Product & Engineering Leader
I’m an ultra-generalist at heart. I help ambitious teams turn promising ideas and proven products into coherent, scalable experiences—combining product leadership with hands-on depth in design, engineering, and AI.
How I think
The most interesting product problems rarely belong to a single discipline. I move between four perspectives to understand the whole system—and help the people within it work toward the same outcome.
01 / Product
I connect user needs, business goals, and technical reality. I build an understanding of the wider system, make assumptions visible, and translate the long-term direction into decisions a team can act on today.
02 / Design
I use flows, interfaces, prototypes, and visual thinking to make ideas discussable. Design is not a handoff at the end; it is one of the fastest ways to discover what we mean and whether it could work.
03 / Engineering
I am a strong front-end engineer with broad full-stack understanding. I can discuss architecture with specialists, explore trade-offs with a team, and contribute working code when that is the fastest way forward.
04 / AI
I use AI as a product capability and within the product role itself: to synthesize context, expose assumptions, create clarity, explore directions, prototype ideas, and shape sharper roadmaps.
Selected work
My title has changed over the years. The work often starts in the same place: an opportunity that is not yet clear and something valuable that still needs to be built.
Scribbr
I joined as a product designer, then expanded into front-end engineering and product ownership as the product grew.
Worked across experience, prototyping, implementation, and product direction. Later built and led a cross-functional group, directly managing an average of six engineers and partnering with product management and design.
The product grew to nearly five million monthly users and became one of Scribbr’s most important acquisition channels.
Quillbot
Many valuable tools behaved like separate destinations. We believed they would be more useful as one coherent experience.
Co-shaped the platform strategy and combined staff-level product responsibility with engineering management across core writing products.
Created a clearer cross-product experience and a stronger foundation for users to move between capabilities.
Luyfel (and beyond)
During my years with Luyfel, I moved between early-stage products, incubators, agencies, and large organizations.
I built the initial front end for SignRequest, later acquired by Box; supported founders through the UtrechtInc incubator; and worked with MakerStreet on innovation bootcamps and interim design engagements. I also contributed to digital product work for organizations including ABN AMRO and KPN—joining KPN as a designer and gradually growing into product ownership.
How to enter an unfamiliar domain, understand its essential dynamics quickly, and help a team decide what matters now—and what needs to be true later.
Applied AI
AI is opening up entirely new kinds of products and interactions—possibilities that were difficult to imagine, let alone build, only a few years ago. It is already reshaping product design, engineering, and the way teams work.
AI is expanding what products can be. Software can now understand context, adapt to individual needs, create alongside people, and carry work forward in ways that were difficult to imagine only a few years ago. This opens an entirely new design space. The challenge is turning that possibility into experiences whose value justifies their cost and complexity—and that requires product, design, and engineering to evolve together.
I use AI to synthesize research, identify contradictions, make assumptions explicit, explore directions, prototype interactions, and turn strategy into a clearer roadmap. It helps me reach better questions and decisions faster.
How I lead
I want teams to understand the problem, context, and outcome—not merely the tasks assigned to them. Once that foundation is shared, I give people room to shape the solution and take real ownership.
I stay close enough to challenge assumptions, remove obstacles, and make decisions when needed. My design and engineering background lets me engage with detail without turning that involvement into micromanagement.
Understand how users, business, experience, and technology influence one another.
Use stories, prototypes, diagrams, and software to replace abstract debate.
Invest in foundations while continuing to experiment and deliver value now.
Create clear outcomes, then let the team bring its expertise to the solution.
About
I have been making things for the web since I was a child—back when FrontPage, table layouts, and inline styles were considered a perfectly respectable tech stack.
I helped my primary-school teacher with a small website, made graphics in Photoshop, experimented with Flash, and eventually discovered CSS—which felt like an entirely new world.
That curiosity took me from interaction design and front-end development to running a product studio, freelancing, product ownership, product management, and engineering leadership. The titles changed as the scope grew. The motivation did not: understand the problem, bring people together, and make something useful.
Built small websites while still at school, occasionally even getting paid for them.
First official job—the first one that came with an employment contract. Surprisingly, it was in transport.
Co-founded Luyfel and began building products with startups, incubators, agencies, and large organizations.
Launched a social game. It did not become the next Wordfeud, but we learned a lot.
Joined KPN as a designer and grew into product ownership.
Started at Scribbr in design, later moving across engineering and product.
Moved into combined staff product and engineering leadership at Quillbot.
Over the years, I have worked with teams at
Different industries, different scales, and usually a problem that was not completely clear yet.
Let’s talk
From December, I will be open to senior product leadership opportunities with ambitious teams building useful digital products. I am based in the Netherlands and open to remote or hybrid work with international organizations.
