Principal Engineer & Strategic Technology Consultant

I bridge business strategy and technical execution, helping enterprise organizations make complex technology decisions, modernize critical platforms, and scale engineering teams.

Strategic Technology
Enterprise Architecture
Engineering Leadership
Strategic Impact at:
Transavia // KPMG LLP (UK) // Royal Dutch Shell // CGI
  • 17+ Years in the trenches Engineering and leading enterprise systems since 2009
  • £150M+ Contracts secured Multi-year UK government deals won on solutions I engineered at KPMG
  • 40+ Engineers led Globally distributed, across DevOps, Data, QA and Software
  • 6 Senior roles stepped into Tech lead, architect, system designer, QA automation, production owner, stepped into whenever a team lost a key person

Architectural Guardrails

Strategic governance for high-stakes environments.

Implementation of security-first architectures and governance models designed to protect enterprise assets. Utilizing proven standards that supported products securing £150M+ in contracts at KPMG, I establish the technical blueprints and automated guardrails like Fortify and SonarQube to prevent technical debt and ensure global compliance.

Strategic Engineering

Mission-critical implementation and legacy modernization.

Surgical engineering focused on solving the complex technical hurdles that block product roadmaps. This includes the orchestration of cloud-native transformations, such as the successful supplanting of legacy AS-400 systems at Transavia, and the delivery of high-performance prototypes that ensure long-term operational excellence.

Technical Team Leadership

Scaling organizations through engineering enablement.

Bridging the gap between business vision and technical execution for enterprise-scale organizations. Experience directing large-scale, globally distributed teams (including over 40 engineers at KPMG) across DevOps, Data, and QA to align engineering culture with strategic organizational goals.

AI-Accelerated Engineering

Driving GenAI and agentic workflows into real delivery.

Hands-on with the modern AI toolchain: GitHub Copilot and the Copilot CLI, Claude Code, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP), authoring reusable Claude skills to standardize how teams build. At Transavia I drove Copilot adoption through live demonstrations and upskilled engineers in agentic workflows, turning AI from novelty into measurable delivery velocity.

Career at a glance

Seventeen years across regulated, high-stakes industries, from oil & gas to aviation and government.

  • Aviation
  • Energy
  • Finance
  • Government
  • Professional Services
  • 2023 Present Freelance Senior ICT Consultant Freelance Case study → Embedded technical adviser at Transavia, the engineer other teams and the business turn to for connectivity, critical-role cover, and high-priority incidents Aviation & Travel Transavia Schiphol, The Netherlands 3 yrs 6 mo
  • 2018 2022 Principal Software Engineer Case study → Scaling a learning platform to a flagship product, leading 40+ engineers Professional Services & Enterprise Advisory KPMG - Learning Solutions Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom 3 yrs 7 mo
  • 2016 2018 Staff Engineer Realigning and accelerating delivery of an enterprise learning platform Professional Services & Enterprise Advisory KPMG - Learning Solutions Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom 2 yrs 8 mo
  • 2015 2017 Senior Software Engineer → Technical Lead Leading delivery of the pension information platform for UK enterprise clients Professional Services & Enterprise Advisory KPMG - Digital Mobile Solutions Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom 1 yr 4 mo
  • 2015 2015 Freelance Software Consultant Freelance Sole delivery of a complete custom system for a medium-sized business, owning design through to delivery IT Systems Integration Kelderro The Hague Area, The Netherlands 9 mo
  • 2012 2014 Consultant: Technical Lead Modernizing market-sensitive financial systems, cutting release cycles from a full day to minutes Energy & Utilities CGI, Royal Dutch Shell The Hague, The Netherlands 2 yrs
  • 2011 2012 Consultant: Senior Software Engineer Modernizing the global reservoir management system tracking worldwide oil reserves Energy & Utilities CGI, Royal Dutch Shell The Hague Area, The Netherlands 1 yr 3 mo
  • 2009 2011 Consultant: Software Engineer Automating system-to-system communication between government systems at UWV, removing the manual steps from the process Government & Public CGI (Logica), UWV Amstelveen, The Netherlands 2 yrs 4 mo

Selected Engagements

The most impactful roles from my professional experience.

