Jens van Hellemondt

jens@vanhellemondt.net | https://jens.vanhellemondt.net | linkedin.com/in/jvhellemondt | github.com/jvhellemondt

Introduction

Software engineer with 11+ years of experience in application development. Over time, I grew into software architecture, connecting business goals with technical delivery. I design scalable, long-lasting solutions based on Domain-Driven Design, Event-Driven Architecture, and enterprise architecture principles. I own the full architecture lifecycle: writing roadmaps, setting standards across departments, leading engineering teams, and guiding hands-on delivery. I have the technical depth to challenge and validate designs, I direct AI-assisted development to keep code small, predictable, and cost-efficient, and I explain architectural decisions clearly to non-technical stakeholders.

Architecture & Technical Skills

  • Predictable & Cost-Efficient AI Engineering
  • Domain-Driven Design
  • Event-Driven Architecture
  • CQRS / Event Sourcing
  • Clean & Hexagonal Architecture
  • Microservices Patterns
  • Solution & Enterprise Architecture
  • Architecture Decision Records
  • Security Architecture | Zero Trust
  • Test & Behavior Driven Development
  • Scrum | SAFe | Agile
  • API Design | OpenAPI
  • AWS CDK | Terraform
  • Kafka | Pulsar
  • Containers | CI/CD
  • SQL | NoSQL
  • TypeScript | Rust
  • Angular | Vue | React (+Native)

Professional & Interpersonal Skills

  • Stakeholder Communication
  • Goal-Oriented Leadership
  • Problem Decomposition
  • Product & Project Planning
  • Change Management
  • Hiring & Interviewing
  • Team Collaboration
  • Coaching/Mentoring

Experience

Lead DevOps Engineer | Essent | IT Finance | Den Bosch | Jun 2024 - current

  • Owned the solution architecture for a Domain-Driven, Event-Driven, CQRS-based system on AWS, designing the APIs and Kafka-based integrations that form its eventing backbone, and keeping the design aligned with enterprise architecture standards while challenging and improving those standards where needed.
  • Introduced Architecture Decision Records, Design Documents, and Requests for Comments as department-wide standards, giving multiple teams a shared foundation for architectural governance, decision quality, and long-term maintainability.
  • Acted as a cross-departmental architectural advisor and coach, guiding developers across multiple teams through solution design and pair-programming, reviewing and challenging architectural proposals, and contributing to the Event-Driven Architecture and Engineering Principles communities.
  • Led department-wide workshops and craftsmanship sessions on software design, Domain-Driven Design, Event-Driven Architecture, and testing, raising the architectural bar beyond individual team boundaries.
  • Built a recognised track record as a go-to architectural authority in the AWS/TypeScript engineering community, known for Event-Driven Architecture, domain modeling, and testing strategy.
  • Provided functional leadership to the feature team, applying and safeguarding hexagonal architecture and clean design patterns from design through deployment, and growing team capability through pair-programming, code review, and mentoring.

Head of IT | DebitRoom | Nieuwkuijk | May 2023 - May 2024

  • Authored and owned the strategic IT roadmap independently, translating organisational priorities into a coherent, multi-domain technology direction covering system design, tooling, team practices, and infrastructure.
  • Held full end-to-end architectural accountability across the IT landscape, from initial research and solution design through implementation oversight, quality assurance, and operational delivery.
  • Defined architectural principles and guided technology choices to keep implementations aligned with long-term system design goals, applying DDD, SOLID, hexagonal, and clean architecture across TypeScript environments (React/Vue + Node.js), and initiated the migration toward NestJS for improved structure and maintainability.
  • Centralised stakeholder and development communication into a single project management structure, so decision-making stayed grounded in accurate, up-to-date information.
  • Conducted thorough cost mapping across the IT estate, eliminating wasteful technical spending and aligning investment with strategic priorities.
  • Reduced deployment risk and improved delivery consistency by introducing Docker, CI/CD pipelines, and Scrum methodology, driving measurable improvements in product quality and team efficiency.

