Vincent Dutat is a full-time developer working for Nuxeo in San Francisco. He’s worked with the Nuxeo Content Services Platform since 2007, but only officially joined Nuxeo in September 2013. Vincent, who is originally from Belgium saw an opportunity to work with a technology he really liked and experience the beaches, mountains and fresh air that comes with living in California at the same time.
The Road to Nuxeo
Vincent has been a developer for almost 20 years – it will be 20 years in February 2014 to be exact. With a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the Institut Superieur Economique de la Ville de Mons, in Mons, Belgium, Vincent has worked on a wide range of development projects through the consulting firm Micro Research. One look at his CV and you clearly see the depth of his experience in a range of technologies of which Java was a key one.
It was during his time at Micro Research that he started working with the Nuxeo Platform. In July of 2012 he heard Nuxeo was looking for developers to work in its US offices. The opportunity to come to the US and work was enticing, and after discussing with his wife, he applied for the position.
Vincent signed with Nuxeo in December of 2012, but the move wasn’t immediate. In Belgium you have to give three months notice to leave your job. Once the notice period was over he moved to Paris, but he wasn’t able to officially work for Nuxeo as it’s complicated for a Belgian to be a French employee. Instead, Vincent consulted in Paris for Nuxeo for the next five months.
Finally, at the end of September, 2013, Vincent and his wife moved to the US. He had the option of working in New York or San Jose, and Vincent decided to go to California. When asked why he wanted to come to the US and why he chose California, Vincent said that he had always liked the American culture (he had visited Texas once) and saw this as an opportunity to discover more. California, he said, has great beaches, mountains and big cities.
Working With Nuxeo
Right now, Vincent is working in San Francisco with a client who is building a new platform based on the Nuxeo Platform. Document management is a key component of the new platform and things are moving along nicely.
As Vincent has been working with the Nuxeo Platform for a number of years, he’s seen it go through a few iterations. He said the platform has always been easy to use, but it’s even better now. He likes the extension model, saying it’s easy to extend the functionality of the platform without developing a lot of Java code. This is due to a large extent to Nuxeo Studio.
Vincent enjoys working with clients, talking to people and finding out what they’d like to do with the Nuxeo Platform. He also likes to show them solutions and see that they like what he has done.
Keeping Up to Date with Technology
Vincent has worked with a number of different technologies starting with C, then C++ and then to Java. He also has experience with PHP and .NET, but much of his experience is with Java because the company he worked for prior to Nuxeo focused on Java development. He built a smaller, internal project in .NET, but that was more to see how the technology worked.
There is always a new technology to learn, Vincent says. You have to be constantly improving, staying up to date. While the technology seems to be changing faster today, thanks in part to the Internet, it’s also a lot easier to learn. Before, he said he had to read books to learn new stuff, now he can just go to the Internet and learn everything he needs to know.
Vincent likes open source solutions because you have a community that contributes to the software. The platform can be improved by external people and, again thanks to the Internet, collaboration is much easier.
When asked if he sees any big technology trends for 2014, Vincent spoke of AngularJS. A way to develop applications in Javascript quickly, he sees this as becoming a popular tool next year.
Living the American Life
Vincent and his wife have only been in the US for about two months, so they are focused right now on the administrative processes of the move, and just trying to settle down. His wife isn’t with him right now, so he’s not going out. Instead, he is waiting for her to return so they can start touring California together.
What will they do first when that time finally comes? Vincent said they will likely go to the beach in Santa Cruz, then maybe to Yosemite Park. He’s looking forward to walking in the wild and seeing nature at its best.
Vincent is in the US on a three year work visa. If they like it, they’ll extend it and then maybe apply for a green card to live there permanently.
For now he leaves a big tip for budding developers - stay up to date, learn new stuff all the time!