Hi there! ✋🏼
I'm Arjan, a software developer and educator with a passion for building beautiful, efficient, and reliable software.
I was born in a small village in the northern part of The Netherlands in 1977. From a young age, I was fascinated by technology, especially computers. I was always tinkering with electronics and “inventing” things that nearly electrocuted me (or my little sister). When I was 9 years old, I convinced my parents to buy me my first computer, a Commodore 16. 😌
This sparked my love for coding, and I spent my days and weekends playing games and writing code in Basic.
I've always been fascinated by how I could make my programs run more efficiently or how I could organize my code so it was easy to change.
Understanding this and coming up with beautiful solutions is why I find writing code so attractive.
As you can see here (➡️), I was already thinking about separating data from business logic when I was only 10 years old!
My passion for coding led me to study Computer Science at the university, where I delved deeper into the world of programming and eventually earned a PhD in Computer Graphics. I then spent 10 years teaching computer science at the university level, developing effective ways to present information so that my students could easily understand it. 🎓
After a while, I realized that I wanted to do something more with my skills and knowledge. I took a bold step and resigned from my university job to start a software company with a friend. We developed several products from scratch that served thousands of users. I learned valuable lessons from creating these platforms, and I started developing my own methodologies for designing software that scales and creating flexible architectures that allow for quick adaptation.
When COVID hit, I decided to share my knowledge and experience with others.
I launched ArjanCodes on YouTube, where I've posted hundreds of educational videos that are accessible to anyone. I've helped thousands of software developers become better at what they do and I've helped businesses optimise their software development teams and processes to produce great software products that customers love.
A great byproduct of my YouTube channel is the ever-growing community around it, like my Discord server. I love witnessing the interactions of a ton of experienced software developers that help each other out and exchange ideas.
I always pay attention to the needs and challenges of my community. 👀
I've combined my two passions - teaching and coding - to create online courses for software developers and businesses.
I want to help as many developers as possible build quality software that doesn't crash, that customers rave about, and that's easy to develop and maintain.