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Foxtek acts as a specialist Tech Talent Partner to some of the Netherlands' most exciting companies. We help to scale and strengthen engineering teams and enable companies to achieve ambitious growth goals, critical to their advancement and future success. We do this by providing a complete Talent Solution, from initial advice & hiring roadmap design, through to execution. All the while, identifying & match-making the best local Talent out there. Geographically we focus solely on the Randstad region. The Netherlands is one of the hottest destinations for Tech Talent globally and we relish the opportunity to work alongside amazing companies and the awesome teams within them. So whether you're a potential client, who needs a Talent Partner with the know-how to deliver for your development team in this challenging market, or a candidate, looking for an agency to support you with your search... we're here to help.
When speaking to a lot of our clients, the same question keeps popping up...How's the Tech hiring scene looking right now in Amsterdam?Our Answer - Busy!We've been analysing why this is given the situation we all find ourselves in,Thoughts......1. As the world becomes accustomed to remote working, Tech is playing a bigger part than ever before in how we all communicate, collaborate and learn.2. A lot of fast-growing Tech Startups & Scale-Ups are making up for lost time when it comes to hiring. H1 this year consisted of everyone wondering how the hell you hire effectively in a global pandemic!3. With everyone at home, people have more spendable income = growth for E-Commerce and payments companies of which Amsterdam have some of the best!4. The Tech Community is unparalleled when it comes to creating innovative solutions to new challenges and has resulted in companies being able to pivot their offering extremely quickly = continued growth5. Amsterdam remains one of the top global destinations for Tech Talent, pandemic or no pandemicObviously no one knows what's round the corner and 2021 could level it's own surprises on us all. However, so far this is a clear demonstration that the Dutch Tech Scene is incredibly resilient, even in unprecedented circumstances.
As a startup ecosystem, the Netherlands is growing rapidly and is a great place for startups from every sector imaginable. Startups created over 109,000 jobs for people in the Netherlands and 25,000 of those were created in the last three years. With Europe's answer to Silicon Valley - the vibrant and energetic Dutch capital Amsterdam - spearheading this growth, the figures from the technology sector become more and more impressive. It's all about the Tech...According to a new report from Dealroom, Amsterdam’s tech companies account for 14% of local jobs, equal to roughly 77,000 positions. Between December 2016 and December 2019, home-grown tech outfits continuously added more jobs than any other sector. Dutch-founded tech companies are responsible for 43,000 jobs while international companies, including Tesla and Netflix, are linked to 34,000 positions.Whilst Amsterdam boasts headline names and multiple tech unicorns including Adyen & Takeaway.com (let's not forget to now add Mollie & MessageBird to the growing list), I found it interesting to discover that 57% of new startup jobs in the past 3 years were created by companies less than 5 years old. There are over 2,700 startups in Amsterdam — that’s 1.1 per 1,000 inhabitants. I think it's fair to say that with the diverse international culture, true sense of community & wealth of passionate technologists and entrepreneurs, this figure will almost certainly keep climbing. Amsterdam is now 3rd fastest-growing European City in the global tech EcoSystem Behind London and Stockholm, Amsterdam holds off Paris and Berlin to take bronze in Europe as it reaches a value of a whopping €73 Billion. Not only this, but it has now reached an overall rank of 12th in the global listings of startup ecosystems. When you then add in to the mix the growing number of global tech giants that are choosing Amsterdam to launch their new base of operations, I can only help but feel this valuation can only go up, and the growth shows no signs of slowing down whatsoever. Amsterdam has some tricks up it's sleeve to keep attracting talented techies, too. The 30% ruling for Ex-pats (a tax reduction to attract highly skilled professionals from abroad) means developers are financially better off just by living and working in the Netherlands. Couple this with a multi-cultural English speaking environment and a very strong attitude toward work-life balance, and you get an ideal mix to draw thousands of new faces to the canals of the Dutch capital every single year.The only way is up.To conclude, our beloved Amsterdam is an absolute powerhouse when it comes to technology & growth across the entire spectrum. The few stats I've quoted above barely scratch the surface in demonstrating how frighteningly fast Amsterdam & the Dutch tech ecosystem continue to grow. A city of such great diversity, high standards set by fierce competition, and a constant stream of impressive innovations make a perfect storm for business & tech people to thrive. The ambition has no limits & this will keep things exciting for years to come!TL;DR - Amsterdam is a total monster in both the European, and global tech economy. And well, that's absolutely great.
