Interview Toon Verwerft

Hi Toon, for those who don't know you: could you introduce yourself?

I am Toon Verwerft, 35 years old. I've been working for Tailr for ten years. For quite a while now (laughs). I have two kids: Anna and Julia, aged six and four. In my spare time, I like play Padel and go to metal festivals.

Have you always had an interest in web development?

I've actually always been into it, from the age of 12, I think. Back then I had a rock band with some friends and I made our website. That's how I kind of got into it. Every year I learned something new or made another website. So it's more like an outgrown hobby. That's why I chose a broader study at school: Electronics ICT. Which was electronics on the one hand, but also electronics programming, networking and some more general programming work. But yes, still ended up in web development.

Did you start at Tailr immediately after your studies?

No. After graduating in 2008, I first started working for a small SME, making websites for other SMEs. For clothing shops, bakeries and things like that. I worked there for 3-4 years and then I ended up at Telenet through consultancy. After a while, I started looking for a new challenge and then I asked myself the question, "Which companies are working with PHP?" And that's how I ended up at Tailr.

Why PHP?

Yes, why (laughs). That's just the language I've been using all these years, since I was 12. So somehow, it's a habit. Is it the best language? I don't know, but for me it is.

Do you remember what your first project was at Tailr?

That was a long time ago! I think one of the first was Parfuma, a Magento webshop, which I helped develop. But not for very long because then there was Buromac. They make cards: birth cards, wedding cards... which you can personalise on the website. We created a system so that the entire process from design on the website to home delivery was automated. With no one involved!

And what have you been working on for the last few weeks?

We delivered Pizza Hut at the end of last year. That was an existing website that we had taken over, I think six years ago now, from another company. The last project we did for them, was to throw everything away, start over and put a new website in its place. But the difficulty was that the website was never allowed to go offline. So we always had to cut out a piece, paste the new code and then ensure that the old code worked with the new code. So we revamped the website piece by piece.

And this year we also worked on Guardsquare. That's a client that sells software to secure your apps. We created a customer platform for them. A platform where customers could download their products in a secure way. But where administrative staff could also create licences or orders, manage customers... so really a kind of customer management portal.

What was the most fun or interesting project you ever worked on?

With Tailr? I actually like doing all those different projects. (laughs)

One that will always stick with you?

Well, then I do think about what we've been doing for Pizza Hut for the last few months now. That's pretty cool! If you look at where they came from and what has taken their place. And also the way we handled that ourselves.

What projects are coming up?

I am now working for Zangersheide which is a global leading equestrian organisation. Tailr supports them in the migration of their current websites to Sulu. They are quite innovative: there is a website where horses are bought/sold and you can even order semen online as a horse breeder! This project is now really in full swing.

Which projects within Tailr do you personally like best?

What I do is basically custom development. I work in Symfony and React. React is a front-end framework that allows you to build your website visually in JavaScript.

Are there certain advantages to custom development? Why do you like working with it?

I especially like the freedom you have. For example, if you have Magento or Shopware to program in, you are very much stuck in the framework of: "this is how things should be done". With custom development and Symfony, you are very free to create your own structures or make things as you see them and not necessarily how the framework tells you to do something, because that can be very limiting. I like that, it gives freedom. The same with React. You start with an empty box and you put the blocks in yourself to make something amazing out of it.

Cool and can you then say, for example: yes, for that type of customer what you do is more interesting? Is that really looking project by project?

We actually do real customisation. So depending on what the customer wants to build, it might be more interesting to do it completely custom or to choose a framework and start from a base. Say you want to create an eCommerce webshop that is fairly straight forward, like most webshops, then Magento is interesting because a lot of features are already included by default.

With custom development, you very often build everything from scratch. We once divided our customers into types of web applications we make. On the one hand, for instance, we develop web applications to make administration easier. Then we make an administrative platform specifically for the customer's needs.

And then you have customers like Pizza Hut. That's a webshop, but everything about it is actually very, very custom. That's why it doesn't fit within a classic webshop. If you want to order a pizza, it’ll have toppings and you can configure those toppings completely. That's where we chose the custom approach.

And then you also have customers like Mundero, for example. This is a webshop with a lot of content that also includes an administration panel, so they can easily monitor their bookings. There, the webshop part is maybe 20 to 30 percent of the entire website, but there are several other things around it. Then it can also be more interesting to start looking at: what if we start doing everything from scratch?

So my answer: yes, it's looking at it project by project. But if your project is very close to something that exists by default, then it makes no sense to start doing everything from scratch.

You've been working at Tailr for ten years. That's quite a long time, then you must really like it?

Yes yes, I can't say anything else now. (laughs) No, but yes, the atmosphere is good, nice colleagues. You get pampered at Tailr.

Yes and ten years. You've been through a lot then too.

Yes.

What are some of the things you’ll never forget, the...

The highlight? Yes, the weekend together is always great, but everyone probably says that? That's really cool. But what's also really cool, and something we've always done, is put the developers and colleagues first. So the technology meetings and lunch demos, for example. We do put a lot of effort into that, to get everyone on a certain level. The people who join them are always very enthusiastic. That might not be the most exciting thing (laughs) but that is something you learn a lot from and grow. I think that's cool. And yes, the usual outings, like going go-karting, going out to dinner...that kind of thing with the colleagues, that's always a lot of fun too.

Last question: it's the beginning of 2023. What are you looking forward to this year?

We will be working to make Tailr even more prominent. I'm looking forward to working on that, to grow Tailr and see what that gives us within this and so many years.

Clearly, Toon will be a top colleague at Tailr for many years to come!

Thanks for your time, Toon!

Also want to get started with this top team? Discover all vacancies today.

