Nationale Nederlanden

A good engineer is also a consultant

The client

Nationale-Nederlanden

The question

Integration of different data platforms.

The approach

From multiple platforms to 1 with a 4-2-1 strategy.

Learnings

Change management is part of the job.

When Data Engineer Jeroen Hermes starts work at Nationale Nederlanden, there is an assignment with a clear goal. Two years later, it turns out there is much more to come from the collaboration.

Jeroen: “Nationale Nederlanden’s Group IT department had a blueprint for a data platform that they wanted to put away for several business units. We were asked to kickstart that project. In that process, the blueprints turned out not to meet all the requirements and we saw opportunities to take even more work off their hands. In consultation with the client, we then did an extension to the existing solution.”

How do you create a coherent platform from a divided data landscape?

“For larger business units, the toolbox they were working with turned out not to be entirely adequate. To build the infrastructure together, I became part of their platform team along with my colleagues Délano and Roel. Blenddata provides continuous support with multiple engineers, so you strengthen each other.”

With large clients in finance, networking, security and auditability are important.

Technology I will survive, what I want to grow in is change management.

Together, we are building an infrastructure that the other data teams at Nationale Nederlanden can work with.

Then their data modellers transform the data even further and then there are two more steps to the end customer. Meanwhile, the number of data teams is growing. Now there are four and it might become 10 or 15, so scalability is very important in the long term.

We are part of the platform team at the customer’s site
Working closely with their data engineers and business analysts
A scalable platform for a growing number of data teams

Working with enterprise customers

A good engineer is also a consultant

“In finance, networking, security and auditability are important. Many technical decisions you get to make yourself, the bigger decisions have to go through various architectural boards. That makes the process challenging and very instructive.”

Developing in change management

“I have been programming since I was 15. The technology I survive, what I want to grow in is change management. How do you get people at the customer to go along with changes? The added value of an engineer is in consultancy, which is why I am going to develop further on the alpha side.”

The work culture

Variety of projects, connected with colleagues

“After 2.5 years of working with Nationale Nederlanden, it almost feels like I am a colleague. One day a week I am with them, the rest I work remotely from the Blenddata office. That way I keep a solid connection with Blenddata, where the culture is nice and I guide colleagues on code quality. Therein lies a huge opportunity for me to increase my impact in the team.”

“I have ADHD and change focus quickly, so actually short projects work better for me. Because there is a lot of challenge, I have been able to work for a long time at Nationale Nederlanden. The fact that I designed the platform is something I find really cool. When I come back there in ten years’ time, things of mine will probably still be running.”

The 4-2-1 strategy

“The data landscape was spread across four silos. This needed to become one platform with a standardised process, as the demand for new data products for the business continues to grow.”

“First, we took an intermediate step towards two platforms,” he says. “Three quarters ago, we chose Azure and we are now in the transformation from two platforms to just one. Based on the previous blueprints, we wrote code that was more sustainable and stable. Requirements we ultimately determine together with their data engineers within the data ingestion and product teams.”