Pragmatic quality
I like code that is understandable, testable, and useful. Clever is less interesting than maintainable.
~/biography
about me
Wouter Nijenhuis, also building as DevDad.
I'm a senior .NET engineer working on large-scale European public-sector systems, a father of four, and a builder of apps, educational games, AI tooling experiments, and developer-focused writing.
who I am
A software engineer with a builder's bias.
Professionally I work on large-scale European public-sector systems — cross-border vehicle and driving-licence data exchange, at national-registry scale. It is the kind of software where correctness, clear architecture, and careful modernization matter more than novelty.
Outside work, I build under the DevDad name: mobile apps, learning games, open-source .NET tooling, experiments with Copilot and agents, and blog posts that turn hands-on work into reusable notes.
professional focus
What I do professionally.
My day-to-day interests sit around .NET, Azure, software architecture, modernization, testing, GitHub Copilot, AI-assisted development, and developer productivity.
Small loops
I prefer tight feedback from tests, working software, and honest review over long speculative design cycles.
Useful AI
I use AI and Copilot as engineering accelerators, but still care about architecture, verification, and ownership.
Everything I write here is my own view, not a statement from my employer.
~/devdad
devdad
Fatherhood changes the way I build.
DevDad is not a separate persona from engineering. It is the practical intersection of family life and software building: making tools that are understandable, useful, safe enough for real people, and polished enough to keep using.
The educational games and app projects come from that same place. They are personal, but they still need the habits of professional software: clear user flows, accessibility, support routes, testing, and maintainable code.
skills and focus areas
Current toolbox.
.NET and Azure
- .NET
- C#
- Azure
- ASP.NET Core
- GitHub Copilot
Software craft
- Architecture
- Modernization
- Testing
- Developer productivity
- Maintainability
AI and tooling
- LLM orchestration
- Prompt workflows
- Agentic coding
- MCP
- AI-assisted development
Product building
- Mobile apps
- Educational games
- Flutter
- Web apps
- App support pages