Have you met Toon Verwerft? Toon has been at Tailr for 10 years, making him a vessel of wisdom as well as stories. To celebrate his 10 years of service, we sat down with him for an interview.

Hi Toon, for those who don't know you: could you introduce yourself?

I am Toon Verwerft, 35 years old. I've been working for Tailr for ten years. For quite a while now (laughs). I have two kids: Anna and Julia, aged six and four. In my spare time, I like play Padel and go to metal festivals.

Have you always had an interest in web development?

I've actually always been into it, from the age of 12, I think. Back then I had a rock band with some friends and I made our website. That's how I kind of got into it. Every year I learned something new or made another website. So it's more like an outgrown hobby. That's why I chose a broader study at school: Electronics ICT. Which was electronics on the one hand, but also electronics programming, networking and some more general programming work. But yes, still ended up in web development.

Did you start at Tailr immediately after your studies?

No. After graduating in 2008, I first started working for a small SME, making websites for other SMEs. For clothing shops, bakeries and things like that. I worked there for 3-4 years and then I ended up at Telenet through consultancy. After a while, I started looking for a new challenge and then I asked myself the question, "Which companies are working with PHP?" And that's how I ended up at Tailr.

Why PHP?

Yes, why (laughs). That's just the language I've been using all these years, since I was 12. So somehow, it's a habit. Is it the best language? I don't know, but for me it is.

Do you remember what your first project was at Tailr?

That was a long time ago! I think one of the first was Parfuma, a Magento webshop, which I helped develop. But not for very long because then there was Buromac. They make cards: birth cards, wedding cards... which you can personalise on the website. We created a system so that the entire process from design on the website to home delivery was automated. With no one involved!

And what have you been working on for the last few weeks?

We delivered Pizza Hut at the end of last year. That was an existing website that we had taken over, I think six years ago now, from another company. The last project we did for them, was to throw everything away, start over and put a new website in its place. But the difficulty was that the website was never allowed to go offline. So we always had to cut out a piece, paste the new code and then ensure that the old code worked with the new code. So we revamped the website piece by piece.

And this year we also worked on Guardsquare. That's a client that sells software to secure your apps. We created a customer platform for them. A platform where customers could download their products in a secure way. But where administrative staff could also create licences or orders, manage customers... so really a kind of customer management portal.

What was the most fun or interesting project you ever worked on?

With Tailr? I actually like doing all those different projects. (laughs)

One that will always stick with you?

Well, then I do think about what we've been doing for Pizza Hut for the last few months now. That's pretty cool! If you look at where they came from and what has taken their place. And also the way we handled that ourselves.

What projects are coming up?

I am now working for Zangersheide which is a global leading equestrian organisation. Tailr supports them in the migration of their current websites to Sulu. They are quite innovative: there is a website where horses are bought/sold and you can even order semen online as a horse breeder! This project is now really in full swing.

Which projects within Tailr do you personally like best?

What I do is basically custom development. I work in Symfony and React. React is a front-end framework that allows you to build your website visually in JavaScript.

Are there certain advantages to custom development? Why do you like working with it?

I especially like the freedom you have. For example, if you have Magento or Shopware to program in, you are very much stuck in the framework of: "this is how things should be done". With custom development and Symfony, you are very free to create your own structures or make things as you see them and not necessarily how the framework tells you to do something, because that can be very limiting. I like that, it gives freedom. The same with React. You start with an empty box and you put the blocks in yourself to make something amazing out of it.

Cool and can you then say, for example: yes, for that type of customer what you do is more interesting? Is that really looking project by project?

We actually do real customisation. So depending on what the customer wants to build, it might be more interesting to do it completely custom or to choose a framework and start from a base. Say you want to create an eCommerce webshop that is fairly straight forward, like most webshops, then Magento is interesting because a lot of features are already included by default.

With custom development, you very often build everything from scratch. We once divided our customers into types of web applications we make. On the one hand, for instance, we develop web applications to make administration easier. Then we make an administrative platform specifically for the customer's needs.

And then you have customers like Pizza Hut. That's a webshop, but everything about it is actually very, very custom. That's why it doesn't fit within a classic webshop. If you want to order a pizza, it’ll have toppings and you can configure those toppings completely. That's where we chose the custom approach.

And then you also have customers like Mundero, for example. This is a webshop with a lot of content that also includes an administration panel, so they can easily monitor their bookings. There, the webshop part is maybe 20 to 30 percent of the entire website, but there are several other things around it. Then it can also be more interesting to start looking at: what if we start doing everything from scratch?

So my answer: yes, it's looking at it project by project. But if your project is very close to something that exists by default, then it makes no sense to start doing everything from scratch.

You've been working at Tailr for ten years. That's quite a long time, then you must really like it?

Yes yes, I can't say anything else now. (laughs) No, but yes, the atmosphere is good, nice colleagues. You get pampered at Tailr.

Yes and ten years. You've been through a lot then too.

Yes.

What are some of the things you’ll never forget, the...

The highlight? Yes, the weekend together is always great, but everyone probably says that? That's really cool. But what's also really cool, and something we've always done, is put the developers and colleagues first. So the technology meetings and lunch demos, for example. We do put a lot of effort into that, to get everyone on a certain level. The people who join them are always very enthusiastic. That might not be the most exciting thing (laughs) but that is something you learn a lot from and grow. I think that's cool. And yes, the usual outings, like going go-karting, going out to dinner...that kind of thing with the colleagues, that's always a lot of fun too.

Last question: it's the beginning of 2023. What are you looking forward to this year?

We will be working to make Tailr even more prominent. I'm looking forward to working on that, to grow Tailr and see what that gives us within this and so many years.

Clearly, Toon will be a top colleague at Tailr for many years to come!

Thanks for your time, Toon!

Also want to get started with this top team? Discover all vacancies today.