  • Transavia Freelancer
    Freelance Senior ICT Consultant

    Embedded technical adviser at Transavia, the engineer other teams and the business turn to for connectivity, critical-role cover, and high-priority incidents

    Apr 2023 – Dec 2026 · 3 yrs 6 mo Schiphol, The Netherlands
    Technical AdvisoryPartner ConnectivityAzure ModernizationCross-team Delivery
    Read the full case study
  • KPMG - Learning Solutions Full time employee (35 hours a week)
    Principal Software Engineer

    Scaling a learning platform to a flagship product, leading 40+ engineers

    Oct 2018 – May 2022 · 3 yrs 7 mo Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom
    Strategy / visionForce multiplierMentor
    Read the full case study
  • KPMG - Learning Solutions Full time employee (35 hours a week)
    Staff Engineer

    Realigning and accelerating delivery of an enterprise learning platform

    Feb 2016 – Oct 2018 · 2 yrs 8 mo Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom
    DesignDevUser Testing
    Key impact
    • Concept to launch
    • Bias for action
    • Distributed systems
    • Performance manager
  • Kelderro Freelancer
    Freelance Software Consultant

    Sole delivery of a complete custom system for a medium-sized business, owning design through to delivery

    Jan 2015 – Oct 2015 · 9 mo The Hague Area, The Netherlands
    End-to-End DeliverySoftware ConsultingStakeholder Management
    Key impact
    • Owned the full lifecycle: design, build, delivery and end responsibility
    • Sole engineer on the engagement, from client kick-off to final handover
    • Worked directly with non-technical stakeholders to shape requirements and expectations
View All Engagements

About Rob op den Kelder

I've spent 17+ years in the trenches, from leading 40+ globally distributed engineers at KPMG to modernizing legacy financial systems for Transavia.

As a Strategic Technical Leader, I focus on the high-leverage decisions that prevent technical debt and ensure long-term scalability. While I still code to keep my saw sharp, my primary value lies in ensuring your architecture supports your business goals with the same rigor I used to help secure £150M+ in enterprise contracts.

My approach is built on three pillars of experience:

Enterprise Architecture

Designing scalable, event-driven microservice architectures for global firms like KPMG.

Legacy Modernization

Orchestrating cloud-native transformations to replace aging infrastructure, such as the AS-400 migration at Transavia.

Engineering Enablement

Scaling team maturity and delivery quality across DevOps, Data, and QA disciplines.

Outside client work, I'm a pro bono IT strategy advisor to non-technical leaders at local non-profits and small businesses, from translating vendor proposals into clear business guidance to leading IT procurement for an animal shelter.

Kelder is Dutch for cellar: the foundation everything else is built on. Fitting, since that's what I build.

Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
Active Certification

Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert

Verified via Microsoft Learn

Technical Toolkit

Languages, platforms, and tools I use to deliver enterprise-grade solutions.

AI-Assisted Engineering

  • GitHub Copilot
  • Copilot CLI
  • Claude Code
  • Claude Skills
  • MCP
  • Agentic Workflows

Languages

  • C# / .NET
  • TypeScript
  • Python
  • Go
  • Rust
  • JavaScript
  • Java

Cloud & Infrastructure

  • Azure
  • Bicep
  • Docker
  • Kubernetes
  • Terraform
  • PostgreSQL

Architecture

  • Microservices
  • Event-Driven
  • Domain-Driven Design
  • REST & gRPC APIs
  • Azure Solutions Architect
  • Legacy Modernization

Quality & Tooling

  • Git
  • GitHub
  • GitHub Actions
  • SonarQube
  • Jenkins