About

Work Experience

• Director of Data, Innovation & Analytics, NS

  Dec, 2024 - Present

  The Data, Innovation & Analytics department ensures that everywhere within NS, data is leveraged to its fullest potential and the power of AI is unlocked to maximize operational efficiency, employee productivity and customer happiness. We aim to replace gut feelings with data-driven decision-making at all levels.
  As director, it is my responsibility to see to it that teams across NS effectively collaborate with the business to solve business challenges with the help of data & AI. I make sure that data- and intelligence products are delivered successfully, in a timely manner and within budget. I identify strategic opportunities for leveraging data & AI within NS and I recognize the strategic challenges where data & AI can make a real difference, and I steer the department accordingly .

  • Shaped the new Data & AI Strategy for NS with a stronger emphasis on AI & self-service analytics and an increased focus on Data & AI literacy at NS

  • Designed and implemented the new Innovation department at NS, consolidating and centralizing all innovation efforts

  • Restructured the governance of the DI&A department to support a shift towards internal customer focus and better alignment with business goals

• CTO, Source.ag

  Mar, 2021 - Oct, 20243 years 8 months

  Source's mission is to empower growers to provide everyone around the globe with sufficient fruits and vegetables, in a climate-resilient and resource-efficient way. We do that by building the world’s best AI software for growers - to help start, run, and expand successful growing businesses worldwide.

  I joined the Source.ag as its first employee. Starting out as VP of Engineering (reporting to the CTO), I led a team of talented Software Engineers, Frontend Engineers and Cloud Engineers to build compelling AI-powered producs for the agriculture industry. Together with my team I took the research of our Science division into AI and plant biology and the product vision and bring those to life as commercially viable and technologically excellent products on top of a robust and performant platform. By the end of 2022, I transitioned to the role of CTO, reporting to the CEO. I was accountable for the technological vision and roadmap, delivery, architecture, scalability, QA, security & compliance, cost control and building an amazing engineering team.

  • Scaled the engineering team from 1 to 45+ engineers in 3 years time (Engineering is the biggest department to date at Source), and helped the company scale from 3 to 130+ people

  • Successfully launched 3 major products, allowing Source to grow revenue from 0 to 2M+ ARR

  • Developed the initial versions of Source's first products

  • Built the foundations of Source's data platform, integrating with 3 major climate computers and a long-tail of sensor manufacterers and ERP systems

  • Defined the core architecture of our platform and products

  • Played a pivotal role in defining the company culture and values and created an effective engineering culture based on curiosity, trust and radical candor

  • Built a successful operating model of collaboration between Engineering, Product and Data/Plant Science

• Director Engineering & Architecture, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

  Sep, 2018 - Feb, 20212 years 5 months

  As Director Engineering & Architecture for the department Operations Decision Support and the KLK-BCG Partnership I focused on creating and maintaining a cohesive overall architecture and technological vision for the products and platforms developed at ODS and the Partnership. I guided teams within ODS and BCG/KLM Partnership teams to build their products in accordance with this architectural vision. I led a group of ~30 software engineers, data engineers & data scientists in building innovative products to support and enhance decision making. I was also responsible for ensuring high engineering standards in our development efforts. I did this by setting up and maintaining development and architecture guidelines, coaching teams and participating in recruitment efforts.
  Another main focus area was to foster an Engineering Culture within the department that led to acquiring and maintaining more Engineering, Data Science and Operations Research talent. I was directly responsible for hiring and coaching tech talent.

  I was a major driving force behind the company-wide Business & Technology transformation that was spurred on by the need to become more lean and technology-driven after financial down-turn in the airline industry caused by COVID-19. Replicating the success of the startup-within-enterprise way of working I introduced at ODS, we completely restructured the way technology teams are setup and moved towards a tight integration between Technology & Business.

• Management Team member AIRLINEOPERATIONS.AI, Digital Airline Operations

  Jun, 2018 - Present

  I was one of the management team members of this high-tech carve-out that uses the power of artificial intelligence to optimize airline planning & control. I was instrumental in defining the technological vision behind the products we developed and a major contributor to the product vision.
  Airlineoperations.ai is a Boston Consulting Group, BCG Gamma and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines digital partnership in real-time integrated decision-making. Customers include the world's leading airlines.

• Data Platform Lead/Architect/Coach, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

  Aug, 2016 - Aug, 20182 years

  I was hired by KLM to spearhead their (Big) Data efforts. With completely new teams, we've built platforms that now form the basis for all efforts at KLM to make optimal use of their operational data to increase efficiency of their operational processes. Among the goals: improve and predict turnaround processes by extracting intelligence from data, predict no-shows, predict delays, predict engine failures, centralize data warehousing in a data lake etc.
  My role at KLM was twofold: I architected and helped build their data platforms, but I also coached their teams - BI experts/developers - to become proficient with the Data Engineering ecosystem and tooling (see below) so they can continue building on the platform.
  I also helped data scientists industrialize their models and bring them to production, teaching them data engineering skills in the process.

