Marijn - 3 Year Anniversary
March 3rd, 2022
Every team has a member who is a steadying force that gives both balance and reassurance. At Klang we can safely say that Marijn, who is celebrating three incredibly busy and productive years with us, is one such force of nature! One of those game engineers that brings equal parts clarity and safety to the problems our complex development process demands.
Marijn is our favorite Dutch Klanger! While we routinely spot him on zoom calls in a location decidedly not Berlin (there are goats), Marijn does live and work in Berlin, and did so before joining us. He had left a computer game developer role and, as he says, “was actually not sure if I still wanted to work in games but Klang stayed in the back of my mind and when I got back to Berlin, I spoke to people who were excited about it. I applied without anything (I didn't have a CV or anything ready), and was quickly convinced this was the kind of project I wanted to work on.” And we’ve been super happy to snag him!
As Mundi our CEO has it: “You might not be able to tell from meeting Marijn that he is one of the best and hardest working engineers I've met, but he sure is. He's been crushing many of Klang’s hardest problems, many around AI and scalability, and those problems tend to be very hard.” Because as an engineer Marijn quickly made a mark for himself in the AI systems of SEED and over the past three years, he has consistently worked on the AI of the game, bringing Seedlings to life and developing a web of ever-growing complex systems around them.
But besides that, he has worked across the board too: “I've been really working on all parts of the game, from UI to AI. I'm also in a tech lead role now for a while already. So that comes of course with a different set of responsibilities. But from the beginning, I've been in contact with many people across the company, and always felt a good amount of ownership over the game.” His sweat and blood are in the code, let us assure you!
We thought to ask this engineering marvel for a tip. What would he tell himself if he met Marijn on his first day at Klang? “When working on a technical solution, be aware when you're (unconsciously) coming up with use-cases, rather than having actual use-cases. Some alarm bells should go off as you're probably overcomplicating things, which is easy to do in SEED.”
We’re really grateful to have this reassuring presence, a lovely and enthusiastic colleague, to keep our ship steady and act as the ballast he is. To many more years of Marijn!
