Stefan Hendriks — Fundynamic

About me

Developer. Generalist. Pragmatist.

My primary depth is backend Java, with a particular strength in legacy systems — understanding them, untangling them, and knowing when to leave well enough alone. I've inherited codebases others were afraid to touch and made them testable, deployable, and maintainable without stopping the world.

I'm sceptical of complexity for its own sake. Microservices, distributed systems, event-driven architecture — I know these patterns well enough to know when not to reach for them. The question "does our scale actually require this?" is asked far too rarely. Only at very large scale do these things start to pay for themselves. Most systems don't need to be as complicated as they are, and cutting that clutter is often the most valuable thing an architect can do.

If the frontend is where the value needs to happen, I'll go there — with honesty about where I'm stronger, and enough experience to be useful rather than a liability.

My philosophy: shipping the right thing matters more than perfecting the wrong one. A working solution that solves the real problem beats an elegant solution to an imagined one. That said — quality is not optional once you know what you're building. The goal is always both: the right thing, built well.

Passion projects

Built for love, not for money.

These are the most honest expression of who I am as a developer. No client brief, no deadline, no product manager — just a problem worth solving and the drive to see it through.

Since ~2003 · Ongoing · Open Source · C++

Dune II — The Maker

Dune II was the game that made me want to program. Playing it as a kid — watching the credits roll, wondering how it all worked — set everything in motion.

D2TM is a ground-up remake with higher resolutions, zooming, multi-select, and skirmish play. I've handled the code, the graphics, the game design, and the UX. It's been running for over two decades and I still actively develop it.

It's the clearest expression of why I do this work: the craft itself is genuinely enjoyable, and shipping something that other people play is deeply satisfying.

C++Game Design GraphicsUX SDL / AllegroOpen Source

View on GitHub →

Since ~2000 · Open Source · C++

RealBot

An AI opponent for Counter-Strike 1.6, built as a Metamod plugin. It navigated 3D maps without pre-built waypoints and learned from human players — which, at the time, was genuinely unusual.

It was awarded Best Counter-Strike Bot in 2002. The site was offered hosting on counter-strike.net after traffic spiked — peaking at 25,000 visitors in a single day.

C++AI / Pathfinding Half-Life SDKMetamod Open Source

View on GitHub →

Professional work

Where I've put it into practice.

From founding my own companies to working inside some of the best-regarded tech organisations in the Netherlands.

2014 — present · Owner & Principal Consultant

Fundynamic

The name is intentional. Software is dynamic by nature — it changes, it evolves, requirements shift, code gets rewritten. A lot of people find that stressful. I find it energising. Fundynamic: because the fluid, ever-changing nature of software development should be something you lean into, not something you fight.

I work with clients across the full stack — architecture, development, process — wherever the real value needs to happen.

Fundynamic is the vehicle through which I've worked with startups still finding their feet and scale-ups untangling years of fast growth. The through-line is always the same: deliver the right thing, with enough quality to sustain it.

Solution ArchitectureJava AgileTDDFull-stack

2019 — 2023 · Managing Partner & Co-Founder

Kaizen BV

Co-founded with a small group of experienced developers who were tired of average. Kaizen — Japanese for continuous improvement — applied to everything: code, team dynamics, client relationships.

Selective about clients, serious about craft. We also invested time in our own ventures — and learned more from what didn't work than from what did.

Co-founderConsultancy Web & BackendTeam Building

Client spotlights

Notable engagements.

A few clients worth highlighting — each one for a different reason.

Q42

Digital product studio · The Hague & Amsterdam

Q42 has built products used by virtually every person in the Netherlands — Nederlandse Loterij, Philips Hue, PostNL, Rijksmuseum. Their bar for entry is high, and they work closely with Google.

I worked on Nederlandse Loterij and Rijksmuseum in C#, quickly productive in a stack that was relatively new to me. Getting in and staying effective there is a signal in itself.

C# / .NETNederlandse LoterijHigh-bar environment

Xebia

Software craftsmanship consultancy · Netherlands

Xebia built its reputation on Agile, software craftsmanship, and a relentless focus on quality — long before those words became marketing. Getting in required passing a genuine technical bar.

I worked on their in-house development during what was one of the most engaging periods of my career. The environment was demanding and collegial in equal measure — exactly the kind of place where you sharpen your craft. The recommendations I received there reflect that.

JavaAgileSoftware Craftsmanship

Maxeda DIY Group

Largest DIY retailer in the Benelux · Praxis & Brico

A deliberately different kind of engagement. Maxeda — parent of Praxis and Brico, 330+ stores across the Benelux — needed process more than code. I came in as Scrum Master and coach: increasing transparency, improving team reliability, making delivery more predictable.

In three months I made a meaningful impact on how the team worked — then left for Q42 when the opportunity arose. It's the engagement I point to when someone asks whether I can deliver value without writing a single line of code.

Scrum MasterAgile CoachingProcess & TransparencyLarge-scale retail

Teaching & community

I learn best by teaching.

Before software, I studied to become a primary school teacher — and that instinct never left. Over the years I've organised code retreats, run TDD sessions, and built Agile workshops, because sharing what works is as important as doing it.

Global Day of Code Retreat

Organised and facilitated multiple GDCRs across the Netherlands — Amsterdam, Houten — with up to 45 participants. Deliberate practice, TDD, learning from each other.

Agile Bootcamp

Developed and delivered a full-day Agile workshop — co-created with Dorus Verhoeckx from Mirabeau, and run at multiple companies. Practical, no-nonsense, focused on real behaviour change rather than ceremony.