Teamlead | LanthopusX | Veghel | Jun 2022 - Apr 2023

  • Led the architectural modernisation initiative, driving adoption of AWS (CDK), CI/CD, and simplicity-first design principles across the engineering team.
  • Served as product owner by proxy, defining vision, prioritising value delivery, and aligning engineering direction with board-level strategic goals.
  • Collaborated directly with the board as a strategic partner on projects, deadlines, and resource planning.
  • Mentored junior developers and led Scrum adoption, accelerating team capability and delivery quality.

Software Developer | IXXI | Vught | Jun 2021 - May 2022

Software Developer | Kings Code | Boxtel | Oct 2020 - May 2021

Data Analyst and Software Developer | De Beemd Corporate Finance | Eindhoven | Jun 2018 - Sep 2020

Tax Technology Consultant | EY | Eindhoven | Feb 2015 - May 2018

Manager | McDonald's | Veghel | May 2009 - Jun 2015

IT Consultant | Getronics | Veghel | Jan 2008 - Dec 2008

Open Source Project: Arts and Crafts

Designed and published "Arts and Crafts," a cross-language architectural framework providing opinionated, reusable building blocks for consistent, scalable, and testable codebases. The project defines and codifies architectural standards for Event-Driven Architecture, Domain-Driven Design, CQRS, Vertical Slices, Event Sourcing, and testing strategies across TypeScript and Rust ecosystems.

Open Source Project: CDK Composition

Designed and published "cdk-composition", a TypeScript library for AWS CDK that replaces monolithic custom constructs with modular, pluggable traits. The library introduces a trait-based architecture and a declarative composition API where constructs are built from named, typed capabilities instead of positional dependencies, reducing coupling and keeping infr9astructure code maintainable and testable as it scales.

Professional Development

Books

  • Team Topologies | Matthew Skelton, Manuel Pais | In reading
  • Contract Testing in Action | Marie Cruz, Lewis Prescott
  • Designing Event Driven Systems | Ben Stopford
  • CQRS Documents | Gregory Young
  • The Staff Engineer's Path | Tanya Reilly
  • Versioning in an Event Sourced System | Gregory Young
  • Practical Microservices | Ethan Garofolo
  • The Pragmatic Programmer | David Thomas
  • Implementing Domain-Driven Design | Vaughn Vernon
  • Domain-Driven Design - Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software | Eric Evans
  • Thinking in systems | Donella Meadows
  • Test driven development by example | Kent Beck
  • Goede leiders eten als laatste | Simon Sinek
  • Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software | Erich Gamma, Richard Helm
  • Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code | Martin Fowler, Paul Becker
  • SOLID: The Software Design and Architecture Handbook | Khalil Stemmler
  • Clean Craftsmanship: Disciplines, Standards, and Ethics | Robert C. Martin
  • Clean Agile: Back to Basics | Robert C. Martin
  • Clean Architecture: A Craftsman's Guide to Software Structure and Design | Robert C. Martin
  • Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers | Robert C. Martin
  • Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship | Robert C. Martin

Courses

  • The Software Essentialist | 2024 | Essentialist.dev
  • Rust lang: The complete beginner's guide | 2024 | Udemy.com
  • The Modern GraphQL Bootcamp (with Node.js and Apollo) | 2020 | Udemy.com
  • Learn Figma - UI/UX Design Essential Training | 2020 | Udemy.com
  • Vue JS Essentials with Vuex and Vue Router | 2020 | Udemy.com
  • Using TypeScript with React | 2020 | Udemy.com
  • GraphQL with React: The Complete Developers Guide | 2020 | Udemy.com
  • Modern React with Redux | 2019 | Udemy.com
  • Python for Data Science and Machine Learning Bootcamp | 2019 | Udemy.com
  • Python and Django Full Stack Web Developer Bootcamp | 2019 | Udemy.com

Education

Tax, Law and Economics | Fontys Hogescholen Financial Management | HBO | Jun 2015

ICT Network administration | NCOI | MBO | 2010 | Cancelled by the educational organization

Spoken languages

  • Dutch (native)
  • English (business)