Paulien van Alst
Software engineer and speaker at OpenValue
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands
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Paulien is a passionate software engineer in love with readable, reliable, and testable code, independent of the language or technology used. At OpenValue, she works on helping companies set up better software. Lately, she has been giving presentations and workshops about what she encounters during her day-to-day work. In her free time, she likes to sport and to cook, whenever she is not rebuilding her house and garden.
Area of Expertise
Topics
Thinking in Relationships: Practical Graph Database Modelling in Java with Neo4j
As a Java developer, we are used to thinking about relational databases and occasionally about document stores. But when working with domain models where relationships are first-class citizens and data is highly connected, graph databases are very valuable to consider.
In this talk, we will explore how graph databases can help you model complex domains with highly connected entities more naturally. Examples of such domain models are criminal investigations, recommendation models, family trees, or HR models.
Neo4j is a graph database that integrates well in Spring boot applications. Based on my experiences with Neo4j in multiple projects, I’ll walk you through how to model a domain as a graph and introduce you to Neo4j and its query language Cypher. Also, I’ll introduce you to some common pitfalls to avoid when adopting graph databases and what consequences those pitfalls can have. Finally, I’ll show how a re-modelling of a graph saved us from stepping away from Neo4j and helped us understand our domain and its challenges even more. You will walk away with clear knowledge on how and when to start a project with graph databases.
Tips and tricks to bring the fun and passion back in your team!
An IT department or team can be inspiring to see at work; passionate engineers working on new ideas, innovating new technologies, and never stopping talking about it. However, this is not the case for each team or department in our industry. It is difficult to create and maintain such an inspiring environment to work in.
As a consultant, I work in teams where this is not always the case, yet. This slows down potential projects and innovations. More importantly, people are not enjoying their work as much as they could. In those teams, I always try to turn this around. Make it fun, inspiring, and interesting to work every day.
In this talk, I'll share with you what and how I started motivating teams to share their knowledge, their learnings, and their experiences. I will elaborate on the importance of identifying and mitigating the painful parts of the processes. And what I introduced to make teams proud of their work and accomplishments.
You will walk away with inspiration to improve fun and passion in your teams. It will be fun!
Fast, Scalable, and Maintainable? Rethinking distributed data processing for Java developers
Designing pipelines that transform large volumes of unstructured data into structured, searchable datasets can be a challenging task. These pipelines need to be flexible, scalable, and maintainable, without introducing unnecessary complexity.
In this talk, we’ll explore architecture patterns and trade-offs involved in building transformation pipelines. When should you use a workflow orchestration tool? When does it make more sense to stick with classical microservices and message queues?
Inspired by experiences in the field, we’ll compare several approaches in terms of performance, scalability, and maintainability.
This session will help you rethink your pipeline design!
The Swiss Knife to rebuilding your services; migrations done right
In our industry, applications and services are often rebuilt. Companies frequently find themselves in large, long-lasting migration projects, sometimes because management decides to switch technologies, engineers declare systems end-of-life, or the scope has evolved so much that a rebuild becomes necessary.
While these are all valid reasons to begin such a project, rebuilds often take longer than expected. As timelines slip, the business grows impatient, eager to release new features and see progress.
With well-defined goals, a clear scope, prioritized work, and managed expectations across all stakeholders, a rebuild can succeed. Clarifying the trade-offs between gains, costs, and risks is essential. Whether you're starting, continuing, or even deciding to stop a rebuild.
In this talk, I’ll share key insights, do’s and don’ts, and lessons from multiple rebuild projects, offering practical guidance for tackling your next rebuild challenge.
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