Freelance lead engineer · Utrecht, NL

Data platforms your teams and AI agents can rely on.

I design and build data platforms that are ready for AI agents, and apps that turn hard planning problems into good decisions. 14+ years of experience and an MSc in Artificial Intelligence. As technical lead I set the direction for both architecture and team, from design to production.

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Chris Blom

What I do

Three areas, one foundation: reliable data and well-defined problems.

01

Agent-ready data platforms

AI agents are only as good as the data they can find and trust. I build platforms with clear models, documented semantics and tested pipelines, so analysts, developers and agents can all use them safely.

  • Cloud data platform architecture and phased migration
  • Semantic layers and documentation that agents can read
  • Data quality testing, lineage and observability
  • MCP and tool interfaces for controlled agent access
  • Onboarding of teams: guidelines for both developers and agents
BigQueryGCP AzureAWS Dataformsqlmesh KafkaTerraform
02

Planning & optimization apps

Rosters, routes and resource plans that respect every rule and still make sense to the people using them. I model the problem, pick the right solver and build the application around it.

  • Employee rostering and scheduling, including labour law constraints
  • Feasibility studies: can this problem be optimized, and how well?
  • Translating business rules into solver constraints
  • Planner UIs that explain the result and allow manual changes
  • Integration with your existing data and systems
TimefoldOR-Tools MiniZincHiGHS KotlinPython
03

Performance & scale

Systems that stay fast as volume grows. I find the bottlenecks, measure instead of guessing, and design architectures that scale with your data and users without letting costs explode.

  • Low-latency services: 100k+ requests per second under 30 ms
  • Streaming and event-driven architecture with Kafka
  • Profiling and fixing bottlenecks in code, queries and infrastructure
  • Scalable pipelines processing terabytes per day
  • Load testing, capacity planning and cloud cost optimization
KafkaKafka Streams JVMKotlin ClojureAWS

Selected work

A few projects that show what I build.

aangifteoptimaal.nlOwn product · Optimization

AangifteOptimaal

Free calculator for the Dutch income tax return. It works out box 1, 2 and 3 step by step and finds the optimal split of deductions between tax partners. Everything is calculated in the browser; no data is sent anywhere.

Orbisk2024–2026 · Lead Data Engineer

Data platform on Google Cloud

Designed and rolled out a new data platform in phases over two years. It solved scaling and data quality problems and opened up data to the AI, analytics, marketing and backend teams. Included a custom test framework and guidelines written for both developers and AI agents.

Ahold Delhaize2021–2024 · Freelance

Inventory system modernization

Led the replacement of a legacy Oracle inventory system with microservices on Azure, Kotlin and Kafka. Delivered on time with no incidents. My Kafka integration library became part of Ahold's standard application framework.

Enecovia TimeSeries

IoT data platform for 3M+ smart meters

Azure platform to store and serve smart meter data for over 3 million customers. Extended it with real-time wind farm reporting on Kafka Streams and led the migration from RabbitMQ to Kafka.

Smart Rosteringvia TimeSeries

Roster planner that knows labour law

Translated articles of the Dutch Working Hours Act (Arbeidstijdenwet) into Timefold/OptaPlanner constraints, working with stakeholders to agree on rules and preferences.

AdGoji2014–2018 · Lead Software Engineer

Real-time bidding platform on AWS

Built and ran a platform handling 100k+ requests per second at under 30 ms latency on 100+ servers, plus an ETL pipeline processing 3 TB a day and real-time dashboards for ad traffic. As lead developer I coached the team in Clojure and functional programming.

How I work

Pragmatic: iterate fast, make clear choices, keep quality high.

01

Understand

Find the real problem, the constraints and what success looks like.

02

Design

A clear architecture that your whole team can work on.

03

Build & ship

Short iterations, automated tests, early and frequent releases.

04

Hand over

Documentation, monitoring and a team that can carry it forward.

About

I'm Chris Blom, a freelance lead engineer based in Houten, near Utrecht. For over 14 years I've built systems that handle a lot of data: an advertising platform that decides in a fraction of a second, the platform behind the smart meters of millions of Eneco customers, a new inventory system for Ahold and a data platform used by teams and AI agents alike.

My background is in AI (MSc Cognitive Artificial Intelligence, Utrecht University), and I've kept studying discrete optimization and machine learning ever since. I like problems where good data and smart algorithms meet.

  • RoleLead engineer / architect
  • Experience14+ years
  • EducationMSc AI, Utrecht University
  • CloudGCP, Azure, AWS
  • LanguagesKotlin, Java, Python, SQL, Clojure
  • OptimizationTimefold, OR-Tools, MiniZinc
  • Working inDutch & English

Technical leadership

Good systems are built by teams. I work as a lead engineer: I set the technical direction, make choices explicit and make sure the whole team can contribute effectively, also after I leave.

Architecture & direction

Designing platforms and systems, with a phased plan to get there. Clear choices, written down and explained.

Growing teams

Coaching, code reviews, workshops and onboarding.

Bridging business and tech

Translating requirements into architecture and API specs, and helping shape planning and priorities.

Standards that last

Test frameworks, guidelines and reusable libraries that other teams adopt.

Have a data or planning problem?

Tell me about it. I'm happy to have a no-strings call to see if I can help.

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