Adriaan
Data & Technology trainee
A broad interest
“During my Applied Physics studies, there were roughly two types of people: those who wanted to do in-depth physics research and those with broad interests. I myself am clearly of the latter kind, which helps explain my choice for the Data & Tech traineeship. After finishing my Master's, I first did another traineeship, but I found it lacked the fundamental social aspect. Then the DNB traineeship came my way. DNB was new to me, but it immediately caught my eye. I have a lot of affinity with data and technology, but I'm not sure what direction I want to go. That is exactly what I intend to discover during this traineeship.
Programming and publishing
I’ve just finished my first placement on the publications team, during which I worked on the statistics section of the DNB website. At DNB we are required by law to publish statistics – not only for occasional visitors, but also, and especially, for the large institutions that need these statistics on a daily basis. I worked on developing an API that enables external parties to automatically extract data from our website. Eventually, I drew up a project plan together with the team and wrote a proof of concept API in C#. I learned a lot from the project, especially because I had no prior experience at all in this programming language. I learned a lot from my colleagues closely and my own development was clearly prioritised.
Networking is very easy at DNB, and I've met so many different people.
From technology to data
A while back, I had coffee with about a dozen different people at DNB to talk about their work. I used that input to help me choose my second placement. I amassed broad technical knowledge while on the publishing team, and that has been very valuable to me. But now I am now very eager to interact more with people in a non-technical environment. So during my second placement, I will spend a lot of time exploring the role of business analyst. What does the user want from an application? And how can we best visualise data for the user? Even before starting the traineeship I knew that I would find this topic very interesting, so I am really looking forward to exploring it more in the months to come.
A wide network
As a trainee, you develop not only professionally, but certainly also on a personal level. All Data & Tech trainees are involved in a process of personal development, working on subjects such as networking, communicating and discovering, planning and achieving personal goals. As trainees, we learn a lot from each other and see each other regularly. For work-related discussions, but also just to have a pleasant meal together. When we were told last November that we could start in February, we got together right away in December to get acquainted. It's great that we can rely on each other so much. But networking with other DNB employees is also very easy. The JongDNB network get-togethers are great for meeting new people, for getting to know colleagues better and expanding your network.”
Stories of our employees
Maarten - Data & Technology trainee
As a trainee, how can you contribute to the compilation of macroeconomic statistics?
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