts over the last two years. It has always been a pleasure working with him. Piet has high integrity and is very kind and caring. He can communicate his ideas clearly and does so while paying close attention to others. He is a good listener and very empathetic. Piet has the incredible ability to be responsive to the moods and emotions of others with empathy and understanding while still maintaining a balanced and calm demeanour. I have been witness to him dealing with conflict in a very honest and communicative way, he is the first to admit that he has made a mistake and is faultless in his approach to rectifying it. I would recommend Piet as a human and as a developer."
"I have had the pleasure to work with Piet for 3 years and have found him to be a gifted developer with a strong work ethic and a generous spirit. I first met him as a student at Dev Academy and was so impressed with his ability and character that I hired him as a teacher the first chance I got. I'm thrilled to see him launching his own company and have no doubt he will be successful in the venture, you will be fortunate if you get the chance to hire him on to your project."
"Piet was a wonderful teacher who was loved by his students. His dedication to the role was outstanding and his loyalty to the learning and positive outcomes for his students was exemplary. Piet would work hard to prepare his lectures and would make sure he led by example. As a school we request a lot of feedback from students. In fact as a school we welcome feedback from all of our stakeholders. Piet was someone who welcomed this and acted on it to better the experience. He was always learning and growing."
"Great dude, great teacher, I learned so much from him. He knew how to articulate and translate information to better my learning!"
"Piet is a great developer and it was awesome to have him as a teacher, really knows his stuff (especially when it comes to testing)!"
"Piet made me passionate about code again, and made me want to pursue teaching. Awesome human, great teacher, probably better than the sum of both when it comes to programming"
"Piet was a very effective and understanding teacher. He knew his subject matter incredibly well and was good at communicating. I particularly commend Piet for his ability to teach and keep engaged a class comprising students covering a wide range of abilities, from zero coding experience to basically a pro coder. Well done Piet!"
"Piet is an amazing teacher, hes really good at answering questions without getting side tracked and keeping on topic. He is also great at adjusting to the way you learn and easy to get along with."
"Really talented programmer and even better mentor. Was a pleasure having you as a teacher"
"Piet was my teacher when I studied web development at EDA. He was an endless source of encouragement and knowledge. He took the time to share his skills and expertise in a way that was relatable and easy to understand. Piet was friendly, approachable and always happy to help with anything I found challenging. "
"I was a student at Enspiral Dev Academy last year where Piet was the teacher and I can honestly say I have never met someone so invested on teaching as he is. I will always have the most convoluted questions to ask in class and he will always find time to answer them, to go above and beyond for his students. His devotion to our learning was not only seen on the teaching of Javascript which he did during long day after day, but he also shared with us the classes of engineer's empathy. These classes were about being a better person and getting closer to other people. It was not mandatory for him to be there, to expose himself like that, but he still did it because he thought it was important. I am sure I have learned Javascript the best possible way, as he is quite adamant in all the best practises, but most importantly I learned that you can be an amazing person and work fantastically with others. Thanks to him I can now believe I am a programmer."