New Hire to Umbraco HQ: Kenn the Contributor

Written by Kenn Jacobsen

Hi there! My name is Kenn, and I joined the D-team in August 2022 as CMS developer.
My official title is Senior Software Developer, but don’t tell anyone – it makes me sound old! I’ll be teaming up with Bjarke, The Nikolajs and more (spoiler alert!) in shaping the backend of Umbraco moving forward.
Well, let’s be honest – I'll probably be doing frontend stuff too; I just can’t seem to help myself 😊

My incriminating past

I started my very first job almost two decades ago. This was back when .NET 1.1 was the hottest new thing around. Being schooled in Assembly, C and C++, I instantly fell for C# and .NET, and I have stuck with it ever since.

In the meantime, I have been doing a lot of different things in various industries, working both domestically and abroad.

I spent the past 11 years in the agency world, working almost exclusively with Umbraco implementations. Yep, that’s since early V4 days.

Ever since I was introduced to Umbraco, I've been fascinated with the community vibe and the blatant love for the CMS. You people are amazing ♥️ Since V7 I have been a regular contributor and outspoken part of the community.
In the later years I also had the good fortune to join some of the community teams. In fact, I remain as part of the CMS and the Backoffice community teams for the time being.

Oh... and that very first job I started way back then? It was for a company that built a .NET CMS. Sounds familiar? I suppose one could argue I have come full circle at last.

Did anyone say “banjo”?

I am very much a family person, and most of my free time is spent with my girlfriend and our kid. We live in a suburb of Aarhus, Denmark – that's about 1½ hours of train ride to Odense, so I will be working mostly from home.

Keep smiling! The back wall of my home office says it all.

I have played music since I was old enough to hold an instrument, and I have a glorious (not) past as a bass player in a few we-almost-made-it-big rock bands. But who really cares for lugging amps and drums around? Nowadays I stick with an Irish folk trio, jamming trads and shanties on the banjo. Or the mandola, the bouzouki, the tenor guitar... Well, any funny little instrument I can get my hands on.