Hi, I'm Niels!

NixOS specialist focused on reproducible infrastructure, declarative system management, and reliable deployments. I design scalable Linux environments with flakes, automation, CI/CD integration, and developer tooling for secure and reliable setups. NixOS strikes a good balance between Ansible and Kubernetes in terms of reproducible deployments.

Kubernetes enables rapid deployment, scaling, and workload migration across cloud environments when implemented thoughtfully. In practice, I’ve often seen it misused, leading to unnecessary vendor lock-in, over-engineered setups, and a lack of understanding of how containers operate under the hood. While powerful, it can also be overkill; choosing the right orchestration solution is key.

I first discovered UNIX-like operating systems through Mandrake 8.1 in 2001, starting more than 25 years of daily Linux experience. Since then, I’ve worked extensively with OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and experimental systems such as Haiku and ReactOS. I’m particularly passionate about operating system design, the UNIX philosophy, and POSIX compliance.

Python has long been my primary programming language of choice. From quick automation scripts to more complex applications, I value its readability, strong focus on maintainability, and extensive ecosystem of libraries. I also maintain a small music collection organizer on PyPI.

I enjoy building web applications with Django, valuing its clean MVC architecture and seamless integration with Python. It provides a productive development experience and supports rapid iteration without sacrificing structure or maintainability.

At Acquia, I maintained an enterprise-scale fleet powered by Varnish HTTP Cache. This gave me deep, hands-on experience with Varnish internals, the HTTP protocol, and strategies for optimizing web applications for high-performance delivery and DDoS resilience. I also worked extensively with VCL, designing and tuning caching and request-handling logic to meet complex production requirements.

I wrote my first PHP at the end of the PHP 3 era, starting as a teenager. While early versions were limited, modern PHP has matured into a robust backend language with Composer, strict typing, and PHPUnit as core parts of the ecosystem. I enjoy building with frameworks like Symfony and Drupal, where modern practices and solid architecture shine.

I use Nextcloud as part of my focus on European tech sovereignty and open standards. In a landscape where many EU and Dutch public institutions rely heavily on proprietary platforms like Microsoft, I help organizations adopt self-hosted collaboration solutions. Nextcloud enables control over data, infrastructure, and total cost of ownership within broader open-source ecosystems.

In my 13 years at Acquia, I have supported, hosted, and built applications with Drupal. I also wrote a widely used cache invalidation module, Purge, and have attended many community events over the years. Drupal’s flexibility and strong technical foundation make it well-suited for rapid, low-code application development while still supporting complex, enterprise-grade requirements.