A completely necessary production

In a world where every backend had one more edge case...

From the architect of several unfinished side projects

One developer asked:
“what if we built the platform?”

JOEP

Backend engineer · platform builder · professional remover of “just one small feature”

JOEP.EIJKELS.DEV

[ personal homepage / backend command centre / tasteful web design ]

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👋 WHO IS THIS “JOEP” PERSON?

I build backend systems, platforms and developer tooling, usually the kind of foundational technology that quietly makes many other things possible.

I started in PHP, became very comfortable around infrastructure, and now spend a lot of time in Go. I enjoy architecture, security, reliability, deterministic systems, performance experiments, local AI and asking questions that accidentally become six-month projects.

I am especially good at turning “this should be simple” into a diagram with seventeen arrows. Occasionally, the diagram even helps.

My preferred engineering move: build one useful primitive instead of twelve unrelated buttons. The twelve buttons usually survive as backlog items.

  • Backend engineering
  • Platform architecture
  • Security foundations
  • Reliability & observability
  • Developer experience
  • Technical R&D

♾️ MY INVOLVEMENT WITH ENEQTO

At Eneqto, I work hands-on across backend engineering, platform architecture and the less glamorous, but extremely important, parts that keep a platform safe, reliable and extensible.

Eneqto is an integration and automation platform. My contribution is mostly about turning broad product ideas into reusable technical foundations: things that can serve many use cases instead of solving only one screen or workflow.

This also means professionally asking “what happens when it fails?” just after everyone has become excited about the happy path.

COREIntegration and automation foundations: flows, APIs, execution and the machinery between them.
RUNNERHybrid and on-premise execution for customers who need local connectivity, control or lower latency.
CUSTOSSecurity and WAF foundations that protect applications and traffic without becoming the main character.
SIGNALSOperational events and anomalies that can alert people, or trigger another flow, because naturally they can.

I also think about marketplace capabilities, developer experience, observability, offline debugging, deterministic simulation and how the platform should grow without turning into an archaeological site.

🧪 CURRENTLY OVERTHINKING

This list is subject to change whenever I encounter a new programming language, obscure server, tiny computer or suspiciously affordable GPU.

Go PHP Python Rust curiosity Distributed systems WebAssembly Local LLMs Deterministic simulation Homelab engineering Kubernetes, reluctantly Security tooling Ridiculous side projects Benchmarking things nobody asked about Hardware purchased for “research”