Engineering organisations, AI platforms, and the operating system I run my own life on. My background is in systems engineering, and one idea from it keeps being true: optimising one part rarely optimises the whole.
Twenty-five years in software, most of them leading engineering — at Kaspersky, at Visualfabriq as CTO, and at Smartcat. Now I'm building Peoplos, a new-generation AI HR startup, and I take on a few advisory and fractional CTO roles alongside it.
I live in the Netherlands.
Same habit at three scales: find what actually holds the whole back, then change the system — not the people in it.
Organisations
I treat engineering leadership as a systems-design job: structure, incentives and feedback loops over personalities. Change the container and the right behaviour becomes the default — in a team of thirty or an organisation of several hundred.
Products
Platforms that carry AI into real work: revenue management for Nestlé, Heineken and Unilever at Visualfabriq; LLM copilots and human-in-the-loop workflows in Smartcat's core product. And now Peoplos — HR software rebuilt for the age of AI.
Myself — Personal OS
I built my own personal operating system with AI, to run my life on autopilot. It's called Gubernos, from the Latin gubernare, to steer, and it's now public: in beta on iPhone, Apple Watch and Mac, and open source.
It catches everything that comes in, sorts it, plans my day and tells me what actually needs me. The one thing it never does alone is commit me: no email, meeting or payment goes out without my yes.
“My bottleneck was never typing. It was decision latency.”
It's also my lab: whatever works here, I bring to teams. Try Gubernos →
Autonomy without boundaries is a demo. Autonomy with explicit gates is an operating model.
Minsk. Java developer and technical test lead at Kyriba, on a treasury-management platform.
Luxoft. From Java team lead to development director: enterprise systems for banking, energy and media, and a dedicated development centre for a key client.
Kaspersky. Head of B2B Engineering: from ~250 to 400+ engineers in two years, 20+ enterprise products, and a virtualization-security line from zero to $10M in three years.
Visualfabriq, the Netherlands. CTO. Engineering grew from 30 to 60+, enterprise customers doubled, and I led the technical due diligence for PSG's investment.
Smartcat. Director of Engineering. Took engineering AI-first: rebuilt the platform for AI and cut delivery from months to weeks.
Building Peoplos and Gubernos, on the Board of Advisors at MoonTech, coaching leaders as a Heroic Coach.
I'm usually wet, cold or muddy — by choice. I run Spartan races, play ice hockey, sail and freedive.
When an organisation, a platform or your own week keeps fighting you, it's usually a system problem. I help founders, boards and investors as a fractional CTO, an advisor, or with technical due diligence before an investment — and leaders as a mentor or a Heroic Coach.
The first conversation is just a conversation.