Jens van Hellemondt

Introduction

Software professional with 10+ years of experience in application development, progressively specialising in solution architecture at the intersection of business strategy and IT delivery. I translate complex organisational objectives into scalable, future-proof solution designs, grounded in Domain-Driven Design, Event-Driven Architecture, and enterprise architecture principles. My work spans the full architecture lifecycle — from roadmap authorship and cross-departmental standard setting to functional leadership of engineering teams and hands-on delivery guidance. I bring both the technical depth to challenge and validate designs, and the stakeholder fluency to represent architectural direction in strategic forums and across organisational boundaries.

Architecture & Technical Skills

Professional & Interpersonal Skills

Open Source Project: Arts and Crafts

Experience

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

• Defined and owned the solution architecture for a Domain-Driven, Event-Driven, CQRS-based system deployed on AWS, with Kafka as the eventing backbone — ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture standards while challenging and proposing improvements to those standards where appropriate.
• Co-introduced Architecture Decision Records, Design Documents, and Request for Comments as department-wide standards, driving adoption across multiple teams and establishing a shared foundation for architectural governance.
• Acted as a cross-departmental architectural advisor — advising other teams on solution design, 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 — shaping architectural knowledge and practices beyond team boundaries.
• Established a recognised position as a go-to architectural authority within the AWS/TypeScript engineering community, particularly on Event-Driven Architecture, Domain Modeling, and Testing methodologies.
• Provided functional leadership to the feature team, guiding architectural coherence across design, development, testing, and deployment, while coaching colleagues through pair-programming and mentoring.

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

• Independently authored and owned the strategic IT roadmap — 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 to implementation oversight, quality assurance, and operational delivery.
• Defined architectural principles and guided technology choices to ensure implementations remained aligned with long-term system design goals — applying DDD, SOLID, and clean architecture across TypeScript environments (React/Vue + Node.js).
• Integrated stakeholder and development communication into a centralised project management structure, ensuring decision-making was 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

• Revamped the entire e-commerce platform using React/Gatsby, delivering improved performance, user experience, and conversion outcomes.
• Contributed to backend scalability using AWS Amplify and Lambda.

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

• Developed dynamic Vue.js interfaces and collaborated on resolving architectural challenges in the development process.

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

• Designed and built an internal web application from scratch as sole developer, working directly with business stakeholders to translate operational requirements into a working solution.

Financial/Tax (Technology) Consultant | EY | Eindhoven | Feb 2015 - May 2018

• Delivered income tax consultancy to clients, supported by technology work including custom scripts, data analysis tooling, and dashboards to automate and improve financial reporting processes.

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

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

Professional Development

Books

• Contract Testing in Action | Marie Cruz and Lewis Prescott
• Designing Event Driven Systems | Ben Stopford
• CQRS Documents | Gregory Young
• The Staff Engineer's Path | Tanya Reilly | In reading
• 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 and Richard Helm
• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code | Martin Fowler and 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)