Pizza & TDD Sessions

Informal evenings: bring the pizza, bring the curiosity. Introducing developers to test-driven development in a low-pressure, high-fun setting.

Skills

What I work with.

Languages

Java (primary)
C++
Ruby
C# / .NET
JavaScript

Backend & architecture

Legacy systems
Modular monolith
Spring ecosystem
API design
CI/CD pipelines
SQL

Process & craft

Test Driven Development
Scrum / Agile
Scrum Master

Also comfortable with

Frontend development
UX thinking
Game design
Data exploration
2D graphics

GitHub: stefanhendriks → GitHub: Fundynamic → Blog: stefanhendriks.com →

Experience

Where I've worked.

2023 — now

Solution Architect

Kees de Boekhouder & Founders · via Fundynamic

Kees de Boekhouder is a growing Dutch fintech — and when I joined, it had accumulated the classic symptoms of premature architecture: an unfinished microservices setup that was far too complex for the actual scale of the product and the size of the team. Diagnosing problems was hard. Deploying features was harder. The operational overhead was eating into time that should have gone to building.

The decision was deliberate: fold the microservices back into a modular monolith. Not a step backwards — a right-sizing. The architecture now matches the team and the product's actual needs. Deployment is simpler, problems are easier to trace, and the team can move faster with more confidence.

On top of that migration, I led the rebuild of the entire billing process — one of the most business-critical areas in any fintech. Redesigned from the ground up while the product stayed live.

All of this while understaffed, maintaining 99.99% uptime. That number reflects deliberate prioritisation under real constraints — not a lucky run.

2019 — 2023

Managing Partner & Co-Founder

Kaizen BV

Co-founded a consultancy of seasoned professionals focused on web, app, and backend development. As Managing Partner I was responsible for software development, architecture, strategy, and sales — while keeping delivery frequent, fast, and high quality.

Beyond client work, we deliberately invested time in our own ventures — most notably a taxi/ride administration system with a mobile app, essentially an internal Uber. We thought we were moving fast. In hindsight, time-to-market matters even more than I'd realised. We spent roughly three months before pulling the plug. It sharpened how I think about validating ideas today.

Clients during this period included BeterDichtbij (migration from dedicated VPS to Azure cloud), Felix (technical and business analysis, co-developing with their teams to improve code quality and streamline microservice deployments), ROC Mondriaan, and Kees de Boekhouder.

2014 — now

Owner

Fundynamic

Independent consultancy serving e-commerce, museums, lotteries, and web agencies. Mostly web-based applications, middleware, and third-party integrations. Clients included ROC Mondriaan, Staatsloterij, Rijksmuseum (via Q42), Nederlandse Loterij (via Q42), Greenwheels, Kees de Boekhouder, and XebiaLabs.

2015 — 2016

Trainer — Agile Bootcamp

via Fundynamic · co-developed with Mirabeau

Designed and delivered a one-day Agile workshop across multiple companies. Practical, hands-on, focused on real behaviour change rather than theory.

Jan–Mar 2016

Developer & Scrum Master & Agile Coach

Maxeda DIY Group · via Fundynamic

50/50 role as Scrum Master and Developer at the Benelux's largest DIY retailer (Praxis, Brico). In three months, the clearest example of value delivered wasn't a feature shipped — it was one saved entirely.

The team was asked to build against a new API. Before a line of code was written, I kept asking why. A few rounds of that and it turned out the required information could be extracted with existing tooling. No API integration needed. After extracting the data, we quickly realised the underlying idea wasn't viable anyway — the whole thing was scrapped. One sprint of work avoided, one bad investment killed early.

That's the kind of thing that's hard to put on a CV but easy to recognise if you've worked with someone who does it.

2014 — 2015

Senior Software Engineer

XebiaLabs (XL TestView & XL Release) · via Fundynamic

Full-stack development for XL TestView (dashboarding, reporting, results gathering). Later: XL Release backend in Java/Scala and frontend in Angular with Redux. Automated testing across unit, integration, API, and UI levels. Also Scrum Master for a distributed team.

2012 — 2014

Senior Software Engineer / Consultant / Scrum Master

Zilverline · Full-time

Agile Ruby developer in a Scrum team on a Ruby on Rails webapp. Scrum Master. Devops. High code coverage (96%+). Continuous Deployment and Delivery.

2006 — 2012

Software Engineer · Senior Software Engineer

Mirabeau

Over five years across multiple projects. Refactoring legacy code, introducing TDD, organising community events and Coderetreats. Built substantial parts of transavia.com including payments (CreditCard, iDeal, PayPal) and booking engine integrations.

"Stefan is a joy to work with. He is sharp and always keeping business value in the back of his mind. He is not afraid to take a step back and ask: 'Why are we doing this?'"

— Ric Klaren, Cloud Architect at Hypori Virtual Mobility

That instinct — stopping before building and asking why — is what the Maxeda story in the experience section illustrates.

"Stefan is a true software craftsman. Not only does he have good technical knowledge, he also is fun to work with and keeps a keen eye on the end result."

— Bart Kiers, Software Engineer at Q42

Written during Stefan's time at Q42 — where the technical bar is set deliberately high.

These are two of several recommendations. The others are on LinkedIn — including more technical ones I'd encourage you to read before reaching out.

Hi, I'm Stefan.
I build things
people actually use.

Developer. Generalist. Pragmatist.