Peter Berkenbosch

Engineering
leadership that
ships.

I combine hands-on engineering work with leadership. From being the technical force on your team to managing your entire engineering organization, I scale to match your needs, and can step into a fractional CTO role as you grow.

Start a conversation Where I'm deep →

01About

An engineering leader who stays close to the code.

I'm an engineering leader who stays hands-on. I don't just manage from above, I ship code, mentor developers, and drive technical direction. With 24+ years building web applications, I've learned that the best leadership combines deep technical skill with the ability to develop strong teams.

My background is rooted in open-source e-commerce (Spree, Solidus) and has evolved into building products at scale, from bootstrapped startups to high-growth platforms like Glossier and VitaminLab. I've learned to speak both the language of engineers and the language of business, bridging gaps and getting things shipped.

Whether you need a staff-level engineer who can also manage a team, technical guidance, or someone to lead your entire engineering function, I adapt to what your organization needs.

Peter Berkenbosch

02Expertise

Six places I've gone deep.

i.

System Architecture

Designing scalable, maintainable architectures. Rails conventions, service objects, background job processing, database optimization, API design.

ii.

Ruby on Rails

Deep expertise in the idiomatic Rails way. Boring Rails advocate: Hotwire, Stimulus, Turbo Frames, server-rendered HTML, testing strategies, and best practices.

iii.

Team Leadership

Building and scaling high-performing engineering teams. Hiring, mentoring, technical culture, and creating systems that enable teams to ship quality work.

iv.

Technical Strategy

As a fractional CTO, I help organizations navigate technical decisions, roadmaps, and modernization efforts aligned with business goals.

v.

Open Source E-Commerce

Deep expertise in Spree and Solidus. Early Spree adopter (2008), core team member, extension author. Building scalable commerce systems, payment integration, and fulfillment workflows.

vi.

Performance & Optimization

Identifying bottlenecks, optimizing slow queries, improving API response times, and monitoring in production.

Preferred stack Ruby on Rails·Hotwire·Stimulus·PostgreSQL·SQLite·TailwindCSS

03Experience

Twenty-four years, mostly shipped.

2025 →

Lead Product Engineer

SportsKey · Dublin (Remote)

Leading engineering while staying deep in product development and technical decisions. Blending hands-on build with team leadership.

2024 →

Co-Founder

Dinck B.V. · Netherlands

Building a new venture while maintaining advisory and consulting relationships.

2022, 2024

Principal Software Engineer

VitaminLab · Remote

Led engineering and oversaw technical architecture and platform performance at a personalised nutrition company. Progressed from Chief Happiness Officer to Principal Engineer.

2017, 2022

CXOps & e-Commerce Specialist

Glossier · Engine eCommerce · Nerds & Company

Specialised in e-commerce development and operations. Set up CXOps squads, created workflows and processes, built backend systems for high-volume platforms.

2013, 2017

Open Source & Technical Leadership

Spree Commerce · Stembolt · Dynamo

Senior Developer and Technical Account Manager at Spree Commerce. Contributed to open-source e-commerce while building deep Rails expertise and learning to bridge technical and customer needs.

2001, 2013

Earlier career

Founder, Peter Berkenbosch Consultancy B.V.

Full career history available on LinkedIn.

04Open source & community

Long-time contributor, still showing up.

I was an active contributor to the Solidus ecosystem and served on the Solidus Stakeholder Team. Though I've moved on to new ventures, I remain close to the open-source e-commerce community and the projects I helped build.

Recent work is on a Mollie payments engine for Rails (mollie_pay, v0.1.0 shipped) and a set of mountable engines that underpin the product line above.

github.com/peterberkenbosch

05Contact

Need a hands-on engineering leader who'll also write the code? Let's talk about what your team needs.

[email protected] email peterberkenbosch linkedin peterberkenbosch github +31 6 5708 6546 phone