Some programmers still struggle to identify the extent of code reviews' value and their place within a team's workflow. However, as Devops Engineers are ultimately responsible for any production issue - surely, they are ultimately responsible for all code reviews?How does a DevOps Engineer fit into the Development process?A Devops Engineer must sit above software developers, system operators (SysOps) and other production IT staff to oversee code releases and deployments.A DevOps Engineer needs to know how to manage the IT infrastructure that supports software code in dedicated, multi-tenant or hybrid -cloud environments. They might have to provision resources, select an appropriate deployment model, or direct testing protocol to validate each release and monitor performance after release. Tasks might include test data preparation, results analysis, problem troubleshooting and issue communication back to the software developers.What’s wrong with developers performing code reviews?Developers who try to fit code reviews within an existing workflow just slow production down. However, one organised by the DevOps Engineer will maximise the efficiency out of every code review.How can a Devops Engineer do things differently?The Devops Engineer should approach the software development life cycle with frequent, incremental changes to code versions, which means frequent deployment and testing regimens 📈. Although DevOps Engineers rarely code from scratch, they must understand the basics of software development languages and be familiar with the development tools used to create new code or update existing code.A DevOps Engineer works with development staff to tackle the necessary coding whilst scripting solutions to connect various application elements, such as APIs, libraries and software development kits (SDK's). Code reviews organised and managed by the Devops Engineer allows Developers to carry on with their job efficiently whilst at the same time enabling a team’s integration with other components such as SQL data management or messaging tools that development teams need to run the software release on production infrastructureIn summary, by ensuring the Code Review process is handled by a DevOps Engineer the productivity of your development process will be far more efficient.Do you agree?
A few tips I've been given by my Network (Part 1)I often hear from clients and candidates about customers who've fallen into a trap of knocking up big bills from not using AWS services correctly:https://www.theinformation.com/articles/aws-customers-rack-up-hefty-bills-for-moving-dataI asked my Network for some tips and general advice that I could share with anyone trying to avoid these nasty surprises.1: Shutdown Unused AWS ResourcesBy using AWS OpWorks and Elastic Beanstalk to allow developers to quickly deploy and redeploy applications, they can do so with consistency, without worrying about how this affects the infrastructure 🏢Obviously, ensure these development environments are shut down at the end of the working day and at the weekends.2: Use the Right Storage ClassThere are 5 tiers of Amazon S3 object storage available, which one works best for your means?Amazon S3 Standard- A general-purpose solution - As part of the AWS Free Usage Tier, a user will get 5 GB of Amazon S3 storage, 20,000 Get Requests, 2,000 Put Requests, and 15 GB of data transfer out each month. Beyond this, the first 50 TB per Month will be$0.023 per GB. The next 450 TB per month will be$0.022 per GB. Over 500 TB the price per month will be$0.021 per GB.Amazon S3 Infrequent Access (IA)- Best used for data used less frequently but requires the same resiliency as the standard storage class. However, this can be retrieved rapidly when needed but charged a retrieval fee of $0.01 per GB.Amazon S3 One Zone Infrequent Access is an even less expensive option since the data is only stored in a single availability zone with less resiliency. As a result, One-Zone IA is a great option for storing secondary backups.Amazon Glacier is designed for data that is retained for long term storage, such as backups or cold data. Two main options are bulk retrievals (that take 5–12 hours to restore) and faster retrievals, more expensive expedited retrievals that can take 1–5 minutes It might be an option to introduce object lifecycle management that automatically transitions data between the storage classes. For instance, you can automatically move your data from S3 Standard to IA after 30 days, archive data to Glacier after 90 days or set up a delete policy to expire specific objects after 180 days.3. Select the Right Instance TypeTo maximize your workloads while minimizing your spend, consider your specific use case:What is the type of processing unit and amount of memory required?Optimize the instance resource that results in the delivery of price performance for the priceAt least twice a year, assess your choice of instances to ensure they match the reality of your workload Tagging your instance is not only best practice but the cost per hour of running systems can be monitored in real-time: these results can drive the development team to optimize costs. To enforce discipline on tagging using tools like open-source tools like Cloud Custodian can automatically stop any instance without a Tag.Do you have any other tips to help reduce the cost of AWS usage? Feel free to email me - Gerry.Darley@Foxtekrs.com.Thanks,Gerry
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