Martijn Veldkamp
Enterprise Architect · Virtual CTO · Farmer · Sarcastic Realist
Cutting Through the Hype
I spend my days architecting large-scale solutions for the complex organisations and my evenings staring at the horizon on a farm in North Holland. It’s a contrast that keeps me sane: cutting-edge AI and cloud architecture by day, and things that actually work like gravity, old Volvos, and slow-drip coffee from my Mocca Master.
My philosophy is borrowed from Colin Chapman: “Simplify, then add lightness.”
In a world obsessed with adding more “features” (and currently, throwing “AI” at problems like it’s magic dust), I focus on strategic architecture, Conway’s Law in action, and maintaining a healthy scepticism for the current AI gold rush. To me, most Generative AI is a very expensive, very advanced autocomplete. It’s a tool, not a saviour.
Latest Articles
Thoughts on architecture, AI strategy, governance, and the art of building systems that last.
- Did anyone brief the Agent?In January 2024, a DPD chatbot told a customer, in writing, that DPD was the worst delivery company in the world. The customer had asked it to. The… Read more: Did anyone brief the Agent?
- The Metric that eats itselfThere is a slide that has been appearing in decks lately. It has a bar chart. The X-axis is team names or business units. The Y-axis is tokens… Read more: The Metric that eats itself
- The Delegation IllusionI asked my AI assistant to sort my email and hand them over to new director of Vrienden van de Alk. It archived 200 messages, declined three meetings,… Read more: The Delegation Illusion
- The Benchmark was never about youSomeone showed me a model comparison last month. Clean slide. Six models, seven benchmark categories, colour coded scores. They had those consultant balls. They’d done the work. They… Read more: The Benchmark was never about you
- Who Owns the Entropy?Over the past year I’ve spent four articles naming laws. Laws. Forces that operate on systems whether the teams has read them or not. It was my take… Read more: Who Owns the Entropy?
- Designing Systems for companies that don’t existEvery architecture decision I make comes with a second document nobody asked for. Not the system diagram. The org chart the system will eventually force into existence. Most… Read more: Designing Systems for companies that don’t exist
Work With Me
I help organisations cut through complexity — whether that means designing an AI strategy that isn’t just a vendor pitch, untangling technical debt, or providing Virtual CTO leadership for teams that need strategic direction without the permanent headcount.
What I bring: Strategic architecture, data & AI governance, digital transformation leadership, and the pragmatism to tell you when the emperor has no clothes.
Reach out on LinkedIn or drop me an email.