Stalled migration. Team walking out. Business in revolt.
That's when they call me.
I step in as data architect when the standard approach fails. No reports, no sideline advice. I go to the root cause, take ownership, and get both platform and team across the finish line. 18 years. Four stalled projects. Four working platforms.
I follow the problem, not the plan.
Listen first, judge later
The real problems rarely appear in the project plan. I start by observing.
Sometimes take a step back
Two weeks of not building can prevent two years in the wrong direction.
Fix at the root, not the end
Last-mile workarounds become the source of every new crash in three years.
My success: you no longer need me
I don't build dependencies. When I walk out the door, everything should keep running.
2 years stuck.
40,000 broken subscriptions.
Team halfway out the door.
Business in open revolt.
An organisation at a standstill.
Nobody was talking anymore. Only firefighting.
I stepped in as data architect on a Tuesday.
Four months later: platform live.
Team stable. Approach adopted org-wide.
The director got the credits.
That comes with the job.
Four platforms that were stuck,
four times back in motion.
2 years of migration stuck. Live 4 months later.
Redesigned the star model, phased cutover with rollback per layer. 5,000 users, zero disruptions.
also: PII architecture & data security →Compliance reviews redesigned. Analysts 4× faster.
350-question review process redesigned: ~80% automatable via self-service input, prefilling and a single unified platform.
Report landscape: 200–300 reports to 9 key domains.
Too complex, 1 FTE permanently on maintenance, frequent disruptions. Rebuilt into 9 key domains. No more FTE maintenance, no more disruptions.
20,000 dashboards without governance. 200 with.
DTS role (Data Transformation Specialist) designed: 150 business users build on the same staging as 6 IT engineers, with code review. 5,000 users, one truth.
Most platforms don't get stuck on one layer.
They get stuck at the seams between them.
A stalled data platform is almost never the failure of one layer. It's the failure at the transitions between them. Architecture that didn't account for governance. Migration scope that had to bolt on security afterwards. AI ambition built on data that has no owner yet.
I come from architecture, have built the governance side (DAMA-CDMP), have led enterprise-scale migrations, and am now running agentic AI in KYC practice. Not one specialism. The overview to see where specialisms miss each other.
Architecture, governance and scalability baked in. From day one.
No bolted-on security afterwards. No "we'll fix that later". Every platform I design has RTBF, PII masking, RLS and column-level lineage from the foundation. That takes a little extra attention in week 2, and saves a €500k rebuild plus two regulatory fines in year 3.
Three places where it really gets stuck.
Platform that no longer scales
ETL runs taking 15 hours, security bolted on afterwards, team firefighting instead of building. Redesigned with reusable building blocks that scale with volume and team growth.
Governance that isn't adopted
Policy on paper, nobody in the business knows what applies. DAMA-CDMP operating models with DTS roles (Data Transformation Specialists). Policy becomes practice, without compliance theatre everyone works around.
Migration stuck for months
Team walking out. Political blockers stalling the project. Business disengaging. I take the lead, stabilise the team, redesign where needed, and get the platform across the finish line.
I'm there for the projects where others step back.
Too complex. Too political. With conflicting interests. Business demanding solutions, IT keeping plates in the air, nobody has oversight anymore. That's where I belong. Not because I seek chaos. Because that's where real value gets unlocked once someone dares to step in.
My heart beats faster when something impossibly complex suddenly becomes clear, when I tackle what others leave behind, and when I leave something better than I found it. That last part isn't a slogan. It's the only measure I hold myself to.
read the full story →Sebastiaan has an impressive overview of the entire project and translates this effectively into clear guidance for techleads and teams. He brings calm and expertise. A true specialist in data solution architecture.
Let's see if I can get your platform moving again.
Tell me what's stuck. We'll talk. I'll listen. You'll get an honest assessment of whether I'm the right data architect for your situation. No sales pitch, no proposal dance. Available immediately. Netherlands and remote-EU.
Send me a message →References from previous assignments available on request.