From internship to specialist
Let me take you back to the beginning. I graduated in 2019 from Karel De Grote Hogeschool, obtaining my degree in applied informatics. To graduate, I had to complete an internship. Our school organized a meet-up with different companies and IS4U happened to be present.
We had a good talk and I thought they had an interesting internship assignment so I was convinced immediately! An interesting assignment and nice people, that seemed to be the perfect match.
After finishing my internship, IS4U offered me a full time job opportunity. A chance I had to take. At first, I worked with Imprivata, then with ISAM from IBM and since a few years, I’m busy with Keycloak. Keycloak is something I’m working with on a daily basis. Keycloak is an Access Manager product for authentication.
It’s basically a server that we install at the customer’s site, that can communicate with all applications. You’ll have to log in as an employee or as a customer from an external company. After that is done, Keycloak automatically transfers your log-in to the other applications.
The security consultant life
A typical workday as a security consultant looks like this. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I work for a specific client as an ISAM (IBM) specialist. Thursdays and Fridays are Keycloak days. Next to that, I’m also busy with guiding our interns, specifically those who are interested in Keycloak.
I have stand-ups with them and I’m their go to person if they have any questions or concerns. All days are of course different and bring their own challenges, but that’s what makes it fun!
Milestones and motivations
The guidance of interns is something I really enjoy doing and something I would like to make progress in. I don’t mind being the problem solver, not at all. As our team gets bigger, I would like to pick up more of a management or teamlead role. Having my own team members with their own projects is kind of a dream of mine. This dream is a bit inspired by my own teamlead, Kevin De Win. I learned so much from him, I’d like to inspire someone the same way he has inspired and guided me.
A project I’m most proud of was a project during Covid. A client of ours didn’t have a system to work from home, so when Covid started, they faced a huge challenge. I spent a couple of days working 16 hours a day and got a system up and running in 4 days. I’m especially proud of the fact the client is still using the system up till this day.
Team spirit
Working at IS4U is not bad at all, I’d say it’s actually pretty good. There is such a relaxed environment in our office. You’re not being rushed, I can speak with my ‘Antwarps’ dialect to my managing partners, there’s just a good vibe here.
Other than our Tenerife trip which was quite an unique experience, I very much enjoyed our skiing trip. When you’re with your colleagues over a course of several days, you’ll notice you connect on a deeper level with each other. You also create a bond with people from sub-companies, who you normally don’t work with. Of course, the après-ski helped a bit to bond with everyone.
The road ahead
Looking ahead, I hope IS4U continues to grow and expand its client base in Belgium and other countries. Most of all, I hope we become a well-known name in the security industry. If you’re thinking of anything related to security or identity & access management, I hope you’ll think of us!
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