Programming for the port

Programming for the port

After two years of dual education, since January 13 Marc Görtzen has held a Diploma as an ‘IT Specialist: Application Developer’. The strongest proof that he made the correct career choice is his being taken on for a permanent job by DAKOSY, the Hamburg-based software company and operator of the Port Community System.

He has continued to work in the department responsible for programming the Export Management Platform 4.0. There’s plenty to be done there, since the EMP 4.0 research project is about to be completed. This internet-based Cloud solution that facilitates holistic, digitalized and networked handling of the export process should be freely available on the market from April onwards.

To able to join in, Marc, 24, first had to learn the programming language Java. Thanks to a preparatory online course, he arrived with some basic knowledge. However, he does not regard such prior knowledge as essential. Far more important are enjoyment of logical thinking, different areas of mathematics, team ability and a good deal of patience, since eliminating errors is part of the job. He himself was well aware of what he wanted and what he didn’t: “While studying engineering at Hamburg Technical University, I was fascinated by the year of IT but less so by the theoretical background.”

Marc heard about the dual education as an ‘IT specialist: Application Developer’ through the Hamburg Employment Agency. The content of this matched his own ideas about actually programming software projects and helping develop IT systems. He learned about DAKOSY through word of mouth. Marc was also happy to think that he would be contributing his skills to a sector where the results would be immediately appar ent in the port.

After a short six-week placement, he commenced training on 1 March 2020, just six weeks before Corona was first termed a pandemic. “From mid-March everybody was working at home and trainees had no opportunity of looking over anybody’s shoulders,” he recalls. “To start with, screenshots and TeamViewer were my constant companions. The training manager and my team were always there for me and we exchanged material during an online conference call three times a week.” His university course had already taught Marc the art of organizing himself.

Initially, budding IT specialists are given small-scale programming exercises. As the next step, for EMP 4.0 Marc was able to create microservices, or small parts in an IT architecture sample that generates complex application software from separate processes. After nine months, Marc had progressed so far that he could work independently on the project. “From that moment, I was capable of selecting tickets – i.e. tasks – within a ‘sprint’ myself. In our sector, a ‘sprint’ denotes a firmly defined period - with us that’s roughly a month - within which a specific amount of work is completed,” explains Marc. His extensive advance knowledge, the attachment and his rapid learning prompted HR and the operational department to shorten his training by a year. Now Marc looks forward to the time after Corona, with in-person excursions to the port, works outings and more encounters with other members of the DAKOSY team

The company:

Dakosy

DAKOSY is a software company with more than 3,000 customers in Germany, Europe and throughout the world. DAKOSY headquarters are located in Hamburg and has offices in Bochum, Bremen (with CargoSoft), Frankfurt and Konstanz.

DAKOSY has been serving the market for more than 35 years by offering digital software solutions for international freight forwarding, Customs processing and supply chain management. DAKOSY operates the Port Community System for the Port of Hamburg (PCS) and the Cargo Community System (FAIR@Link) for the airports Hamburg and Frankfurt.

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