Arjen Lentz

Arjen Lentz started programming as a teenager in the early ’80s, using a PDP-8 at the local computer club and an Acorn BBC/B at home, where he also tinkered with electronics. These were the days when computers did nothing unless you coded them yourself, so he explored (dis)assembly, bulletin boards, and modems. However, recognising the limited legal career opportunities in those areas, he shifted his focus to C programming as a profession, making use of his data communications and low-level programming skills. Arjen has used DOS, Windows, OS/2, assembly and straight machine code on micro-controllers, and latched on to Linux from when Walnut Creek shipped him CDs with Slackware Linux.

Around the turn of the millennium, Arjen moved to Australia, attracted by the space, climate, and new opportunities. He joined MySQL as employee #25, working remotely. After his time at MySQL, Arjen ran his own training and consulting business for 11 years before selling it and returning to the security field as a CISO. It turned out he had simply been ahead of his time: the market for security skills had yet to mature.  Now, we all know that market is thriving, and coding experience is a fantastic additional asset, as is an understanding of how businesses work.

Today, while Arjen occasionally codes, he serves as Senior Technical Architect at Ravinn. He has a particular interest in fundamentally improving security. Last year, Arjen found and fixed a security bug in sudo. He is dedicated to open source, most recently acting as treasurer for the Everything Open 2026 conference in Canberra.

Arjen also runs around as volunteer at CrikeyCon, and helps out at Repair Cafes in Brisbane.