  Tech: Spark, Kafka, Flume, NiFi, Cassandra, HBase, HDFS, Scala, Python, scikit-learn (KLM runs the Hortonworks Data Platform as Hadoop distribution)

• Freelance Lead Software Engineer / Data Engineer / Firestarter, Joy in Coding

  May, 2016 - Dec, 20182 years 7 months

  I worked as a freelance Software Engineer and Tech Lead. My pitch: I specialize in bringing technological innovation to teams, and building great products. I can help you out as an expert software engineer, writing beautiful code to make your ideas happen. I’m also in the know about emerging new technologies that can help you/your team reach your goals more quickly and efficiently, while increasing team happiness. Let me help you bring you/your team up-to-speed in current and future best practices in the areas of Softare & Data engineering, continuous integration, deployment and delivery, containerization, API-first and software craftmanship.

• Co-Founder, ChargeGrid

  Jan, 2016 - Jan, 20182 years

  Together with friends, I built a complete software solution for (EV) Charge Point Operators to take control of their smart charging stations and monetize them. ChargeGrid is a OCPP 1.6 compliant charging backend & management portal. In 2017 we open-sourced the complete ChargeGrid backend, after our business failed to gain traction.
  See: https://github.com/chargegrid

  Building ChargeGrid has led to various consulting engagements in the EV space.

  Tech: Clojure, Websockets, Compojure API, PostgreSQL, React, Javascript

• Software Engineer, VPRO

  May, 2016 - Aug, 20163 months

  At VPRO I built modern, well-tested APIs for modern web experiences. My main project was working on the new APIs behind the updated version of Cinema.nl (soon to be released). I also helped the VPRO build a modern API platform for exposing media metadata that can be consumed by a multitude of applications from various stakeholders.
  Tech: Java 8, JAX-RS (RestEasy), Spring, Hibernate, ElasticSearch, PostgreSQL, Rest-Assured

• Firestarter and Software Engineer, Universit

  Dec, 2015 - May, 20165 months

  Universit was pivoting their product from being a pure Mobile Device Management solution to being a complete platform for Telecom distributers and resellers to sell mobile workspaces, including: connectivity, cloud services (automatically provisioned using their APIs), hardware, etc.
  I was brought in because Universit wanted to overhaul their way of working and their technology stack. The wanted to move from a semi-Agile organisation, still rooted in waterfall practices, to a completely lean & agile startup mentality. They also wanted to move away from their .NET stack towards a more Linux-friendly technology stack.
  I set out with a largely new team to spin off functionality of the existing platform into microservices built in a more modern and Linux-friendly tech stack, mostly based around the JVM (Scala & Clojure). We experimented with some different backend and frontend technologies, by building one-day prototypes.
  Tech: Scala, Play, Scalatra, Finatra, Slick, Python, C#, .NET Core, Clojure, Clojurescript & Reagent, Javascript, React

• Lead Data Engineer/Scala Engineer, NewMotion (now Shell Recharge Solutions)

  Jun, 2014 - Nov, 20151 year 5 months

  I joined NewMotion to design and realise their (Big) Data strategy. I identified all data that’s spread out through the company and brought it together in a central Hadoop-based hub, based on the Cloudera Hadoop distribution. Using this data warehouse and the technologies from the Hadoop ecosystem, I enabled data-based decision making in the daily jobs of the people at TNM.
  To support a data-driven company culture and empower people to ask the right questions from the data, I created various custom tools that make tasks like querying the cluster and creating dashboards much easier. Furthermore I introduced tools like Tableau to enable a true self-service data environment.

  In a team of data engineers, we then focused on:
  - Ingestion of data from external sources (Salesforce, Navision) using Avro, KiteSDK and more.
  - Enabling more up-to-date data ingestion for our relational data sources using Sqoop
  - Speeding up ETL processes using Spark
  - (Near) Realtime ingestion and aggregation of application & system logs, click streams and other fast-moving metrics using Flume, Kafka and Spark Streaming
  - Integrating existing infrastructure/applications with the Hadoop systems.
  - Predictive analytics and machine learning using Spark MLLib
  Tech: Hadoop, Spark, Sqoop, Pig, Impala, Flume, Kafka, Scala, Python, NumPy, SciPy

  Because of my broad expertise, I also did a lot of work as full stack engineer, building microservices for the real-time charge point backend, pricing and settlement-systems and internal tools for charge point installers/maintenance.
  Tech: Scala, Spray, Play, Slick, PostgreSQL, Akka & Akka Persistence, Stamina, Scalatra, AngularJS, React, Coffeescript (later switched to EcmaScript 2015)

  Lastly, I spearheaded the automation and containerization of our infrastructure, moving from self-hosting to an Amazon AWS based setup.
  Tech: Saltstack (automation), Docker (containerization), Fabric (see https://github.com/DandyDev/fabdocker), Amazon AWS

