Jeroen

Senior DevOps Engineer · Skimmer

Jeroen Schaftenaar

Senior DevOps Engineer at Skimmer. Formerly Lead DevOps at IBM Cloud — platforms, automation, and making simple systems that do complex things.

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About

Platforms, people, and the long game of making simple systems that do complex things.

I’m Jeroen, a Senior DevOps Engineer at Skimmer. Before that I spent roughly twelve years at IBM Cloud — shipping customer portals, leading fraud and trust tooling, then running platform and datacenter automation as Lead DevOps.

The through-line is the same: build simple systems that do complex things — identity, CI/CD, clusters, release paths — so other engineers can move faster without carrying unnecessary weight. I care about reliability without ceremony, automation that earns its keep, and mentoring people until the hard problems feel approachable.

Dutch by origin, based in McKinney / Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas. I work comfortably across product engineering and infrastructure, in English and Dutch, and I still enjoy building websites and tools when the problem is real.

Experience

Impact over title inflation — the work that moved platforms and teams forward.

  1. Senior DevOps Engineer Current

    Skimmer · Austin / Remote (US)

    Oct 2026 – Present

    All-in-one pool service management platform trusted by tens of thousands of pool pros.

    • Own and improve delivery, reliability, and platform automation for a fast-growing SaaS engineering org.
    • Partner with product and engineering to keep deployments consistent, observable, and low-friction.

  2. Lead DevOps Engineer

    IBM Cloud · Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas

    Jan 2022 – Oct 2026

    • Led automation that reduced datacenter provisioning time using Python, Terraform, Kubernetes, and Ansible.
    • Built and operated core infrastructure services (LDAP, DNS, Vault, NTP) across 30+ Kubernetes clusters.
    • Cut dependency on a legacy in-house identity system (~$500K/year operational cost) by simplifying auth with existing platform tooling.
    • Standardized CI/CD across ~130 repositories spanning multiple regions and environments.
    • Introduced AI-assisted workflows for system design, debugging, and documentation.

  3. Senior Software Engineer

    IBM Cloud · Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas

    Jan 2018 – Dec 2021

    • Led internal trust and compliance tooling used to identify and remove fraudulent actors from the IBM Cloud platform.
    • Delivered full-stack applications and APIs supporting platform security and abuse prevention.
    • Collaborated with data scientists to fold ML into fraud detection workflows.
    • Mentored engineers as team lead; processes and tooling reduced fraudulent spend by more than $2M annually.

  4. Software Engineer

    IBM Cloud · Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas

    Nov 2014 – Dec 2017

    • Owned customer-facing applications and portals serving IBM Cloud customers.
    • Migrated customer-facing apps from ExtJS to React, improving maintainability and UX.
    • Built logging, debugging, and operational tooling that sped up issue resolution.

  5. Account Manager, Sales, Owner

    Affordable Marketing Services · Dallas, Texas

    May 2013 – Nov 2014

    • Helped small businesses with online integrations, custom ordering platforms, and e-commerce on AWS.
    • Built dealership advertising and scooter-configurator systems with payment integrations.

  6. Web Application Developer, Co-owner

    Arie.nl · Zwolle, The Netherlands

    Jan 2006 – May 2013

    • Built custom web applications and e-commerce platforms with PayPal, iDeal, Klarna, and data-provider integrations.
    • Shipped a bespoke customer support system that cut response times and improved satisfaction.

Projects

A mix of platform work that stayed inside the walls, and open tools and sites that didn’t.

  • Datacenter bootstrap & platform services

    Private / Work

    Automation and core services that cut provisioning time and kept LDAP, DNS, Vault, and NTP reliable across dozens of Kubernetes clusters at IBM Cloud.

    • Python
    • Terraform
    • Kubernetes
    • Ansible

  • CI/CD at scale

    Private / Work

    Standardized pull-request-based delivery across ~130 repositories and multiple regions — less release friction, more consistent deploys.

    • CI/CD
    • Git
    • Platform

  • Cloud fraud & trust tooling

    Private / Work

    Full-stack trust and compliance systems that helped remove fraudulent actors and cut fraudulent spend by more than $2M per year.

    • Full-stack
    • Security
    • ML

  • jest-code-coverage-protection

    Repository

    npm utility that compares Jest coverage against the base branch so regressions get caught before merge.

    • JavaScript
    • Jest
    • npm

  • react-iframe

    Repository

    React iframe component with postMessage and automatic height adjustment — published as @jschaftenaar/react-iframe.

    • React
    • TypeScript
    • npm

  • Cranio Sacraal IJsselland

    Website

    Custom business site for a craniosacral practice — clear structure, professional presence, and content the owner can actually work with.

    • Web
    • Client work

Skills

Tools I reach for when the job is reliability, delivery, or a product that has to ship.

Languages

  • Python
  • JavaScript
  • TypeScript
  • SQL
  • Bash
  • PHP

Platforms & Cloud

  • Kubernetes
  • Docker
  • Linux
  • AWS
  • IBM Cloud
  • Vault

DevOps & IaC

  • Terraform
  • Ansible
  • CI/CD
  • Git
  • LDAP
  • DNS
  • NTP

Frontend & Apps

  • React
  • Astro
  • Node.js
  • HTML/CSS
  • APIs

Practices

  • Platform engineering
  • Reliability
  • Mentorship
  • Security & trust
  • Developer productivity

My story

From Zwolle workshops to Texas platforms — the short version.

  1. Netherlands

    Where it started

    Grew up in the Netherlands with a builder’s curiosity — figuring out how systems fit together long before that became a job title.

  2. 1999 – 2003

    Production automation

    Studied production automation at Deltion College in Zwolle — early grounding in how physical and digital processes meet.

  3. 2004 – 2009

    Games, code, and Europe

    Computer Game Development at Saxion University, plus an international business exchange in Flensburg. Learned to ship software that people actually touch.

  4. 2006 – 2013

    Arie.nl

    Co-owned and built web apps and e-commerce in Zwolle — payments, support tools, and the messy reality of running software for real customers.

  5. 2011 – 2013

    MBA in Finance

    Crossed the Atlantic for an MBA at Dallas Baptist University. Business context next to the engineering craft.

  6. 2013 – 2014

    Building for small business

    Ran Affordable Marketing Services — custom ordering platforms, dealership tools, and cloud workloads for companies that needed to move fast.

  7. 2014 – 2026

    Twelve years at IBM Cloud

    From customer portals to fraud tooling to leading DevOps for datacenter and platform services. Mentored teams, simplified identity, and automated the hard parts.

  8. 2026

    Skimmer

    Joined Skimmer as Senior DevOps Engineer — bringing platform discipline to a product that keeps pool pros running every day.

Contact

Want to talk platforms, DevOps, or a build that needs a calm technical lead? Reach out.

jschaftenaar@gmail.com