Head of Engineering at Fixico (2024-01 – Present)
Leading the Engineering function at Fixico, overseeing international cross-functional teams and driving operational and strategic excellence across the technology organization. Accountable for delivery, team health, and scaling our platforms to meet growing business demands.
- Own and execute the engineering strategy in alignment with product and business OKRs and roadmaps.
- Ensure operational delivery, reliability, and quality across all systems, with transparent reporting and budget accountability.
- Report directly into the CTO, with matrix alignment to the CEO, ensuring close collaboration across the wider leadership team.
- Drive a high-performance culture through all-round coaching, career development, and open, people-first management.
- Foster a collaborative, inclusive engineering culture centered on trust, ownership, and continuous improvement.
- Lead stakeholder management across product, design, business, and C-level to maintain alignment and strategic clarity.
- Oversee international, cross-functional engineering teams and partner closely with Talent Acquisition to attract and retain top talent.
- AI-Native Engineering Transformation: Architected and led the transition to AI-augmented development workflows, utilizing Claude and other specialized agents, resulting in a 5x increase in delivery velocity and a significant reduction in time-to-market for complex features.
- Redesigned the Engineering Operating Model: Reorganized a fragmented engineering org into a high-performance hybrid model of Feature and Core/Platform teams, establishing the technical foundation, observability, and infrastructure necessary for rapid product scaling. Introduced a formal Tech Lead role within Product Trios, Tech Lead, Product Owner, Designer, to ensure delivery quality, system stability, and alignment between product intent and technical execution, without accruing technical debt, selecting and promoting four internal high performers to pioneer the role across key domains. Standardized Ways of Working across the organization through a consistent Scrum based framework, improving roadmap predictability, stakeholder transparency, and cross functional alignment.
- Cloud Platform & DevEx: Identified and closed a critical infrastructure capability gap by hiring a dedicated Cloud Engineer to elevate the GCP platform's stability and observability. Worked hands on in close technical partnership to drive the shift to Infrastructure as Code, improve the Kubernetes cluster, and strengthen the CI/CD pipeline.
- Event Streaming Strategy: Set technical strategy for evolving the platform's event streaming architecture, directing the evaluation and phased migration path from Pub/Sub to managed Kafka on GCP.
- Enterprise-Grade Support & Stability: Scaled the platform support architecture by introducing a centralized portal and redesigned triage process, minimizing developer interruptions while increasing system uptime and issue resolution speed.
- Strategic AI Advisory: Partnered directly with the CTO to define the long-term Corporate AI Strategy, moving beyond simple tool adoption to embedding AI at the core of the organization's architecture and value proposition.
- Product Partnership: Partnered closely with the CPO and product leadership on roadmap prioritization and sequencing, ensuring technical and product priorities remained aligned across delivery.
- Design System Leadership: Spearheaded a company wide Design System initiative in close partnership with the Head of Design, bridging the gap between design and engineering to ensure 100% visual consistency and reusable component architecture across all products.
- Strategic Global Talent Scaling: Professionalized the engineering culture by raising the bar for technical excellence, executing a strategic hiring and leveling up strategy across NL and Sri Lanka to ensure the talent pool was aligned with long-term AI-native goals.
- Financial Stewardship: Led WBSO project filings and applications in partnership with Finance, covering engineering R&D initiatives. Implemented a time tracking tool across engineering and product to enable accurate hour registration, giving Finance the basis to determine capitalizable spend.
Director of Engineering, B2C at Otrium (2021-01 – 2024-12)
Leading the B2C product and technology domain, including the shop (desktop/mobile) and iOS/Android apps. (7 teams ~ 50 FTE globaly)
- Set the strategic direction and execution for B2C engineering, in alignment with peer domains like DevOps and QA.
- Drove the migration from a legacy WooCommerce platform to a composable architecture using Contentful, Commercetools, Algolia, and Auth0 (Okta).
- Improved platform readiness for seasonal campaigns and overhauled internal product search for performance and discoverability.
- Introduced A/B testing frameworks and enhanced MarTech capabilities to support retention and growth initiatives.
- Co-led international, cross-functional teams in partnership with Product, focusing on ownership and sustainable delivery.
- Coached and mentored Engineering Managers and Team Leads, helping them grow as people leaders and strategic thinkers.
- Fostered a transparent, inclusive, and collaborative engineering culture, breaking down silos, promoting psychological safety, and organizing hackathons, tech talks, and informal social events.
- Worked closely with peer Directors (B2B, Ops) on department-wide initiatives spanning vision, architecture, process improvement, and career development.
- Owned the career framework and job architecture for Engineering in collaboration with People & Talent teams.
- Led hiring and employer branding initiatives, including launching a tech blog to share insights into our team and work.
- Managed stakeholder alignment across departments and leadership levels, from engineers to C-level.
- Oversaw vendor relationships, including contract negotiations and AWS EDP management.
- Accountable for WBSO filings, budgeting, and P&L discussions alongside Finance and People teams.
- Reported directly to the CEO.
Software Technology Manager at Park Now (2020-01 – 2021-12)
Responsible for the iOS/Android and QA chapters (~25 FTE across Europe, ~12 FTE from partners).
- Led chapter strategy, coaching leads in people management and technical direction.
- Created a safe environment for teams to grow, innovate, and collaborate.
- Advised on org structure and process changes to deliver on the roadmap.
- Implemented department KPIs set by senior leadership.
- Partnered with Talent Acquisition for hiring and capacity planning.
- Bridged squads and departments through consistent stakeholder engagement.
- Managed external vendor relationships and reported to the Technology Director and CTO.
Software Development Manager / Team Manager at Centralpoint (2017-01 – 2020-12)
Led multiple cross-functional teams across development, QA, product, and technical writing.
- Managed daily operations, ensuring application stability and delivery performance.
- Scaled the team from 20 to 40+ FTE while maintaining a strong, supportive team culture.
- Co-created the department roadmap and introduced agile best practices.
- Owned hiring, performance management, and personal growth plans for team members.
- Acted as the escalation point for cross-department and external stakeholders.
- Served as a Works Council member, advocating for engineering perspectives at company level.
Project Leader / Product Owner at Centralpoint.nl/.be (2015-01 – 2017-12)
- Championed the adoption of Scrum and agile principles across the organization.
- Led multiple cross-functional teams in delivering customer-facing products with improved time-to-market.
- Collaborated with the CTO on team vision and hiring.
Team Leader / Project Manager at JP Result (2013-01 – 2015-12)
- Managed the development team and handled project planning, scope, and client communication.
- Guided customers in growing and stabilizing their platforms.
PHP Developer / Project Manager at 2ML IT Solutions (2011-01 – 2013-12)
- Developed CMS and e-zine solutions for clients in finance and insurance.
- Managed end-to-end delivery of technical projects and led customer engagements.
PHP Developer at Wireless Circle (2009-01 – 2011-12)
- Maintained and enhanced internal CRM and invoicing systems.
- Led documentation efforts and supported operational workflows.
Uniface Developer at Jester Automatisering (2008-01 – 2009-12)
- Developed social service modules for government platforms.
- Authored technical and functional documentation.
