Summary
Michel De Graaf is a tech lead and founder with over two decades of experience designing and shipping end-to-end software systems across fintech, retail, and enterprise domains. He combines hands-on full-stack development (TypeScript, Node, Ruby/Rails, React) with architecture, DevOps and product ownership to deliver production-grade, microservice-based platforms and state-machine driven workflows. Michel has repeatedly built leasing and asset-backed lending products, CRMs for high-volume mortgage processing, and context-aware knowledge-graph experiences for large organizations like IKEA and ING. He runs his own consultancy, re-invention, and currently leads the tech stack at a fintech leasing startup in Amsterdam, applying TDD, CI/CD, OCR and LLMs to real-world lending flows. Known for pragmatic system decomposition—extracting services from monoliths and automating complex document and data pipelines—he blends startup agility with enterprise-grade engineering practices. Outside of roles, he self-describes as a "digital mercenary" and brings a developer-first mentality to solving messy, integration-heavy problems.
13 years of coding experience
15 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor Informatica (s-Hertogenbosch), Bachelor Informatica (s-Hertogenbosch) at Avans University of Applied Sciences
Master (MSc) Software engineering, Master (MSc) Software engineering at University of Amsterdam
Dutch, English, German