Thorleif Thorleifsson

Meet Bjarte - full stack developer and co-founder of Maritime Optima

Meet Bjarte - full stack developer and co-founder of Maritime Optima

Bjarte has been working part-time in i-Sea, Rendra, and Maritime Optima during his studies. Bjarte is young but already skilled and experienced, and he is so positive, hardworking and a super team player. I have had the pleasure of knowing Bjarte since he started his bachelor studies in Computer Science at NTNU. I am so excited to announce that Bjarte has decided to join Maritime Optima.

So Bjarte, seriously, you are so skilled and I know you have received many jobs offers - why Maritime Optima?

I really love taking on challenges and I find the problems we aim to sort out with Maritime Optima so motivating. I am very lucky and excited being granted the opportunity to join an early phase startup, working with satellite data in combination with nautical map data and user data, which is financially backed by experienced and passionate maritime people, Innovation Norway, Norwegian Space Agency and the Norwegian Research Council. When I joined i-Sea, it was a race of utilizing S57 data, now we are focusing on utilizing satellite data.

Tell us a little bit about your background?

I grew up Voss in Norway. I have a huge family and we have always spent a lot of time together. I am proud of my family and I enjoy being a part of a team reminding me of my family. I have always been passionate about computers (hardware), electronics and software and I started exploring software from the age of 6. Before I started my bachelor studies, I worked as a freelance full stack developer and I have also built web pages. I remember I was very proud when I sold my first product at the age of 16. After some years with freelance work, I decided to be a student in programming at NTNU. During my studies, I have been working part-time for many companies.

What do you think is the success criteria for a startup?

A lot of startups never make it to the market, and I think the main reason for that is the lack of a passionate team backing and helping each other. I find the Silicon Valley show entertaining, but it also shows how important it is to have a diversified team but with the same passion, goals, and ambitions. There is no recipe for a startup, you just need to be able to work hard, learn quickly, keep the motivation and never give up.

Why do you think Maritime Optima will succeed?

With a startup, you never know whether it will be a success or not, but this team has learned from their mistakes from previous startups, we have solid domain knowledge and experience, we know the industry, and we have a huge network. I really believe we can do something great for the maritime industry. In addition, we are skilled, we enjoy working together and we have a track record of deliverance. I know there are many startups and mature software companies focusing on the maritime industry, but I am really looking forward to launching our MVP product by end of September, and then people can judge by themselves.

What are your biggest worries for the Maritime Optima project?

My biggest worries are the lack of data quality and the lack of willingness to share within the maritime industry. This industry is a little bit old fashioned compared to other industries and we have to be able to work together with the industry leaders to nudge the industry moving into the digitalized age. So I believe intuitive user-friendly and useful software, which is easily accessible on all platforms will be embraced by the maritime industry.

What is a successful team?

A team needs to have a shared goal and work well together in an open-minded environment. I enjoy working with people of different backgrounds, skills, age, and education. The combination of experience individuals and young people with new ideas is a formula for success. A successful team is like a family. We will fight and argue, but we will always stay together as one.

Maritime Optima are recruiting - what kind of skills do we look for when we recruit developers?

We prefer full-stack developers with a passion for our technology and for learning. We are looking for candidates with experience from architected, designed and implemented back-end scalable web applications. Back-end web programming experience at scale (Golang, python, nodejs). Knowledge about different database systems, both SQL and noSQL. Javascripts frameworks, React, React-Native. Experience working with Docker and Kubernetes.

You have to be dedicated, passionate and you have to be willing to update your knowledge even it is outside office hours. You need to stand up for your opinions and explain why. You need to share our passion and values and you have to contribute to building our team. If you who read this article, think this might be in your interest, please reach out to us.

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