Meet the Expert — Simone de Gijt: From Speech Therapy to Senior Java Developer
How curiosity, courage, and community shaped the journey of OpenValue developer Simone, who traded the therapy room for the terminal and found her voice on the conference stage along the way.
Series introduction: In this “Meet the Experts” blog series, OpenValue developers share who they are, what drives them, and what makes working at OpenValue different. We kick off with Simone de Gijt, a senior Java/Kotlin developer at OpenValue Amsterdam, international conference speaker, and trainer, whose path into tech started in a place you’d never expect.
The Spark That Changed Everything
Before there was a single line of code, there was the human brain. Simone studied speech and language therapy at university and was fascinated by neurology: How the brain processes language, how it recovers, how it learns. The theory captivated her. The practice, however, told a different story.
“I realized pretty quickly during my internships that I’m not a therapist. That’s a skill in itself, and it’s just not mine.” What she did discover was a love for the analytical side of her studies; especially statistics.
Faced with a binary choice after graduation “become a therapist or pursue academia”, neither option felt right. A career as a researcher meant working in isolation; therapy meant doing something she knew didn’t suit her. It was family members who worked in tech who planted the seed: “If you’re good at statistics, maybe you should look at IT.”
A Python course on Codecademy became the turning point. She had never seen a line of code before in her life. And yet, from the very first exercises, something clicked.
“I had never seen a single line of code in my life. Then I took that Python course and thought: this is just puzzling all day. This doesn’t feel like work.”
That was the moment the switch flipped. Not gradually, but decisively. From someone who had never seen a codebase to someone who couldn’t imagine living her life without. After completing a traineeship through Calco, Simone landed at Nationale Nederlanden, one of the Netherlands’ major financial institutions, where she spent five years building her skills as a software developer and a team player.
Fighting for a Seat at the Table
The transition into tech wasn’t seamless. The early years of her career came with an unexpected battle. Not against the code, but against assumptions about where she belonged.
“I was repeatedly pushed toward becoming a Scrum Master or a business analyst. Multiple companies steered me that way. I don’t doubt I could do those roles, but I get far less satisfaction from them. I wanted to code. I wanted to build things and solve puzzles.”
Developer positions were limited, and there was always someone who seemed a more obvious fit. The social, communicative woman with a speech therapy background? Surely she’d be better suited for a people-facing role. That assumption became fuel rather than frustration.
“I was constantly pushed toward Scrum Master or analyst roles. But I wanted to build things. That resistance became my motivation to prove I belonged.” — Simone de Gijt
It was a fight she had to wage actively. But looking back, Simone sees it as a defining force. “It was always a motivator for me; to prove that if I was given that developer seat, I deserved it and could deliver.”
How OpenValue Changed the Game
When Simone started looking for her next challenge, she had one firm rule: no consultancy. Every recruiter who mentioned the word was immediately dismissed. Then Roy Braam, Director of the OpenValue Amsterdam team, sent her a personal LinkedIn message.
“He didn’t open with a job opportunity and a salary. He’d actually read my profile. He started talking about my scuba diving certificates, asking where I’d been diving. The conversation was so much more personal than the standard recruitment approach.”
Because of the personal approach, she decided to hear him out. Not only was she offered a job, but when she spoke with the OpenValue team, she discovered a world she didn’t know existed: the Java community. Conferences, meetups, the Java Magazine, J-Fall, an entire ecosystem of knowledge sharing and community that had been invisible to her.
“I had no idea there was such a thing as a Java community. I’d never been to a conference. I didn’t know about meetups. And suddenly I realized: if I join OpenValue, I get so much more than just an assignment. I get a community.”
What sealed the deal was the alignment with who she is as a person. Before speech therapy, Simone had a background in musical theater and performance. She’d left that world behind, but she missed it: The thrill of moving an audience, of making people light up. OpenValue offered a way to combine both worlds: deep technical work and the opportunity to share knowledge on stage.
A Work Family — Not Just a Workplace
Four and a half years in, Simone speaks about OpenValue with the warmth of someone describing a work family. Because in many ways, that’s exactly what it is.
“When you’ve been here for a year, you usually know the names of most people’s partners. You’ve met them a few times. It sounds a bit odd, but it really is like a small work family.”
The difference from a traditional in-house role goes beyond personal bonds. As a consultant, your world expands. Different clients mean different codebases, different frameworks, different company cultures. You switch between contexts in ways that accelerate growth.
But it’s the directors of OpenValue who embody what makes OpenValue unique. They are deeply respected in the industry for their technical expertise: Java Champions, international conference speakers, Java User Group leaders. Yet internally the culture is radically flat.
“The word ‘boss’ is almost taboo at OpenValue. The directors are deeply respected in the industry, yet internally the message is always: we’re all working toward the same goal.”
That environment proved transformative for Simone personally. She arrived at OpenValue battling imposter syndrome. Coming from a non-traditional background, stepping into a company full of seasoned technical professionals, she questioned whether she truly belonged.
“The colleagues at OpenValue never made me feel like I didn’t belong. Not because of my background, not for any reason. I always felt included and respected. And over four and a half years, that imposter syndrome has just faded away.”
Building AI Before AI Was Cool
On her current assignment at Rabobank, Simone works in a product team. A deliberate choice after experimenting with platform work and discovering she thrives on direct customer impact. “I tried the platform side for a few months. It was incredibly educational, but I missed the satisfaction of shipping a feature and seeing it reach users.”
