# cobr.io — Matthijs van der Kroon, Fractional CTO

> Hands-on fractional CTO for growing tech-driven companies. Matthijs van der
> Kroon scales engineering organisations, modernises platforms, and turns AI
> into reliable production systems — staying in the architecture and the code,
> not just the slides. Based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Engagements usually
> run three to nine months.

Matthijs van der Kroon has spent 15+ years building production data and AI
systems — as a co-founder and CTO, a platform architect, and the engineer in
the room — across media, finance, e-commerce, and agritech. MSc in Software
Engineering, cum laude. He is unusual in doing both the board conversation and
the hands-on implementation: strategy on Monday, pairing on a Kubernetes
operator on Tuesday.

## What he does

Three problems he is hired to solve:

- [Scale your engineering organisation](https://cobr.io/engineering): Turn a team that ships by heroics into one that ships predictably — engineering process, architecture, hiring, and delivery quality.
- [Turn AI into production software](https://cobr.io/ai): Get past the demo. Real LLM/MCP and data systems that run reliably, are evaluated honestly, and earn their place in production.
- [Modernise your platform](https://cobr.io/platform): Cloud architecture, migration, observability, reliability, and cost under control — so the platform supports the business instead of fighting it.

## How to start

- [The two-week review](https://cobr.io/review): A fixed-scope, fixed-price (€9,500) two-week review of your architecture, cloud spend, delivery process, and AI readiness. You get a written architecture review, a board-ready presentation, and a prioritised 90-day plan — whether or not you work together afterwards.
- [Book a 30-minute intro call](https://cal.com/matthijs-van-der-kroon/intro): No pitch. Tell him what's slowing you down and he'll say honestly whether he can help.

## Who he works with

Growing companies whose business runs on technology — SaaS, e-commerce,
data-heavy operations — that have outgrown their original architecture or
engineering organisation, and need senior technical leadership but not yet a
permanent CTO.

## Selected experience

- Fractional CTO — multi-tenant agritech SaaS (2026): technical strategy, scaling roadmap grounded in an analysis of 3,500 delivery tickets, board reporting; 25–50% of Azure spend identified as recoverable.
- AI/ML platform engineer — international e-commerce group (2025–26): cloud-native data platform on AWS EKS streaming from 13+ webshops into an in-house ClickHouse lakehouse, plus an MCP server giving non-technical staff live analytics through Claude.
- Co-founder & CTO — ML personalisation (2017–23): took an AI personalisation product from zero to market fit, serving real-time recommendations to millions of users for major Dutch broadcasters at 10,000+ req/s and 19 ms p99; 20%+ lift in pageviews.
- Lead data platform engineer — asset management (2020–23): led a cross-functional team of twelve building a cloud-native, ML-ready data platform for financial risk and forecasting.
- Author of [Flywheel](https://github.com/cobr-io/flywheel), an open-source GitOps dev-loop tool used on engagements.

## Details

- Name: Matthijs van der Kroon
- Role: Fractional CTO & platform architect
- Company: cobr.io (KVK 68437439)
- Location: Utrecht, the Netherlands
- Email: matthijs@cobr.io
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthijsvanderkroon/
- Languages: Dutch & English (native), French, Spanish

## Also available in

- [Dutch / Nederlands](https://cobr.io/nl)

## Pages

- [Home](https://cobr.io/)
- [Scale engineering](https://cobr.io/engineering)
- [Production AI](https://cobr.io/ai)
- [Modernise platform](https://cobr.io/platform)
- [The two-week review](https://cobr.io/review)
- [About Matthijs](https://cobr.io/about)