Graduation - Sustainable software development Deventer

How to make a large application more sustainable?

We need to lower the carbon impact of our applications, yet the road towards this goal is unknown and our application is large and complex. Will you guide us on our mission to make our application more sustainable?

Topicus offers a variety of large applications to a large group of customers. ParnasSys is used by over 90% of Dutch primary schools to administer pupils and track their results. Both the application and its usage keep growing, which might not be environmentally sustainable on the long term. Therefore, the carbon footprint, use of electricity and resource use of our applications will have to decrease.

Over the past years, quite some research has been conducted in the field of sustainable software development and measuring carbon intensity of IT. The W3C-committee has released Web Sustainability Guidelines, and cloud providers now also provide insight in carbon emissions of your cloud usage. Nevertheless, the path to making our large application more sustainable is unclear. Where should we start and how will we measure impact? How can we use these new guidelines and tools? How could we report on our progress? Closing this knowledge gap will contribute to decreasing our carbon impact.

You will be based in team Kolibrie, together with (full stack) developers Janneke, Jacqueline, Patrick, Pim and Suzanna, testers Jeroen and Stijn and our product owner Martin. You can ask them anything and they’re always in for a board game, baking/eating cake or going to the borrel. Janneke – our sustainable software development enthousiast - will be your supervisor.

We are looking for a student that is interested in sustainability and making IT more sustainable. This would also be helpful for your internship:

• Graduating in Computer Science or related field
• Some knowledge about Java, Angular, Javascript, databases such as PostgreSQL

• Career perspective. Many of our graduates stick around with us. Are you a budding talent? Then the transition to a permanent job or traineeship is easily made!
• A compensation of €500 per month.
• A student engagement program: regular gatherings with all students within Topicus.
• Freshly ground bean coffee, our own Gifkikker beer, and pizzas from our own stone oven.
• A wealth of knowledge. Even as a graduate, you'll participate in knowledge sessions, such as our own conference TopiConf, various Meetups, or professional presentations.
• Challenge: the applications we build are quite complex, and we love to experiment with the latest technologies and methodologies. All to improve ourselves and our clients.
• A dedicated mentor as a point of contact and evaluator, but in reality, all your direct team members and colleagues will help make your graduation assignment a success.
• And let's not forget: about 1,200 enthusiastic colleagues you can meet during our legendary parties, drinks, game nights, hackathons, and events. We brew our Topicus Gifkikker (our own craft beer). Just take a look!