{"id":43538,"date":"2025-05-20T06:24:06","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T10:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/?p=43538"},"modified":"2025-05-20T06:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T10:24:07","slug":"team-spotlight-bringing-resilience-to-constant-change-hans-lambermont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shapeways.com\/blog\/team-spotlight-bringing-resilience-to-constant-change-hans-lambermont","title":{"rendered":"Hans Lambermont \u2014 bringing resilience to constant change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
One of the many recurring characters in television series is the company \u2018lifer\u2019. A long-term employee who gets comfortable with the status quo. They do their job on autopilot, embrace the routine and coast through until they retire. Hans Lambermont, our Senior Systems Architect, could not be further from that clich\u00e9 \u2014 what has kept him at Shapeways for over 15 years isn\u2019t routine, it\u2019s evolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor the various years I\u2019ve worked here, a lot has changed over time, which is what basically has kept me here,\u201d he says. \u201cFrom startup to grow-up, moving offices, building teams in the US, migrating infrastructure through six different data centers, moving to the cloud, then moving out again. I like that. I like change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The invisible hand <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
As Senior Systems Architect, Hans is responsible for the infrastructure that keeps everything running. This can be something of a thankless task, because when you\u2019re as good as Hans is, nobody notices your work. \u201cInfrastructure is something that is typically not seen at all. It\u2019s only visible once it breaks. But when it does break, everything that depends on it just stops. So you have to plan like everything that can break will break.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not just about patching up problems but more about building resilience. \u201cIf I have multiple servers that can do exactly the same thing, and one of them breaks, the other one should be able to take the full load. That\u2019s good. Nobody notices anything even broke. That is a win.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hans\u2019 decades of experience show themselves in subtle ways. \u201cWe\u2019ve had fiber cuts to the buildings several times. So now, when I see construction happening near where the fiber cables lie, I get anxious\u2026 I\u2019ve seen it happen. But that\u2019s why we have failover plans, backup lines, routing protocols. You have to be ready.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Readiness and resilience<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
That long-term thinking is vital now more than ever. Hans played a crucial role in the restart of Shapeways at the end of 2024, balancing the complex technical infrastructure with cost-efficiency and growth in mind. \u201cWe needed to reconfigure our cloud offering, moving more in-house but retaining the uptime and stability everyone expects. That was a successful project and that\u2019s what we\u2019re running on today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Complexity is sometimes inevitable, but where possible Hans prefers the minimalist approach. \u201cWhen you\u2019re developing systems that cater to multiple different requirements, you end up adding layers upon layers of complexity very quickly,\u201d he explains. \u201cAnd then, if there\u2019s a problem, it\u2019s very difficult to find where it resides. So I ask, \u2018is that layer really needed\u2019? Cutting complexity makes it easier to diagnose and fix problems \u2014 and to prevent them from happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And as Shapeways looks to scale, Hans\u2019 role becomes even more central. \u201cWe\u2019re currently harmonizing the infrastructure across the different parts of the business; scaling-up when needed, scaling back when we don\u2019t. That saves cost but maintains resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Failing to prepare means preparing to fail<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou always need to plan for growth. If you can handle your current load, can you handle double that? Ten times that? With every scaling step, you need different solutions and it can get costly quickly. It\u2019s a challenge to find the balance of resilience and cost viability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perfection is always just over the horizon, but over time you can get pretty close to it. Hans\u2019 experience in The Netherlands has given him an education in how to do things properly. \u201cShapeways\u2019 factory in Eindhoven was the gold standard in terms of operations. In the early years, people from the company\u2019s other sites would come here to learn how we do things.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That stability, backed by technical maturity, is what underpins the company\u2019s future. \u201cTechnical reliability often can\u2019t be seen. It\u2019s work that happens behind the scenes. But the people here \u2014 the team, the tools, the practices \u2014 are solid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Curiosity and cosmology<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hans\u2019 passion for the big picture \u2014 literally\u2014 doesn\u2019t stop when he goes home. He\u2019s written custom Linux drivers for his astrophotography hobby, built his own weather station and automated an observatory roof that opens and closes based on cloud cover. \u201cIt\u2019s a fun challenge. I\u2019ve been running it for a while now. Some objects are just two small dots in a star field, but if you know what you\u2019re looking at, like a gravitationally split quasar, it\u2019s fascinating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what kind of person is best suited to the herculean task of keeping systems up and stopping problems before they happen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCurious people. People who are determined to fix something up to their own standards. Everything we run runs on Linux. We\u2019ve used cutting-edge infrastructure: ZFS on Linux, EBGP routing, Kubernetes, Flux, Terraform\u2026 we\u2019re not afraid to change. Change is constant. Expect it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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