About

About

ten Bruggencate Development was founded in March 2018 by Guy ten Bruggencate. The practice builds on more than 20 years of ICT experience: starting in 2002 in various roles at companies including Alphium, Reclamefolder (RTL Ventures), iedereenEHBO, Itonomy and Logius, and since 2018 as an independent senior developer and consultant.

The common thread through those years is backend development with PHP, originally with a clear focus on security. That foundation has since broadened into full-stack development — the whole line from concept to production. Attention to architecture and quality remains part of the work, regardless of which layer of the application happens to be the focus today.

How the collaboration typically works

Most engagements are carried out via ten Bruggencate Development in partnership with Dutch staffing firms: Brainbrothers, Gravitas, Vibe Group and Sanders & Creemers come up regularly. This means ten Bruggencate Development has been a familiar part of the Dutch freelance-PHP ecosystem for years. Direct engagements are also possible — the best arrangement is chosen per project.

Work takes place within agile development environments (Scrum, Kanban), both as part of multidisciplinary teams and in independent roles. The emphasis is on short lines, a consistent point of contact and clear agreements — one developer from start to finish.

Expertise

The practice focuses on:

• Web applications — Symfony, Laravel
• E-commerce platforms — Shopware, Pimcore, (legacy) Magento
• Learning & analytics environments — Moodle, Matomo
• Custom integrations — APIs, ERP connections, import/export modules
• Maintenance and upgrades — PHP version updates, framework migrations, refactoring
• Infrastructure & DevOps — Docker, CI/CD pipelines, Apache, Traefik

The technical toolkit is broad enough to handle a range of project types. Each engagement is matched to the stack that best fits the problem.

On the use of AI

Claude (Anthropic) is used as part of the development process — code review, research, documentation and large refactors. Client-confidential data (production databases, secrets, personal information) stays out of AI contexts; when in doubt, this is discussed up front. The team page describes the collaboration between Guy and Claude in more detail.

Earlier experience before ten Bruggencate Development

Before the practice started in 2018, the following roles were among those undertaken:

• Logius — MijnOverheid.nl (2017–2018): Senior backend development on the high-performance, high-availability backend of MijnOverheid.nl. Connections and APIs to systems including DigiD and the Kadaster, plus an import/export system for the management and content module. 100% unit-test code coverage was a hard requirement.
• Symfony (project office) (Feb–Apr 2017): Senior backend developer on multiple Magento projects, including for SOA Aids Netherlands, Cult Company and Boots.
• Itonomy — Sanoma magazine.nl (2016–2017): Senior full-stack developer on a proof-of-concept for magazine.nl on Magento 2. The technical setup later formed the basis for a new concept within Sanoma.
• Reclamefolder.nl (RTL Ventures) (2015–2016): Senior backend developer on the new microservices architecture in PHP and Node.js, and builder of a realtime monitoring dashboard for app content.
• iedereenEHBO (RTL Ventures) (2014–2015): Senior backend developer on e-learning platforms — API connections for certification processes (Oranje Kruis, Rode Kruis), SEO improvements, and project lead during the investigation of a new LMS.
• Brainbrothers (2016–2018): Placement role as senior PHP developer at clients in government, media and digital-agency projects. Symfony, Laravel, Magento.

For the full list of roles and dates, see Guy ten Bruggencate's LinkedIn profile.

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