One of many many recurring characters in tv collection is the corporate ‘lifer’. An extended-term worker who will get snug with the established order. They do their job on autopilot, embrace the routine and coast by till they retire. Hans Lambermont, our Senior Programs Architect, couldn’t be farther from that cliché — what has stored him at Shapeways for over 15 years isn’t routine, it’s evolution.
“For the assorted years I’ve labored right here, so much has modified over time, which is what mainly has stored me right here,” he says. “From startup to grow-up, shifting places of work, constructing groups within the US, migrating infrastructure by six completely different knowledge facilities, shifting to the cloud, then shifting out once more. I like that. I like change.”
The invisible hand
As Senior Programs Architect, Hans is liable for the infrastructure that retains all the pieces working. This may be one thing of a thankless activity, as a result of if you’re nearly as good as Hans is, no one notices your work. “Infrastructure is one thing that’s usually not seen in any respect. It’s solely seen as soon as it breaks. However when it does break, all the pieces that depends upon it simply stops. So it’s important to plan like all the pieces that may break will break.”
It’s not nearly patching up issues however extra about constructing resilience. “If I’ve a number of servers that may do precisely the identical factor, and one in all them breaks, the opposite one ought to have the ability to take the total load. That’s good. No person notices something even broke. That may be a win.”
Hans’ many years of expertise present themselves in delicate methods. “We’ve had fiber cuts to the buildings a number of occasions. So now, once I see building occurring close to the place the fiber cables lie, I get anxious… I’ve seen it occur. However that’s why now we have failover plans, backup traces, routing protocols. It’s a must to be prepared.”
Readiness and resilience
That long-term pondering is significant now greater than ever. Hans performed an important function within the restart of Shapeways on the finish of 2024, balancing the advanced technical infrastructure with cost-efficiency and progress in thoughts. “We wanted to reconfigure our cloud providing, shifting extra in-house however retaining the uptime and stability everybody expects. That was a profitable venture and that’s what we’re working on at present.”
Complexity is typically inevitable, however the place attainable Hans prefers the minimalist strategy. “Once you’re creating programs that cater to a number of completely different necessities, you find yourself including layers upon layers of complexity in a short time,” he explains. “After which, if there’s an issue, it’s very troublesome to search out the place it resides. So I ask, ‘is that layer actually wanted’? Reducing complexity makes it simpler to diagnose and repair issues — and to stop them from occurring once more.”
And as Shapeways seems to be to scale, Hans’ function turns into much more central. “We’re presently harmonizing the infrastructure throughout the completely different elements of the enterprise; scaling-up when wanted, scaling again after we don’t. That saves price however maintains resilience.”
Failing to organize means getting ready to fail
“You all the time must plan for progress. Should you can deal with your present load, are you able to deal with double that? Ten occasions that? With each scaling step, you want completely different options and it may get pricey shortly. It’s a problem to search out the stability of resilience and price viability.”
Perfection is all the time simply over the horizon, however over time you may get fairly near it. Hans’ expertise in The Netherlands has given him an schooling in easy methods to do issues correctly. “Shapeways’ manufacturing facility in Eindhoven was the gold customary by way of operations. Within the early years, folks from the corporate’s different websites would come right here to find out how we do issues.”
That stability, backed by technical maturity, is what underpins the corporate’s future. “Technical reliability usually can’t be seen. It’s work that occurs behind the scenes. However the folks right here — the group, the instruments, the practices — are stable.”
Curiosity and cosmology
Maybe unsurprisingly, Hans’ ardour for the large image — actually— doesn’t cease when he goes house. He’s written customized Linux drivers for his astrophotography pastime, constructed his personal climate station and automatic an observatory roof that opens and closes primarily based on cloud cowl. “It’s a enjoyable problem. I’ve been working it for some time now. Some objects are simply two small dots in a star area, but when you understand what you’re taking a look at, like a gravitationally break up quasar, it’s fascinating.”
So what sort of individual is finest suited to the herculean activity of protecting programs up and stopping issues earlier than they occur?
“Curious folks. People who find themselves decided to repair one thing as much as their very own requirements. Every part we run runs on Linux. We’ve used cutting-edge infrastructure: ZFS on Linux, EBGP routing, Kubernetes, Flux, Terraform… we’re not afraid to vary. Change is fixed. Count on it.”
And what makes an ideal day for Hans?“A great day is that if I discovered the reason for a problem and was capable of repair it, or if I noticed that some preventative measure really prevented a much bigger downside from occurring. That’s good.” You possibly can observe together with the Shapeways Workforce Highlight collection to search out out extra in regards to the group behind the scenes.
