Jan de Vries
Software Engineer at Microsoft
Lemmer, The Netherlands
Actions
I'm a passionate software engineer with over 20 years of experience designing and developing innovative solutions, primarily within the Microsoft Azure ecosystem over the past decade. In recent years, my focus has been on building Copilot, Agent, and other LLM/GenAI-powered solutions.
Throughout my career, I've worked closely with customers, leadership, and engineering teams to deliver practical, high-impact solutions. I like working in complex environments and setting up projects for long-term success through agile thinking and a strong focus on quality and security.
I often serve as a reviewer for proposed and implemented solutions, helping guide both technical and strategic decisions. One of the most fulfilling aspects of my work has been mentoring and coaching peers. Watching them grow from junior to senior engineers has been incredibly rewarding.
Outside of day-to-day engineering, I love sharing knowledge. I regularly write blog posts, speak at user groups and conferences, and engage with the tech community. This passion for community and innovation earned me the Microsoft Azure MVP award in the past.
Area of Expertise
Topics
From a distributed monolith to a microservices solution
Are you creating a microservices solution? You sure about this?
Creating small services that invoke other small services, which invoke even more smaller services most of the time results in a distributed monolith.
Using commands, events and loosely coupled services is something you SHOULD strive for!
I'm happy to show you my lessons learned in this realm and which Azure services you can use to create a very scalable & responsive microservices solution.
I'll quickly show you which services you should use, like Azure App Services, Azure Functions, Event Grid, and Storage Queues. With the short introduction out of the way, we'll dive into the details of these services, how to get the most out of them and when to use each service.
After this session, you'll be aware of the pitfalls in a service-to-service design and know how to implement a proper, loosely coupled, microservices solution.
Designing software in the cloud
Are you migrating to the cloud, or have you migrated already? Don't forget to update your software design also! Designing and developing software running on-premises often looks different compared to a cloud-native solution.
You can do a 1-on-1 migration of your software, and it will run fine*, but by leveraging a couple of standard cloud patterns, you can make the software more robust and cost-effective.
I'll show you which steps I often take for migrating software to a cloud environment and which problems arise along the way. After this session, you'll have a clear understanding of what to do for a successful migration.
Building an SDK to improve your API usage
Creating an API is just the first step. Making it easily usable by other teams, including your own, is crucial. Do you want them to struggle with figuring out how to interact with your API and potentially fail? Why not help them by providing a robust SDK?
Having worked with numerous backend systems over the past decades, I have experienced firsthand the time, frustration, and effort required to 'get it right.' Often, teams have created unique ways of invoking endpoints, have peculiar payload requirements, or have non-standard authentication requirements.
You can simplify the integration process for teams by providing an SDK in multiple programming languages if desired.
In this session, I will show you how to create an SDK with minimal effort. The key is to have your Open API specifications ready, and the rest can be automated.
And to make it more fun, I will show you how to fine-tune the generated SDK to make it even more developer-friendly.
By the end of this session, you will know how to save your clients significant time and effort when they need to interact with your system.
Get a knack for debugging
Debugging isn't just a skill, done right, it's a superpower. Yet somehow, it feels like many engineers are losing their grip on it. Whether it's a production meltdown or a mysterious local glitch, too often I see people poking around in the dark, hoping something sticks.
In this session, I'll bring the art of debugging back into the spotlight.
After years of working with complex systems both on-premises and in the cloud, I've built up a toolkit, call it a gut instinct, for troubleshooting. It's not magic. it's knowing how services behave under the hood and how protocols tick gives you an edge when things go sideways.
I'll cover practical strategies for debugging large systems, spotting patterns, and keeping your architecture resilient. And yes, with copilots and agents churning out more code than ever, your debugging skills are about to become even more valuable.
Expect real-world stories, actionable tips, and a few laughs. Let’s help you get that knack for debugging, and maybe even enjoy it.
Migrate your solution to modern standards
Did you lift-and-shift your way into the cloud, or are you running large compute clusters to keep an app running? If so, there’s a good chance you’re burning more money than you need to.
Here’s the good news: you can probably optimize your workload and cut costs. Even better? You don’t have to reach for Kubernetes if you don’t want to.
In my day job, I come across all kinds of cloud-hosted solutions. Some are beautifully designed & implemented and a joy to work with. Others... not so much.
That's not a value judgement, both kinds often drive successful businesses. Still, there’s plenty of room to modernize without rewriting everything from scratch.
In this session, I’ll walk you through how to evolve less-than-ideal designs using patterns like the Strangler pattern, CQRS, Gateway Routing, and more. These approaches can help you migrate toward a cleaner, more scalable architecture. I’ll focus on Azure, but the principles apply across the board.
Let’s make your solution leaner, smarter, and way more cloud-friendly.
CloudBrew 2023 - A two-day Microsoft Azure event Sessionize Event
Update Conference Prague 2023 Sessionize Event
Techorama Netherlands 2023 Sessionize Event
Serverless 360 webinar
Presented a session for designing serverless solutions in Microsoft Azure.
Webdev Zwolle
Presented my session `Going Paaswordless in Azure` during this meetup.
Move Up with 4dotnet
Presented my session `Going PaaSwordless in Azure` at this event, which was broadcasted to all attendees.
Move Up with 4dotnet
Presented my `Next level security for your Azure applications` session at this virtual event.
Build Stuff 2021 Lithuania Sessionize Event
NDC Sydney 2021 Sessionize Event
Azure Community Conference 2021 Sessionize Event
Virtual NetCoreConf 2021 - 2 Sessionize Event
Update Now 2020 Sessionize Event
2020 All Day DevOps Sessionize Event
NDC Sydney 2020 Sessionize Event
Azure Virtual Conference Sessionize Event
Global Azure Virtual Sessionize Event
Future Tech 2020 Sessionize Event
2019 All Day DevOps Sessionize Event
MVPDays Azure Day Online Sessionize Event
microXchg 2019 Sessionize Event
Microsoft TechDays 2018 Sessionize Event
Please note that Sessionize is not responsible for the accuracy or validity of the data provided by speakers. If you suspect this profile to be fake or spam, please let us know.
Jump to top