Hidde van Heijst

Summary

Data & AI Leader with nearly 10 years building enterprise-scale data platforms. 8 years Azure expertise, 6 years real-time systems. Led teams delivering sub-second fraud detection handling 50K+ transactions per minute with 99.9% uptime. Experience across gaming, retail, and fintech industries.

Skills

Cloud & Data

Microsoft Azure (Expert)
Azure Functions, Event Hubs
CosmosDB, Databricks
Terraform (IaC)

Engineering

Python, PySpark
SQL, KQL
Event-driven architecture
ML Operations

Leadership

Team leadership
Data strategy
AI governance
Compliance (KOA, Wwft, GDPR)

Experience

Data & AI Architect · Nederlandse Loterij

2024 – Present

Authored AI & data strategy including governance framework for EU AI Act compliance
Led implementation of real-time personalization framework across all customer touchpoints
Technical AI expert in multidisciplinary team defining future customer AI interfaces

Staff Data Engineer & Platform Architect · Nederlandse Loterij

2020 – 2024

Built event-driven platform using Azure Functions, Event Hubs, CosmosDB
Delivered sub-second fraud detection processing 50K+ transactions per minute at peak with 99.9% uptime
Led cross-functional data engineering team establishing best practices
Achieved 95% system load reduction through optimized aggregation techniques
Built compliance architecture meeting KOA and Wwft regulatory requirements

Data Engineer · Hallmark Benelux

2018 – 2020

Built cloud data platform on Azure supporting BI and ML workflows
Developed Python ML recommendation engine optimizing inventory across 200+ locations
Achieved 25% cost reduction in inventory and 30% decrease in stockouts

Consultant & Data Engineer · Capgemini

2017 – 2018

Established Salesforce CDP Center of Expertise as strategic technology partner
Built data engineering pipelines for customer analytics and marketing automation
Delivered customer data insights for ABN AMRO digital banking

Education

MSc Business Information Management

Erasmus University Rotterdam · 2015–2016

Grade: 8.0/10 · Focus: Information Strategy, Big Data Architecture

BSc Technology Management

University of Groningen · 2010–2015

Grade: 7.0/10 · Thesis: 8.5/10