• Software Engineer, Info.nl

  Nov, 2012 - May, 20141 year 6 months

  At Info.nl I was responsible for developing Java EE webapplications for large clients in and outside of The Netherlands, such as Greenwheels and Allianz, using technologies from the Java Enterprise ecosystem, relational databases and queues.
  For Greenwheels I was involved with a project to build a brand new booking system using JavaEE 7, PostgreSQL, OpenMQ and following principles of CQRS.
  I was also responsible for architecting and developing data processing applications using Hadoop, Pig, Cascading, Hive and Impala for analysing application logs for the whole company and for analysing customer- and behavioral data that our clients’ applications generate. For this purpose I developed some extensions to Flume to help us gather logs in custom formats into HDFS using the Avro format (see: https://github.com/DandyDev/flume-plugins )

  Tech: JavaEE7, PostgreSQL, Spring & Spring MVC, OpenMQ, Glassfish 4, Scala, Gatling (functional & stress testing), Stripes, Hadoop, Flume, Pig, Hive

• Lecturer Datastructures & Algorithms, Hogeschool Rotterdam

  Oct, 2013 - Mar, 20145 months

  I taught datastructures and algorithms to graduate students majoring in Software Engineering & Computer Science. The course was co-developed with a fellow lecturer and covered most basic datastructures, searching and sorting algorithms, time-complexity, Java Collections Framework and Generics

• Lecturer Cryptography/Security, Hogeschool Rotterdam

  Sep, 2013 - Dec, 20133 months

  I taught an existing course in Cryptography and Security to graduate students majoring in Computer Science. The course covered the history of cryptography and the practical workings of the most used cryptosystems and applies a pragmatic combination of hands-on labs and theoretical lectures.

• Intern Hadoop/Marketing Intelligence, 2organize (now Merkle)

  Jul, 2012 - Oct, 20123 months

  My bachelor thesis revolved around the question in what way Big Data technologies, from the Hadoop ecosystem in particular, could be applied in a marketing context, for the processing and analysis of customer- and response data. This particular internship caught my attention because it's less common to see Big Data problems identified and tackled in the realm of marketing. 2organize was looking for ways to both increase the efficiency in processing data for their clients and glean more insights and extract more value from the data form their customers that was used in marketing automation processes. I formulated ways in which marketing (automation) processes could benefit from using technologies like Hadoop, Pig and Hive. In the end, I worked together with the marketing intelligence analists to deliver a Hadoop-based prototype that was used to gain insights in the response data from a series of large-scale email campaigns for Vodafone.

  Tech: Hadoop, Pig, Hive, Cascading

• Software Engineer, 2organize (now Merkle)

  Jul, 2012 - Oct, 20123 months

  I developed small to medium-sized actionable marketing websites for high profile clients in Ruby on Rails. Most websites were part of multichannel marketing campaigns that typically had a lifecycle of a couple of months to a half year. Because of the relatively short lifespan of those websites, and the changing requirements, development was done under strict deadlines and within an agile mindset.
  Clients include Vodafone, KPN, NS (Dutch railways) and others.

  Tech: Ruby on Rails 3

• Lecturer Cryptography 101, Hogeschool Rotterdam

  Jan, 2012 - Jul, 20126 months

  I developed an extracurricular course for collegestudents covering the history of cryptography and detailing the most common cryptosystems, applying a pragmatic combination of hands-on labs and theoretical lectures.

• Lead Engineer, MOvE

  Sep, 2011 - Jun, 20129 months

  I led a team of 5 – 10 developers and designers in bringing the MOvE Online CMS for Artists to the next level. Responsible for transitioning the company to using SCRUM. Several systems that were designed by me: new Authentication system, API, Functional design for future Mobile App, and a host of new features in the CMS that led to a customer growth of 50% in 18 months.

  Tech: PHP, Symfony Framework, Zend Framework, MySQL

• Software Engineer, MOvE

  Jun, 2010 - Sep, 20111 year 3 months

  I was responsible for building new features and modules for a hosted CMS solution geared towards Artists and Musicians. Extensive use of: PHP5/Symfony/Doctrine/MySQL/HTML5/CSS3
  Also responsible for server installation and maintenance (Ubuntu Server, LAMP stack)

  Tech: PHP, Symfony Framework, Zend Framework, MySQL

• Owner & Pianist/Composer/Arranger, Dandymusic

  Sep, 2005 - Jun, 20115 years 9 months

  I (co-)developed and participated in many musical projects as independent pianist/composer/arranger/bandleader and producer. I toured extensively, including a tour to Singapore and other appearances abroad.

  • Composed, recorded and co-produced an album for Dutch singer Renee van Bavel

  • As songwriter, released various singles on major streaming services, such as Spotify

  • Composer, arranger, musical director and pianist of 4 major theatrical tours with Renee van Bavel

  • Composer, arranger, musical director and pianist of 3 festival productions for the large Boulevard Festival

  • Arrangements and orchestrations of 3 opera shows for Theatre Company Hofplein

  • Various other appearances as recording artist and live pianist

Projects Experience

• Slack Machine

  - Present

  A simple, yet powerful and extendable framework for building Slack bots, written in Python

• daan.fyi

  - Present

  My website, for which I occasionally write blogs on what is keeping me awake at night

• ChargeGrid

  - Present

  Open source charge point management solution and backoffice

Skills

Education

Volunteer Work

Interests