One of many many recurring characters in tv collection is the corporate ‘lifer’. A protracted-term worker who will get comfy with the established order. They do their job on autopilot, embrace the routine and coast by way of 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, transferring places of work, constructing groups within the US, migrating infrastructure by way of six totally different information facilities, transferring to the cloud, then transferring out once more. I like that. I like change.”
The invisible hand
As Senior Programs Architect, Hans is chargeable for the infrastructure that retains all the things operating. This may be one thing of a thankless process, as a result of if you’re nearly as good as Hans is, no person notices your work. “Infrastructure is one thing that’s sometimes not seen in any respect. It’s solely seen as soon as it breaks. However when it does break, all the things that is dependent upon it simply stops. So you must plan like all the things 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 every of them breaks, the opposite one ought to be capable of take the complete load. That’s good. No one notices something even broke. That may be a win.”
Hans’ many years of expertise present themselves in refined methods. “We’ve had fiber cuts to the buildings a number of occasions. So now, after 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 strains, routing protocols. It’s important to be prepared.”
Readiness and resilience
That long-term considering is important now greater than ever. Hans performed a vital position within the restart of Shapeways on the finish of 2024, balancing the advanced technical infrastructure with cost-efficiency and development in thoughts. “We would have liked to reconfigure our cloud providing, transferring extra in-house however retaining the uptime and stability everybody expects. That was a profitable challenge and that’s what we’re operating on in the present day.”
Complexity is usually inevitable, however the place potential Hans prefers the minimalist method. “Once you’re creating programs that cater to a number of totally 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’? Slicing complexity makes it simpler to diagnose and repair issues — and to forestall them from occurring once more.”
And as Shapeways seems to scale, Hans’ position turns into much more central. “We’re at present harmonizing the infrastructure throughout the totally different elements of the enterprise; scaling-up when wanted, scaling again after we don’t. That saves value however maintains resilience.”
Failing to organize means getting ready to fail
“You all the time must plan for development. If you happen to can deal with your present load, are you able to deal with double that? Ten occasions that? With each scaling step, you want totally different options and it may well get pricey shortly. It’s a problem to search out the steadiness of resilience and price viability.”
Perfection is all the time simply over the horizon, however over time you will get fairly near it. Hans’ expertise in The Netherlands has given him an schooling in tips on how to do issues correctly. “Shapeways’ manufacturing facility in Eindhoven was the gold commonplace 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 staff, the instruments, the practices — are stable.”
Curiosity and cosmology
Maybe unsurprisingly, Hans’ ardour for the massive 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 operating it for some time now. Some objects are simply two small dots in a star area, but when you already know what you’re taking a look at, like a gravitationally cut up quasar, it’s fascinating.”
So what sort of particular person is finest suited to the herculean process of preserving 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. The whole lot 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 amazing day for Hans?“An excellent day is that if I discovered the reason for a difficulty and was in a position to repair it, or if I noticed that some preventative measure really prevented a much bigger downside from occurring. That’s good.” You’ll be able to comply with together with the Shapeways Crew Highlight collection to search out out extra in regards to the staff behind the scenes.