Hi! My name is Rutger Mensch. I'm a freelance backend developer from The Netherlands who specializes in developing large-scale backends for websites and apps. After working as a backend developer for Media.Monks for close to ten years, I started my adventure as a freelance developer in December 2022.
In my 10+ years of developing projects for the web I have worked on many different types of backends, including many REST APIs, CMSes, command line tools, integrations with third-party APIs and applications that ingest and expose large amounts of real-time data. I enjoy working on larger platforms, and I have significant experience working with large scalable systems, including microservice and serverless architectures, as well as traditional monoliths.
In recent years I have mostly used Python and Node.js (with TypeScript) for my projects, often in combination with technologies such as PostgreSQL, Redis and Kafka. I consider my skills to be T-shaped: although backend development is my main expertise, I have significant experience with infrastructure (AWS) and frontend development as well. I'm a quick and independent learner, and like many developers I'm always excited about possibilities to learn new technologies.
During my last four years at Media.Monks I was the lead backend developer on a large video platform for the Olympic Games. In this role I frequently connected with product owners and solution architects about the technical direction of the platform. I also spearheaded the backlog refinement sessions for a team of four to eight backend developers and did many code reviews to ensure the consistency of our code base. This experience allowed me to further develop my communication skills and my ability to lead a small to mid-sized development team.
High quality software is reliable and predictable, and as such I have a firm belief in the importance of automated testing, documentation and the maintainability of code. Furthermore I believe that a strong sense of ownership is essential for any developer, since as developers our ultimate goal is to add value and solve problems for end users.
If you'd like to get in touch, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or by sending an email to rutger [at] rutgermensch.com. I'm always open to discussing opportunities to work together on interesting projects!