I help founders build their product and get through the hard partsI build the product, put out the fires and make it hold at peak
I’ve led engineering teams and built products for more than ten years: as co-founder and CTO of a startup, for one of Belgium’s best-known festivals, and today at an IoT company. I trained as a business engineer first, so I see your product through your business, as well as your code.I’ve led hands-on engineering for more than ten years: an event-sourced platform that scaled close to linearly, ticketing and queues built for on-sale peaks, a LoRaWAN device taken to market with external suppliers. I’m a business engineer by training.
A free 30-minute call to see whether we’re a fit. You don’t need to prepare anything.
“The worst plan executed quickly and violently is often better than the best plan not executed at all.”“The fastest way for an organization to die is to stop executing.”“There is risk in action. There is also risk in not acting.”“Don’t let your obsession with perfection become the enemy of being good enough.”“It’s not the upfront capital that kills you, it’s the operations and maintenance on the back end.”“Getting more time is good, but only if we get more out than it takes to get it.”“Incentives are superpowers; set them carefully.”“Mastering the art of leadership is often about knowing when not to command.”“Sometimes leading means herding.”“The reason so many turn into micromanagers is that it is the only way they can feel in control.”“When everyone is conditioned to believe that no isn’t an acceptable answer, we all just become compliant order takers.”“Success is more interesting than feeding your ego.”“You learn more by studying your defeats than studying your victories.”“If you can’t respond to the strongest argument from the other side, there’s a good chance you’re wrong.”“You can tell you’ve found a really interesting question when nobody wants you to answer it.”“Seeing the big picture has its place, but only seeing the big picture isn’t enough.”“Reality always wins when faced with an ideal.”“Boredom is unappreciated serenity.”“When people don’t know anything, they love having meetings to talk about it.”
What founders bring me in for
For startups and SMEs of roughly 2 to 50 people.
Building the product
Hands-on engineering for a first version, or for a prototype that has to become a product, including one written largely with AI. I help decide what to build first and what can wait.Implementation, architecture and a release path, with tests, access controls and deployment scoped to what the product is for.
A crisis, technical or human
A system that keeps falling over, a launch that has to work, a team that has stopped delivering or a lead who has just left. I work out what is going on, steady things and agree what changes next.Incident follow-up, failure analysis, load and recovery checks, and interim technical leadership while the team regroups.
Expertise you don’t have in-house
Events and ticketing, hospitality, IoT devices, and systems that have to stay up when everyone arrives at once. I’ve built these myself, so you don’t pay for someone to learn them.Ticketing, virtual queues, accreditation and cashless; mobile ordering and payment; LoRaWAN devices and supplier boundaries; backends that scale out under peak load.
The business behind the technology
Technical risks explained as costs, options and consequences you can decide on, by someone who has run budgets, managed suppliers and watched a startup run out of cash.Build-or-buy, architecture trade-offs and staffing expressed in terms that both your board and your engineers accept.
Where AI does and doesn’t make sense
Figuring out where AI helps your product and your team, where it doesn’t, and what checks it needs where it does. I use agents every day, so this comes from practice.Agent-assisted development with review gates, evaluations sized to the risk of each change, and AI features tested against real cases before they ship.
A team that can carry on without me
Hiring the first engineers, coaching the ones you have, and setting up how the team works so the product doesn’t depend on one person.Hiring criteria and interviews, review and release practices, ownership, and the operating arrangements a small team can sustain.
The work behind it
I’ve managed engineering teams and budgets, coordinated a physical device through to market, and co-founded a product company. Three engagements are below, two of them current.
Finance company [stealth]
It started as an AI-built POC used for customer demos. The deployment strategy, environments, CI/CD and access controls are in place, and I’m helping the founder bring the app up to production standards while the sales pipeline fills up.
CHARP
CHARP monitors museum and heritage collections with hard- and software. I coordinated a custom LoRaWAN device with external suppliers and took it to market. I manage the budget and a team of one to three developers.
A huge Belgian festival (you know the one)
For four years I led the team behind the festival’s fan account, queues, ticketing, crew accreditation and cashless links. The role included architecture, budget, suppliers, security and data-protection coordination.
Where I know the ground
Domain knowledge saves months. These are the fields where I’ve built and run systems myself.The fields where I’ve built and operated systems, and the mechanisms that come with them.
Festivals and events
Four years responsible for the digital systems of that same festival: the fan account, ticketing, virtual queues, crew accreditation and cashless links. Long before that, an RFID access and cashless system for a student festival.On-sale peaks, virtual queues, payments that must not run twice, accreditation workflows and cashless integrations, with suppliers, security and data protection in scope.
Hospitality
I co-founded tsjing, mobile ordering and payment for bars, restaurants and events, and ran its technical side with a team of four.React, React Native and Node.js on a domain-driven, event-sourced architecture with CQRS, which scaled close to linearly with its users.
IoT and hardware
I took a custom LoRaWAN sensor to market with external suppliers, and I run product and technology for the platform around it today.Device specification, firmware and provisioning, telemetry and alerting, and the boundaries between hardware suppliers and the cloud.
Energy
Three years at Electrabel (GDF SUEZ) as a business quality consultant, working on lean, customer experience and assessments inside a large energy company.Process analysis, customer-experience measurement and quality assessments at Electrabel (GDF SUEZ), from 2009 to 2012.
Simple systems that scale
Systems that stay simple to run and still hold when everyone shows up at once, from a ticket on-sale to a platform that grows with its users.Load and failure models, backpressure, idempotency, caching and graceful degradation, tested against the peak rather than the average.
The business side, from the inside
Before I led engineering teams, I took two master’s degrees in business engineering at KU Leuven, worked as a quality consultant at Electrabel (GDF SUEZ) and managed HR software as a product manager. Since then I’ve co-founded a company and seen it run out of cash, managed budgets and suppliers, reported to a CEO, and today I lead product as well as technology.
So when we talk about your product, I ask about your margins, your sales pipeline and your runway too. Technical choices come with what they cost, what they risk and what they make possible, in words your board can use.
Working together
It starts with a free call. If we both see a fit, I work with you one or more days a week, on-site in Belgium or remote.
- Rate
- From 800 EUR a day, excluding VAT.
- Commitment
- At least one day a week, for three months to start. We agree the scope and the days.
- Assessment
- Four days to map the product, the team and the risks. Included in the commitment, or 3,200 EUR on its own.
- Right role
- If a first full-time engineering lead would suit you better, I’ll say so and help you hire one.
Crisis work runs on the days we agree as well; I don’t offer on-call cover, but I can help you arrange it.
The fit, as a diff
You don’t have to arrive with every answer. You do need to hear advice, make the difficult decisions, and decide which risks to mitigate or accept.We need access to someone who can decide or influence decisions, and a record of risks we mitigate or consciously accept.
- asking for approval of a plan that cannot be questioned
- avoiding difficult decisions when the work needs them
- no access to anyone who can influence a decision
- leaving material risks unexamined
- listening to advice and deciding what to do with it
- making priorities and trade-offs explicit
- helping the team work through uncertainty
- mitigating risks or consciously accepting them
Tell me what needs to change
Describe what you’re building, where the team is struggling, or what keeps going wrong. Let’s work out the scope together.
A free 30-minute call to see whether we’re a fit. You don’t need to prepare anything.
Based in Mechelen, Belgium. Dutch is fine too.