Thijmen J. Kurk, 28

Software Engineer & Data Scientist
Zwolle, The Netherlands

thijmen.j.kurk@gmail.com
+31 6 27 404 770
Bilingual: Dutch and English
Driver License: B

I am a passionate IT professional specializing in software development and data analysis. My combination of HBO and WO education, along with practical experience, allows me to bridge the gap between theory and practice. I am always looking to learn and tackle new challenges. Beyond my technical expertise, I am driven and open in my communication, believing in the power of teamwork and knowledge sharing to achieve goals. In addition to computer science, my other passion is sports, which helps keep my mind sharp and body fit, contributing to my overall productivity and well-being. In short, my combination of technical expertise, communication skills, and personal passions makes me a versatile and enthusiastic professional who is always striving for growth and improvement.

Traits and Skills

Critical thinker Effective communicator Practically minded Autodidact Autonomous Team player Patient & Disciplined Creative

OOP Functional programming Data analysis & visualization Applied statistics & machine learning Architecting IT solutions Web development

Languages and Technologies

Python Azure DevOps Scala Java SQL TypeScript & JavaScript R HTML & CSS C/C++ PHP Rust Regex

C# Git Pandas .NET Core React Numpy PyTorch Docker Vercel Spark Amazon Web Services

Jupyter Notebooks FastAPI ASP.NET Azure UML Spring framework RabbitMQ Redis Angular

* Lists are ordered from left to right by proficiency, the left side being most proficient.

Education

2018 - 2022 / Master Computer Science (joint degree), 8.6
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and University of Amsterdam
For my thesis, I addressed data management challenges in microservice architectures (MSAs), such as distributed transactions, data consistency, and efficient integration. I developed a system to implement distributed transactions and introduced a new layer for data consistency and integration, automatically synchronizing a relational model between services. Validated through end-to-end and manual tests, this system provides a reusable method for coordinating transactions, maintaining data consistency, and integrating data efficiently, simplifying the development and management of MSA-based systems.
2017 - 2018 / Pre-Master Computer Science, 9.2
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
2014 - 2017 / Bachelor HBO-ICT, 8.5
University of Applied Sciences Windesheim

Work Experience

2023 - present / Senior Software Developer @ Suneco
Zwolle, The Netherlands
I develop custom software projects, collaborating closely with clients. Recently, I contributed to migrating Innofeet's legacy portal from C# with ASP.NET 4.5 to .NET 8. The project involved restructuring the monolithic portal into an API and WebApp. Leading a team of two developers, I managed the transition to .NET 8, created the API, and set up OTAP environments in Azure. I developed tools to expedite the process, including one that automated converting synchronous to asynchronous functions and another that efficiently compared millions of data rows between databases to ensure system validation.
2019 - present / Co-founder @ Exante.ai
Zwolle, The Netherlands
I've led a blend of AI consultancy and software development projects at Exante.ai. Notable achievements include developing an automatic student-internship allocation system for StageMonitor using a minimum-cost flow algorithm, which automates matching students with internships in healthcare settings. I also developed ApeelingAI, a SaaS platform with dynamic, context-aware chatbots that enhance client website engagement, which has already served more than 1,000 users. Additionally, I created GPT-Detective, the first European tool to detect AI-generated text in Dutch, used by over 10,000 users to scan 55,000 documents.
2020 - 2020 / Intern @ Databricks
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Selected from over 1100 candidates for a project at Databricks, I conducted research to improve the Spark scheduler, focusing on interactive workloads. I optimized the existing scheduler and developed a new architecture by separating scheduler logic from RPC processing, batch processing status updates, and deploying multiple task schedulers in parallel. The goal was to achieve sub-millisecond latency by addressing key bottlenecks. Testing on a Spark OS 3.1.0 prototype revealed network delays and instability in the central RPC queue at scale. My new scheduler design, which pushed tasks to executors, improved throughput by 17x and significantly increased scheduler efficiency, achieving sub-millisecond latencies in large clusters.
2018 - 2019 / Teacher Assistent @ Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
As a Teacher Assistant for Advanced Programming and Statistical Methods courses, I guided and graded Bachelor students on theoretical and practical programming assignments, facilitating their learning in Scala and R programming languages.
2017 - 2018 / Software Engineer @ Körbler, Graz, Austria
2017 / Bachelor Graduation Internship @ NCIM Group, The Hague, The Netherlands
2017 / Bachelor Internship @ Körbler, Graz, Austria

Projects & Certifications

2024 / AI-102: Azure AI Engineer Associate
2024 / AZ-204: Azure Developer Associate
2019 / Earth Imaging Time-Travel Animations
We analyzed, processed, and visualized Landsat satellite imagery, creating the LSDE Earth Viewer, a tool to observe geolocation changes over time using Web Mercator projection.
2019 / An Empirical Analysis of JavaScript Dead Code in the Wild
We investigated the effect of JavaScript dead code on the load time and energy consumption of mobile web apps.