Developing features that millions of people will use
Johan van den Tillaart, front-end developer at Rabobank
A payment request, a deposit into your savings account or making an international transfer. Every day millions of people use the Rabobank app to handle their payments. As a front-end developer at Rabobank, Johan van den Tillaart makes it happen. "With my team I work on everything that has to do with transferring money. One of the most used features in the app! Our goal is to make making payments as smooth as possible."
A modern tech stack
What does Johan find particularly appealing in his work? The modern tech stack is the first thing he mentions! “We use a broad, modern tech stack, which includes Ionic, Angular, RxJS and Redux. The advantage of Ionic is that all of the features we develop, can be used both on the website and in the Rabobank app.”
“Right now my team is working on upgrading the code of the screen used for transferring money to the latest tech stack. I enjoy the work of converting old code to new, and it has a lot of advantages for our users. We can maintain the app better and add new features more easily. For the user, the app feels more intuitive and works a lot faster.”
Transfer and receive money via your phone number
“Besides migrating old code, we also develop new features. Recently, I worked on setting up the procedures for 06-Betalen. This allows you to transfer and receive money via mobile numbers in the Rabo App. So you no longer need to enter IBANs. To be able to use this, you must first link your own mobile number to your account. We have implemented this process and created the rest of the user flow: from sending your payment to a mobile number to making sure that behind the scenes all the checks and security measures are in place.”
A great starting point for further growth
“I studied Communication and Multimedia Design (CMD). The curriculum is very broad, from programming and UX to marketing and design. After my degree I did a bootcamp JavaScript, because I wanted to dive into the deeper into programming. In my current job, I benefit from the scope of my education. I like to brainstorm with our UX designer and I can freely express my own ideas. My perspective is technical, but because I have a broad background, I know how to contribute.”
“I’m now quite the expert when it comes to Angular. I’m mainly involved in programming and implementing business logic. From here I can grow into full stack developer or dive deeper into the infrastructure as a devOps Engineer. If, as a front-end developer, you’d rather be working on the look and feel, that’s possible too. For example, there is a team that makes web components that the other teams can use.”
Interested in working as a front-end developer?
Working with different teams and cultures
Besides programming, being able to work well together is important in this job. “Not only do you have to work well together within your own team, but you also have to know how to find the other teams. If, like my team, you mainly work on transfers, you have a lot of contact with the team that deals with the ‘transaction timeline’, the overview of all your payment transactions. After all, this is where the customer ends up after making a transfer. So these two teams need to know about each other. How we can use each other’s APIs, for example.”
“Millions of people use the app every day. We consult a lot with other teams on how best to implement certain features. The app has to work fast, be secure and not have bugs or crash. That is the responsibility we have. I’ve gotten used to it a bit, but it’s still exciting to make features that will be used by so many people.”
Freedom and time for personal development
“To share knowledge among the teams, we started a community. We present work to each other, but also invite other experts from outside the company, for example. The fact that we are given the freedom and time to develop ourselves in this way has helped ensure that I have never felt like being just a number within the bank.”
Diversity is key, especially within IT
“The atmosphere within my team is very good. In addition, it is very diverse. Men, women, other nationalities, everyone is represented. You can see that the culture within Rabobank is changing, especially within IT. We simply do away with things that are out of date. We used to have ‘the man of the day’ who was the first in line to pick up issues that day, now it’s just ‘the human of the day’.”
“Working with people who grew up with a completely different mindset teaches you to communicate in a different way. And when a variety of cultures come together, new and fresh ideas are born. With that, you not only develop your front-end skills, but it also improves what we make and therefore benefits our customers!”