{ product & integration architect }
I make systems talk.
Banking integration platforms — Grand Central, SyncHub — and the multi-system failures that cross team boundaries. 17+ years from embedded payments to cloud APIs and MCP. Pragmatic designs that survive 3am outages.
{ 01 · proof }
Platforms that carry banks.
Grand Central
Enterprise integration hub connecting core banking, payments, CRM and external services. API and event routing with contract enforcement, distributed tracing and rate limiting.
Cuts onboarding friction and catches integration failures before they reach production.
SyncHub
Real-time data propagation layer keeping customer and account state aligned across banking systems. Event-driven consistency model, built from scratch.
Replaces manual reconciliation.
MCP Production Guide
Production blueprint for Model Context Protocol on Azure APIM: subscription key re-injection, non-blocking audit logging, adaptive error detection, rate limiting.
Internal standard for secure model-context integrations — published as a 4-part series.
{ 02 · how i work }
Prove it small, scale it clean.
{01}
Observable first
Every flow emits trace and correlation IDs before feature work starts. No visibility, no deploy.
{02}
Contract > chaos
Interfaces are products: versioned, diffed, reviewed, and retired on purpose.
{03}
Production lens
Design starts at failure modes, not slide decks. Choices have to survive 3am outages and edge cases.
{04}
Pattern builder
One-off fixes become reusable patterns. When a problem gets solved, it stays solved across the platform.
{ 03 · the trace so far }
17+ years of systems that had to talk.
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Product Architect · Backbase 2022 — now
Architecting Grand Central (Backbase's integration platform) and building SyncHub from scratch. I present technical architectures to banking C-levels, guide engineering teams through complex integrations, and figure out MCP adoption strategy. The work is part design, part firefighting, part teaching — making fragmented banking systems behave like they were built to work together.
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Consultant / Owner · It's René 2015 — now
My consultancy. Started it so I could pick which problems to solve and which companies to work with. Ran it full-time for years across multiple Dutch banks and enterprise clients. Currently dormant while I'm at Backbase, but it represents 10+ years of professional autonomy and flexibility.
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Solution Architect · International Card Services 2020 — 22
Two years architecting credit card processing systems at one of the Netherlands' largest card processors. Designed integrations with SaaS platforms, handled security and compliance requirements. In payments, things either work or they don't — learned to account for that in every design decision.
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Enterprise IT Response Team · Shell 2016 — 20
Four years on Shell's technical response team. The people you call when production is down and nobody knows why. On-call expert consulting for projects across the organization. Complex production issues that crossed teams, technologies, and continents. Learned to solve problems that span multiple systems and decode cryptic symptoms into actual root causes under pressure.
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Technical Team Lead & Solutions Architect · DigiB 2019 — 20
Led technical teams through digital transformation projects. Architect and team lead. Designed solutions bridging legacy systems and modern expectations while keeping everyone aligned. Kept the team focused through complexity.
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Solution Architect – Mobile Banking · ABN AMRO 2017 — 18
Returned to ABN AMRO in a more senior role. Designed mobile banking architecture and AWS cloud infrastructure. Built CI/CD pipelines for native mobile teams. Helped teams adopt public cloud and DevOps practices. This is also where I learned the valuable lesson of having a rollback plan — locked 800K users out of their banking app once. Measure three times before you cut.
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Mobile Software Engineer · DS TAGS (BagTag) 2016
Electronic baggage tags for airline check-in. Architected and developed native mobile applications and SDKs for Android and iOS, integrated with cloud services and BagTag hardware. Mobile development meets IoT and airline systems.
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Solution Designer – Mobile Native · ABN AMRO 2014 — 16
Mobile Native team at ABN AMRO. Designed and implemented native banking applications for iOS and Android. Mobile architecture patterns, security implementations, user experience optimization. First time working under financial services requirements.
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Mobile Software Engineer & Innovation Pioneer · CGI (formerly Logica) 2011 — 15
Four years as lead mobile developer and innovation specialist across multiple clients and security domains. Built the first WADA Whereabouts app for the World Anti-Doping Agency. Worked on Google Glass and wearables when this stuff was still new. Rotated between banking, energy, defense, and public sector — each with different security clearance requirements.
- Shell (2013–15): Mobile Application Specialist reviewing native apps for performance, bugs, and security vulnerabilities. Liaised with security office.
- ING (2014): Static Software Reviewer doing banking security compliance using Fortify Static Code Analyzer.
- NATO C3 Agency (2011–12): Database Engineer on Cyber Defence infrastructure with high security clearance.
- Facilicom (2012): iOS project for facility management solutions.
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Software Engineer – Embedded Systems · Chess Embedded Technology 2007 — 11
Point of Sales solutions, cashless payment systems, and embedded Linux controllers. C, C++, C#, Java, SQL — whatever the hardware needed. Started as an intern, came back for a graduate internship on payment terminals, got hired. Learned how hardware and software interact at the lowest levels: timing issues and memory constraints you can't handwave away.
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Early years · Flabber, Delta Instruments 2004 — 10
Voluntary software engineering at Flabber for 5+ years — web applications and backend systems, real-world development experience outside formal employment. Before that, a Delphi internship at Delta Instruments building industrial instrumentation software.
{ 04 · writing }
Guides from production, not theory.
Deep-dive guides on integration architecture, banking platform design, MCP adoption and multi-system troubleshooting. Also on dev.to, or grab the RSS feed.
Azure APIM MCP Production Guide
Running Model Context Protocol on Azure API Management in production, for banking. Security, observability, and automation—what works, what breaks, and what Microsoft won't tell you.
More Articles
Additional guides and patterns coming soon.
{ 05 · contact }
Let's work together.
Looking for someone to architect integration solutions, dive into complex multi-system problems, or build banking platforms? Let's talk. Booking a talk instead? There's a page for that.
{ there's always a solution }
find it · standardize it · ship it
{ tip: print this page — it comes out as my CV }