Robbert Van Ginkel
Software Engineer at Cradle
Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolRobbert Van Ginkel is a software engineer with 12 years of experience building developer-facing platforms and infrastructure, currently leading the platform team at Cradle to bring machine learning capabilities to biologists. He has a strong background in backend and build systems, with notable open-source contributions to high-profile projects like Bazel rules_go, Buf (protocol buffers tooling), and Facebook’s Buck build system. At Buf he was an early engineer and technical lead for the BSR, while at Uber he progressed through roles spanning iOS, mobile developer experience, networking, and Go platform work. Robbert combines hands-on systems engineering with pragmatic team leadership, often focusing on build/test automation, cross-compilation, and developer workflows. Based in Amsterdam and grounded in an AI bachelor’s from the University of Amsterdam, he brings both academic rigor and production-grade delivery to platform problems. Colleagues value his knack for improving developer productivity across complex polyglot codebases.
12 years of coding experience
8 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor’s Degree Artificial Intelligence, Bachelor’s Degree Artificial Intelligence at University of Amsterdam
Dutch, English
Github Skills (24)
git10
ios10
protocol-buffers10
go10
bazel10
build-automation10
golang10
protobuffer10
protobuf10
cli10
testing9
cicd9
buf9
grpc9
test-automation9
Programming languages (17)
Github contributions (5)
bufbuild/buf
Jul 2021 - Oct 2022
The best way of working with Protocol Buffers.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:1 release, 179 reviews, 25 commits in 1 year 2 months
Contributions summary:Robbert's contributions primarily focused on enhancing the `bufbuild/buf` repository, a tool for working with Protocol Buffers. They implemented features to support HTTP authentication within the git submodule and checkout processes. The user also updated the CLI version and reverted to a development version. Furthermore, they added support for user deactivation in the enterprise version of BSR and made changes to RPC error handling.
protocol-buffersbuf-schema-registryprotobufgrpcbuf-cli
bazel-contrib/rules_go
Mar 2019 - May 2021
Go rules for Bazel
Role in this project:Backend & DevOps Engineer
Backend & DevOps EngineerContributions:12 commits, 7 PRs, 50 comments in 2 years 2 months
Contributions summary:Robbert primarily contributed to the build and testing infrastructure of the Bazel Go rules. They focused on improving the build process for Go protobuf projects, resolving import path issues, and adding configurable stamping support. The user also updated the cross-compilation instructions for projects using cgo, and integrated an XML test report generator. Furthermore, they implemented changes to improve the test execution and parameter file usage for nogo.
golangbazelstarlarkrulescgo
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