One project stands out as a particular point of pride. In the summer of 2024, her team was tasked with building a pilot application for generative AI. The catch: AI agents weren’t widely available yet, and the application needed to handle multiple flows triggered by different user prompts, calling various backends depending on the question asked.
“We had to build a multi-prompt solution when there was barely any documentation or tooling available for that kind of architecture. We just dove in. And I’m proud that we came up with something robust when almost nobody had done it before.”
The biggest lesson? Understanding AI’s limitations. “I learned that you can’t ask an AI too much. I learned when a certain question formulation will backfire. If you don’t provide enough context, the answer might be useless. At least in a structured production environment.”
Kotlin remains her language of choice. “I work mostly in Java, but if it were up to me, I’d convert everything to Kotlin.” Beyond specific technologies, what drives her is the growing understanding that comes with experience. Recognizing why certain frameworks shine in certain contexts, and feeling that renewed excitement when pieces suddenly click into place.
From Nervous Wreck to Conference Regular
Simone’s journey into public speaking began shortly after joining OpenValue. Founder Roy Braam encouraged her to start submitting to conferences, but the first season was a humbling experience.
“I submitted to six or seven conferences and got accepted by exactly one: Kotlin Dev Day in Amsterdam.” That single acceptance, however, came with an unforgettable stage. The event was held at the Johan Cruijff Arena (football stadium), and Simone found herself presenting on the football pitch. Literally on the field.
“I was dying of nerves. From about an hour before my talk, I had terrible stomach pain. I was pacing around the speaker room when James Ward (who was a senior figure at Google at the time, currently working for AWS) noticed and gave me a pep talk. That bit of unexpected support made all the difference.”
The adrenaline after stepping off stage was unlike anything else. “You feel ten centimeters taller. You think: I’m not going to sleep for three days.” That first recorded talk also opened doors for subsequent seasons, when acceptance rates improved dramatically.
Her advice to aspiring speakers is clear: start with local meetups and user groups if conferences aren’t accepting you yet. Build your portfolio. Get recorded. And above all: practice.
“If you know your material so well that you don’t need to look at your slides, you can make real eye contact with your audience. That’s when it becomes a conversation instead of a broadcast.”
Over time, her talks evolved. Initial experimentation with various topics eventually led to something deeply personal: Talks connecting her neuroscience background to continuous learning in tech. “Wired! How your brain learns new programming languages” was followed up by “Hack Your Brain: Smarter Learning for Devs” and more recently evolved into a third talk exploring AI’s impact on how our brains learn “wAIred! Learn with(out) AI”.
“We’re adopting AI so fast that we barely stop to consider what it’s doing to our brains. Are we getting smarter? Are we getting lazier? That question resonates with everyone.”
The topic resonates universally. She consistently draws groups of eight to ten people who stay after her talks to share experiences and continue the conversation. “That’s the best part for me: when the audience is so moved that it becomes a dialogue, not a monologue.”
Check out all the talks of Simone here.
Standing on the Shoulders of Experts
When asked about her biggest inspirations, Simone names two colleagues, each for different reasons.
For knowledge sharing, it’s OpenValue CTO Bert Jan Schrijver. “What Bert Jan does incredibly well is take deep technical knowledge and make it accessible to people who aren’t at that level yet. He pulls you into the story. He has presence when he walks into a room; confidence, social awareness, and such breadth of knowledge that you can hardly catch him off guard.”
For day-to-day technical growth, it’s OpenValue Amsterdam colleague Martin Visser, with whom she’s shared assignments for the full four and a half years at OpenValue. “Martin is a very strong, senior developer not only in the way he writes code but also in pro-activeness, responsibility and helpfulness. He’s very responsible about his work, but he’s also good at putting responsibilities where they belong, which is a valuable trait. And luckily for me.. Whenever I ask him to explain something, he always makes time ;)”
What’s Next
Recently, Simone has added training delivery to her repertoire and discovered yet another dimension of the knowledge sharing she loves. “With a talk, you’re mainly the person who’s talking. With a training, you’re truly collaborating. The interaction goes both directions, and that multiplied engagement is exactly what I thrive on.”
Looking ahead, she’s intrigued by the idea of larger-scale technical coordination. Think migrations or implementations that span multiple teams, with real deadlines and real adrenaline. A technical program management role, perhaps. But for now, she’s content to keep growing as a senior developer while exploring these new avenues.
Her message to anyone considering joining OpenValue? “Don’t hesitate, just do it. It’s an environment where personal connection drives everything. The directors invest in your growth financially, technically, and personally. And the best part? You are deciding where your career goes. They’ll never push you in a direction that serves the company but not you.”
Between ski trips, hackathons, Tech Days, and conference after-parties, OpenValue offers something that’s increasingly rare in the tech world: a place where excellent engineering and genuine human connection aren’t competing priorities. They’re the same thing.
Simone de Gijt is a senior Java/Kotlin developer at OpenValue Amsterdam, currently on assignment at Rabobank. She speaks at international conferences about neuroscience, learning, and AI. Her talks include “Wired! How your brain learns new programming languages”, “Hack Your Brain: Smarter Learning for Devs” and “wAIred! Learn with(out) AI”. Check out all the talks of Simone here.
Curious whether the stage might be something for you? Simone regularly gives the training Getting started with public speaking.
This is the first article in the “Meet the Experts” series.
Interested in joining OpenValue? Visit openvalue.eu/career.
Want to level up your skills? Explore the OpenValue training portfolio — by developers, for developers.
