DAASI International Celebrates Employee Anniversary – 15 Years with Dr. Martin Haase
Spending an entire life with one company? Some might say it is a desirable exception, others might say it has become untimely. Martin, however, says: “Never change a winning team!”
On January 19, 2021 our esteemed colleague, Dr. Martin Haase, celebrated 15 years of working with and for DAASI International – naturally, we celebrated in a pandemic-appropriate manner with a Jitsi video conference. The team extends their heartfelt congratulations!
„Fifteen years ago Martin joined our team as research fellow for the BMBF1-funded project, TextGrid. Martin’s job was to build the infrastructure for this virtual research environment for text-based disciplines of the Humanities. Part of this job was to implement Shibboleth. Since Shibboleth continues to be one of our most important open source products, Martin could develop his expertise on the technology over the course of his entire career at DAASI International. He now is one of the world’s renowned experts“, says Peter Gietz commending the jubilarian, „because of his friendly and sympathetic nature, and of course because of his extraordinary level of technical knowledge, he is also very well liked amongst our customers. Martin significantly contributed to the success of the company. For this as well as his dedication and loyalty we are beyond grateful to him.“
About Dr. Martin Haase
After graduating with his phD in computer linguistics he joined our team and has become one of our globally renowned SSO experts. In honor of his company anniversary, we invited him for a little interview to talk about the last fifteen years with DAASI International:
Dear Martin, first of all, congratulations on your anniversary! What has changed for you over these past fifteen years, and what has stayed the same?
A big change, of course, are the surroundings: we started off with three little rooms in the computer centre at the University of Tübingen. In 2008 we moved into the building at Europaplatz (“Europe Square”, street name) into our own offices; and in 2015 we added the beautiful fourth floor with the reception and my own actual office. In 2017 David Hübner joined me in said office and we became the company’s SSO team. Moreover, the company has also grown a lot over the years which is its own kind of change, which, nonetheless, never affected the family-like atmosphere Karin and Peter Gietz had created for us as „DAASI parents“; just as well as the trusting dynamic within the team never changed. Lastly, the Corona pandemic also brought along some major changes. Nevertheless, thanks to the good infrastructure even working from home has been going smoothly.
What do you like the best about your job and why?
Funnily enough: variety! Even though I’ve been able to specialise on single sign-on and access management, there were always many different tasks to learn from and diverse challenges to tackle with colleagues. This kind of work is fun, especially when you get positive feedback in the end from colleagues, the boss, and the customers themselves.
Is there one particular project from the last years that stood out to you? What was your job in it?
In 2015, a very large, well-known US IT company approached us. They actually came to the small city of Tübingen to have us help with their SSO solution. The goal of the project was to use the open source product Shibboleth and finely adjust it to match their unique requirements. This meant, suddenly I was managing a 250,000€ project! Our whole team as well as the freelancers working on the project were able to learn a lot from working with the different teams of the American customer. The customer came to Tübingen three times, and at the end of the project we all went hiking in the US!
Do you have any advice for people who are just getting started with their careers? What do you think are the most important criteria to look at when trying to choose the right employer?
Follow through with your education! Try to make the most out of it, even if that means you will not earn money right away. Don’t wait with having kids until after you graduate. Build up your social network, contacts are worth more than the most polished application. And most importantly: Be open for new things! Even with a linguistics phD you can decide to do something (almost) completely different and be successful. Look for a job that does not have you commuting for a quarter of your life. Before starting a new job, look the company’s employees and how long they’ve been working there – where there’s a frequent change within the team, you will not be happy in the long-run either.
Finally, is there anything else you would like to get off your chest?
I want to thank Karin and Peter, as well as the rest of the team, for this journey we’ve been on together for fifteen years now. For you are jolly good fellows, and so say all of us!2
Thank you, Martin, so much for your time and your answers! DAASI International is grateful for the long and wonderful cooperation with you. Here’s to the next fifteen! 😉
1: German Ministry of Education and Research
2The popular English congratulatory song „For He’s Jolly Good Fellow“ is part of the beloved tradition to sing for employees’ birthdays at DAASI International.