Creating Order in New Spaces
Planning and design is required to engineer practical value from newly available, raw resources. Innovation proliferates with each new business or public application, and new hardware and software allow processing ever-increasing data quantities. Data Engineers build digital bridges to secure navigation towards multiple uses, values and destinations.
Mapping and Mining: From Earth to Information
Fokke Dijkstra, one of our premier Data Engineers at Aurai, began manipulating and organizing data with his degree in Mining Engineering at the TU (Technical University) in Delft. Learning how to extract raw resources required intense training. He also developed cartographic literacy by utilizing data from space, and subterranean and underwater depths. Intrigued by the images from our orbiting satellites’ extraterrestrial data, Fokke dove deeper into synthesizing the big data of mapping our shared environments with a Master of Geoscience & Remote Sensing, also at TU Delft.
Data Engineer’s Toolkit
Analytics; cloud storage; foundation software engineering; open frameworks; Java, Python or Scala; and an ability to maintain pipelines, run data through models; information aggregation; problem solving skills; exploring new systems and more are in the toolkit of the Data Engineer. Every current or future possible need is anticipated. Fokke began to focus on big data by mining and engineering information and transforming it into useful systems and organizational value. As he puts it; “In almost all lines of work, businesses thrive by utilizing data correctly. Data engineering is the basis for this process. It thus is broadly applicable, always relevant and helps us move further as a whole.”
Enhancing Data Engineering Skills
When he came on board with Aurai, he was already developing software but eager to work in a collaborative culture among specialists and partners to create new and practical data infrastructure. “Aurai gave me the time to get acquainted with a greater variety of tools to enhance my skills. Everyone is friendly and willing to help out, which makes for a great learning atmosphere.”
Solving Data Problems
When not at work, you might spot him in Rotterdam playing new board games with old friends. The more difficult the game, the more savvy the opponent, the better the victory; “Sports, (board) games, and logical puzzles. Games can be played casually, but I like them most when there is a competitive element. Luckily for me, my work inherently provides plenty of such puzzles and games.” Fokke hopes to strengthen his expertise as Aurai’s Data Engineer and never lack a data or machine learning problem to solve.
Interested in teaming up with Fokke and the rest of our data experts? Join Aurai!