I recently made the decision to leave Bol.com.
The last two years#
So, for the past two years I have been a Software Engineer at Bol.com. Not only that I was also enrolled in a special program called: Young Professional. Being a YP it is expected of you to learn, move around and also build a community within Bol.com with other YP's. It's for sure a good feeling, because sometimes it felt like being back at school :smile.
The good#
Bol.com is a great company to start out in, maybe even the best. Why? Because Bol.com gives you a lot of freedom to do a lot. Meaning, in big companies it can be quite hard to just test out new shiny libraries, push to main or even to switch teams. In Bol.com, I could do all of that and even more. In addition, Bol.com also uses a lot of new technology and most of the time it is ahead of what the market is doing (platform wise at least).
Not to mention that I also really enjoyed the YP community. Being in the YP community meant you got free trips, events and swag! Unfortunately, though I joined during COVID. So, I didn't get to get the full experience, but with what I got, I had a lot of fun. Lastly, the campus of Bol.com is also very nice with great food, out door seating and a super market on the ground floor.
The bad#
About Bol.com there wasn't much bad honestly. I think one thing what made me look for other opportunities, was because it was just time to do so. I interned at Bol.com for 6 months + worked there for an additional 2 years. Also, my YP track was ending so it only felt natural leaving. So, yeah this was probably a click bait header.
The future#
So, what am I doing these days? In my second year at Bol.com I was working on implementing Backstage.io within the company. Backstage is a developer experience portal developed by Spotify. So..... after a long interview I am proud to say I joined Spotify where I'll be working on the internal Backstage. Other than that I don't have much too say yet... check back after a year!