Lead Software Engineer

Not looking for an easy ride?

You don’t just want to build software. You want to decide how it gets built, now that AI is changing the craft. AI writes, tests and thinks along with you, but you’re the one who keeps the big picture.

And you want to do it in a small team of engineers who already work AI-assisted and want to make a proper discipline of it. A team you can learn from, and one that wants to learn from you.

Sound like you? We’d love to meet you.

About FIDDS Solutions

FIDDS helps organisations move forward with data and AI. We’re about 30 people across four areas of expertise: Strategy, Design, Solutions and Obeya. We have offices in Breukelen and on the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven. We work for organisations such as Rijkswaterstaat and UWV in the Dutch public sector, and ASML. For them, what AI can do matters, but so does who controls the data and whether the solution is responsible. That’s why sovereignty, compliance and ethics are our starting point.

You’ll join the Solutions team in Breukelen. We build data and AI solutions for clients there, and develop our own sovereign AI products. Client projects fund that product development. Right now the split is roughly 80% client work and 20% product, and within two to three years we want to flip that. You’ll help make that shift happen.

We’re a young company with big ambitions, and you’ll feel it. You get room to shape how we work: organisationally, functionally and technically. At the same time, you have the weight of FIDDS Group behind you, from large clients to colleagues in Strategy and Design.

What you will do

You’ll spend most of your time building, on client projects and on our own products. Around 20 to 30% of your time goes to leading a team of three to six engineers. You’ll have direct access to the management team.

• You build front end and back end, mostly in Vue, Python and C# for now. We’re stack-agnostic: what a client or product needs decides the choice;
• You turn our AI-assisted software development lifecycle into daily practice, from requirements and design to code, review, testing and documentation;
• You choose the tools and decide how the team works;
• You set out how we check AI output;
• You bring colleagues along in that way of working, so we deliver faster without losing control.

Staying in control matters a lot to us. We work to ISO 27001: the external audit is done, and formal certification follows at the end of 2026. We also promise clients AI that is sovereign, compliant and ethical. That has to hold for how we build, too.

You’ll work three days a week at our office in Breukelen, including Friday, our fixed team day.

To set expectations: you’ll sometimes need to switch gears quickly, between client and product work for example. If you’re after a tightly defined role with a fixed goal, this isn’t the place for you. If you’re keen to be an entrepreneur yourself, becoming a partner in the business is open for discussion further down the line.

What you bring

• At least 7 years as a software engineer in a professional setting, at an enterprise or an independent software vendor (ISV);
• Ideally a few years as a lead;
• Experience across front end and back end, and the ability to pick up a new language or framework quickly;
• Day-to-day experience with AI-assisted software development;
• Dutch preferably, though fluent English works too;
• A home within commuting distance of Breukelen, in the Utrecht or Amsterdam region for example.

Additionally you have

• Independence. You get on with it. You don’t wait for a brief, and if the question isn’t sharp yet, you sharpen it;
• A critical eye. You question AI output, and you also see that this is where the craft is heading;
• The ability to bring people along. You help colleagues adopt a new way of working, including those who aren’t as far along yet;
• The urge to shape how we work, not just what we deliver. We’re small enough that your way of working changes the company.

What you can expect from us

• 💰 € 6,000 to € 7,500 gross per month based on 40 hours, excluding holiday allowance;
• 📈 An annual profit share;
• 🗓️ 32 to 40 hours a week, with Friday as a fixed team day;
• 🏝️ 25 days of annual leave;
• 📆 A solid pension scheme;
• 💻 The laptop of your choice, a MacBook Pro or Microsoft Surface for example;
• ☎️ An iPhone or Android phone, plus a connectivity allowance;
• 🚙 Your pick of an electric lease car or a travel budget;
• 🎓 € 2,000 a year to spend on training, courses and development;
• 🏠 Hybrid working across our office, client sites and home.

Interested?

Sound good? We’d love to hear from you. Send us your CV and tell us what you’ve worked on. Email Rishi Dokkum at rishi.dokkum@fidds.nl to set up an introduction, and we’ll have the coffee ready.

This is a permanent, salaried position and not open to freelancers. We don’t welcome approaches from recruitment agencies for this vacancy.