Arjen Haayman joined IMAGEM in 2015. He works as a Senior Developer at the company and spends his days writing all kinds of code for clients, primarily in JavaScript. To celebrate his five-year anniversary, we asked him about his time at IMAGEM what he’s learned during that time.
I’ve cycled about 40,000 kilometers over the past five years, commuting to and from the office. That’s enough to circle the globe once. I think more people should cycle to work.
— Arjen Haayman, Senior Developer at IMAGEM
What is your background?
I studied geography at the University of Groningen. But then personal computers came along, and that became my hobby. So I turned my hobby into my career. As it happened, my work almost always involved maps. I worked at the Land Registry for eleven years and at various web design agencies.
How did you IMAGEM at IMAGEM ?
IMAGEM was een klant bij mijn vorige werkgever, dus ik kende Wouter Brokx en David Jonker. Ik vond het leuk om met ze samen te werken en het werk was aantrekkelijk om te doen. De dag dat ik Wouter sprak over werken bij IMAGEM, was ik net begonnen bij een nieuwe baan. Ik kon nog niet beginnen bij de andere baan, omdat de laptop die ik nodig had nog moest krijgen. Wouter heeft me op de eerste dag weggekaapt. Het aanbod was te goed om niet te accepteren.
What are your fondest memories with the IMAGEM?
Wat ik nog steeds waardeer waren de tijden dat David, Wouter en ik met z’n drieën in het ACEC-gebouw zaten, het vorige kantoor. Gezellige en sociale gesprekken tijdens de lunch en koffie bij de grote tafel. Ik vond het ook leuk om veel met Smart M.Apps bezig te zijn. Uiteraard was het ook gaaf om naar Polen te gaan om te overleggen met Hexagon, één keer met de fiets, toen het mogelijk was om mij te volgen tijdens mijn rit.
So what do you like about working here?
Especially the social interactions at work. It’s good for productivity—not just spending time together, for example during lunch or over morning coffee, but also the social aspect of working together.
What was the first thing you learned at the company?
There’s always a commercial aspect to the work; something has to be marketable. You need to keep that in mind. It makes the value of your time and effort—as well as the final product—clearer; people talk about it. Plus, it’s rewarding to work for government agencies. That’s what makes the work socially relevant.
If you could change one thing about the company, what would it be?
Unlike the ACEC building, the doors are now made of wood and there are multiple floors. This means there are more open doors, making it easier to run into people and strike up a conversation. Previously, in the ACEC building, there were glass doors and, of course, the table in the middle, and everyone was on the same floor. That made it easier to run into each other.
Who was your first desk mate?
De eerste was Wim Bozelie, die zat soms naast me. Nu is het Walter Jansen, die zit tegenover mij.
Tell us something about yourself that not many people know.
I think everyone knows everything about me. What some people don't know is that I act in the PlusLeo theater group in Deventer, where we perform various narrative plays every year.
How do you unwind after a long day at work and a lot of cycling?
No, wait a minute. Cycling is actually what helps me relax and clear my head. When I was working from home during COVID-19, I missed cycling, so I started doing it in the mornings. Now I’m back to doing it in the afternoons. I can go in any direction, and I already have a few routes I know by heart. I’m out for about an hour. Hop on my bike, switch off, turn on a podcast, and off I go.
