Robert's Climb

Robert Vaida, senior full-stack software engineer in Antwerp. The story from 2014 to the next level.

  1. 2014: arrived in Belgium by plane.
  2. 2016 to 2019: software engineering and design at Thomas More, KU Leuven. As a top student, took freelance projects in programming from the first year, next to the studies. Graduated summa cum laude, with greatest distinction (85.12%) and joined Designosource, the programme's student agency, a special team that builds real projects for real clients instead of writing a thesis.
  3. 2019 to 2021: Artcore Society, part of Cronos Group, in Antwerp (artcoresociety.com). Recruited from school as an intern and hired as a full-stack engineer straight after graduation; projects for Ocean Club Marbella, Carrefour, Katoen Natie and the Flemish government.
  4. 2021: went independent full time with his own company, Code Master BV. Creative work for independent clients: Are We Europe (areweeurope.com and 2021.areweeurope.com), Bonpain (bonpain.bio), Bonsaens (bonsaens.bio), Inderjeet Sandhu (inderjeetsandhu.com) and many more.
  5. 2021 to 2024: MyWay Pro, a D'Ieteren startup, full time and freelance through Code Master BV, building Trade Engine with two other freelancers: his first big system, used by dealers and B2B buyers and meant to become the Amazon of used cars in Europe. After COVID the used-car market came under pressure and MyWay Pro closed, but Trade Engine survived and the whole team moved with it to Volkswagen D'Ieteren Finance.
  6. 2025 to now: Volkswagen D'Ieteren Finance, a financial institution; freelance. Same project, same team: Trade Engine rebuilt as an internal platform for the remarketing team, covering the journey from the end of a lease to reselling cars to B2B buyers.
  7. Side quests, 2025 to now: small products picked by traffic, not by passion. Only the ones that pull real visitors stay, such as Remove Audio (remove-audio.com) and CarFitCheck (carfitcheck.com). Together they draw around 30,000 visits a month. They run on Amazon Web Services, operated day and night by AI agents he configured himself, each with strictly limited permissions.
  8. Next level, January 2027: available for new freelance projects. Email hi@code-master.be.