The difficulty of simplifying things
“As a Scrum Master I facilitate agile events in the DevOps team, such as stand ups. Also planning sessions, retrospectives and demos for the end users are part of my role. So, I help the team where needed during the day.”
We are almost an IT company
‘For me the bank is almost an IT company. The project I’m working on right now is a functionality that helps the end customers with appointment reminders in the form of a text message or an e-mail. The appointment itself is made in Siebel, then it’s sent to a middle layer called CRMI and finally it ends up in the KPN Gateway. Testing it is exciting, because you need a real test environment where text messages can be sent. So we had to test it with real customers. Sometimes it’s quite complicated to make things easier.’
A complex IT landscape
‘Our IT landscape is complex. Rabobank uses a lot of systems, standard packages and custom products, all connected to each other. It’s always a challenge to get them working together. Besides that, we face organisational challenges, for example working together with people in India, Portugal, Belgium and the UK. Difficult sometimes, but a lot of fun too! And working with different nationalities literally makes your world bigger. You grow on a professional and a personal level.’
Latest technology
‘For an IT consultant it is a great culture. We work with the latest technology, there is a lot of knowledge in the company. We use the latest methodologies and our colleagues are great people, always willing to help.
I have worked here for four years now and in that time I have learned more than in my previous ten years with other companies. Why? The environment is changing rapidly; we are a self-learning organisation that is constantly looking for improvements. It is part of the bank’s make-up to learn something new and to improve every day. Besides technological knowledge, we also have to learn about banking processes, about how a bank works and operates. Every day we face new challenges and new developments. The culture is hard working but not short of the required doses of fun.’
We make things (and life) easier
‘My work certainly has an impact. On the local bank employee who uses Siebel for starters, because we make his or her life a lot easier. We also have an impact on the end user for whom we make it easier, more personal and safer to run their business with the Rabobank where and when they want.’