Looking back at 55 episodes

We changed roles for this unique episode. And why is that? We are going to look back on the first 55 episodes. So, Peter Paul and Peter will be the guests of this show and Niels Kuiper and Bruno Lauwers will be your host. Our motto is ‘sharing is caring’. So, practise what you preach and share the podcast journey as well. That was what we had in mind. We share how it all started over a year ago. We dive into the learnings and memorable moments. We were asked…

Dealing with stress in the tech sector

Peter Brouwers, Peter Paul van de Beek, on 3-06-2020
Category: Podcast Tags: Community Resilience skills way of working

In this episode, we are exploring a topic that is definitely work-related but not that tech-related: Dealing with stress in the tech sector. At bol.com we have at least twice a year an employee engagement survey. Some of the questions are about how the workload is perceived. If you look at the results they differ per domain. So, context is very important. As is being pressured by deadlines. Our guest reached out to us with the following message: “For all of us working in the tech sector most of us…

Covid-19 Trilogy Part II – Season Load and season mindset

Peter Paul van de Beek, Peter Brouwers, on 6-04-2020
Category: Podcast Tags: Web scale Scalability Community Agile devops way of working Corona Covid-19 WFH Working from Home

Covid-19 rules the world, so it determines the subjects for our podcast. Just like others, we moved from studio recording to home recording. Basically working from home (WFH). So we think it’s time to spent three smaller episodes on this subject as well and share our experiences. We build up a trilogy which will cover the following subjects: Episode Office Automation: creating the prerequisites for WFH. A peek behind the screen of our Office Automation hero’s. Sharing how they prepared and showed their contribution in these uncertain times. Episode Season…

Covid-19 Trilogy Part II – Season Load and season mindset

Crossfit – fit for life and fit for purpose

Peter Brouwers, Peter Paul van de Beek, on 27-02-2020
Category: Podcast Tags: Community Coaching Crossfit Carreer

Like the Romans already said: Mens sana in corpore sano. A healthy mind in a healthy body. One sentence in an article from one of our colleagues triggered us: “Prepare for the unknown and unknowable”. We really wondered, how does this help him in his daily job? We talk about crossfit. About ring musle-up or a handstand push-up. Of course we relate it to our daily practise. How do you benefit from it in your job and even in making career decisions. We talk about the value of the community and the…

Crossfit – fit for life and fit for purpose

The Spaces Championship – our code competition

Peter Paul van de Beek, Peter Brouwers, on 23-01-2020
Category: Podcast Tags: Community game skills gamification software engineering Algorithms Problem solving

It was briefly mentioned in our episode on Advent of Code. We also started an internal Coding Championship. Spaces Championship. Let’s dive into this and find out what it is all about. From our personal experience, we know that is easier to train and improve when we are in a competition. Could it be that the same mechanism is here at work too? Let us know when you think we should open-up this competition externally as well, goto Linkedin, mailto: techlab@bol.com or twitter us: @bol_com_Techlab Guests Harmen Prins – Software…

The Spaces Championship – our code competition

Women in Tech

Peter Paul van de Beek, Peter Brouwers, on 7-11-2019
Category: Podcast Tags: Community skills way of working Diversity

This episode is on women in tech. Our guests are two speakers at the upcoming European Women in Tech Conference later this month in Amsterdam. To be honest, if we look at the hosts of this podcast and if we look at our guest list of the past episodes… It is still a subject that requires attention. In an earlier episode we talked about diversity in terms of cultural aspects and in this episode we might find out what the women/men diversity brings into tech. At least that was the idea when we started.…

The Road to Devoxx

Peter Paul van de Beek, Peter Brouwers, on 23-10-2019
Category: Podcast Tags: Community Podcast Devvox Presenting storytelling devoxx

In this episode, we talk about a way to be inspired and inspiring others, learn from each other and grow your network: Conferences! And more in detail our colleague’s road to Devoxx Belgium 2019. At bol.com we are challenged to present our stories inside and outside bol.com. Inside bol.com we have our great Spaces Summit and meetups, Outside we speak at several conferences. That seems more challenging to a lot of colleagues. Especially if it is a conference of 5 days, over 200 speakers and sessions and over 3200 attendees. And our…

Spaces Summit 2019 – Part I

Peter Paul van de Beek, Peter Brouwers, on 20-06-2019
Category: Podcast Tags: Java Event Software Community teams Spaces Summit Podcast

Three years ago a group of enthusiastic engineers gathered together during the Friday drinks. They wanted to interact more in the growing organization. Learn more from each other by sharing cool stories. The plan for a bol.com tech summit was born, they called it Spaces Summit. Three years later the 3rd edition in succession is organized by a dedicated team of committed engineers. It’s the 13th of June and the Techlab Podcast team is on the Spaces Summit location to give you an impression of the Spaces Summit. We interviewed one of the committee members to tell you the What, Why…

Organizing your own tech conference: how cool is that?!

Frederieke Ubels, on 8-05-2018
Category: Blog, Culture, Development, Events Tags: Young Professional Event Community conference Engineering Culture

Well, pretty cool, I’d say. And even cooler if you are a young professional, fresh out of university and just started in your first job. But our pay-off is “Je kan het met bol.com” and that’s exactly how it is!

The Dutch Software Testing Championship

Lucas Verberne, on 24-07-2017
Category: Testing Tags: Testing Community Culture

After the success of Software Testing World Cup last year, the winning team thought a Dutch version would also be interesting. Co-organized and hosted by Dutch Software Testing Association TestNet, the championship took place on May 1st.

Testing bol.com style

Joost van Wollingen, on 14-03-2017
Category: Testing Tags: Testing Community Tribes Guild Goals

Everybody wants to stay ahead of the game. It is no different for the bol.com testing community. Ever wondered how we manage to do that? In this post I gladly share how bol.com test engineers keep challenging and inspiring each other.