About me

Hi 👋🏻 my name is Maarten Mulders. For non-Dutch speakers: you can pronounce it like “Martin” but with a bit more emphasis on the “a”. But no worries: when abroad, I often respond to “Martin”, too 🙂.

Professional

I’m working as a consultant and trainer with Info Support, a Dutch/Belgian IT Service Provider. My consulting work is mainly in solution architecting roles.

I’m passionate about “building the right thing” and “building the thing right”, focussing on lean and elegant solutions.

Big shoes to fill and quite a challenge indeed! For a full overview of my professional career, LinkedIn is a better source.

Besides consulting clients, I am a part-time trainer. I used to teach a course on Java 8, and I currently teach courses on React, Java, the Spring framework and architecture. Most of that teaching happens within Info Support or their clients. I’ve also done quite a few guest lectures at schools throughout the Netherlands.

Communities

Apart from my professional activities, I am also active in local Java communities. Most notably the Dutch Java User Group (NLJUG). I have published a few articles in their Java magazine, I have served in the working group that compiles the program for their annual J-Fall conference and I am a a returning coach in their speaker mentoring programme. I used to be active in the Utrecht Java User Group; after having moved out of the region I hope to join another local JUG soon.

Open Source

Starting July 2020 I have joined the Apache Maven project as a committer. Late 2023 I was invited to become part of the Apache Maven Project Management Committee. Apart from that, I am active in a few more open source projects.

Public Speaking

This blog grew out of my belief that the best of learning something is teaching it to somebody else. It requires you to bring structure in your knowledge, and to keep on digging deaper until you understand. That’s also how my interest in public speaking grew. Nowadays, I often speak at various technology conferences. I spoke a lot about transport layer security (TLS) in the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and later also about React. More recently, I shifted focus to architecture, Apache Maven and open source citizenship.

Recognitions

In 2019, I have been appointed an Oracle Groundbreaker Ambassador. I continued to be a member of the program until it transitioned into the Oracle ACE program.

More recently, in August 2022, I have been recognised as a Java Champion.

Hobbies

My spare time is dedicated to other passions, mainly outside technology.

I love playing music; my main instrument is the French horn, which I have been playing since I was roughly 9 years old. I am still in love with the beautiful tone and the challenge of mastering a relatively difficult brass instrument. Also, playing in an orchestra is really part of the fun to me, working together to tell a beautiful musical story. Next to that, I’ve also played the sousaphone and the trumpet every now and then. After having played on my first French horn for over twenty years, I now play a Červený CHR-681D Double French Horn.

I also like cooking, as well as enjoying the fruits of that. I am far from a professional, but the process of preparing and making something delicious can be fun by times.

And I enjoy making beautiful pictures. My gear is a Nikon D3300, a simple camera but you can produce nice photographs with it. The results are often good enough for personal purposes, and I never published them anywere online.