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Dutch freelance .NET architect who's been slinging code since MSX BASIC in the '80s. Core contributor to NServiceBus. By day I ship event-driven systems at scale. By night I'm a volunteer firefighter. 25+ years of building mission-critical, high-performance distributed systems.

Ramon Smits

My Story

From MSX to Distributed Systems

My journey started on an MSX home computer in the '80s, learning fundamentals through BASIC. The Amiga 500 opened new horizons—AMOS for game development, then SAS C where I learned what it meant to work close to the hardware. Turbo Pascal with inline x86 assembler, C++, the demoscene era—this shaped my understanding of data structures, memory management, and performance-critical code.

I've been in the .NET ecosystem since Framework 1.0 Beta. Two decades of watching C# evolve from a Java competitor to one of the most sophisticated languages in the industry has given me deep expertise across the entire platform evolution.

Two Uniforms: Code and Courage

Beyond the keyboard, I serve as a volunteer firefighter in the Netherlands. This isn't just a hobby—it's about being there when your community needs you most. The discipline, quick thinking, and ability to operate under pressure translates directly to how I approach technical challenges. Currently training toward bevelvoerder (incident commander).

Philosophy

I believe in pragmatic, performance-oriented solutions over complex abstractions. Code should be human-readable but compact. Memory allocations in loops are the enemy. Event-driven architecture is elegant. And sometimes, the best debugging tool is a cup of coffee and staring at the wall until the solution materializes.

Consulting on distributed systems and .NET architecture through NBraceIT.

25+ Years in Software
.NET Since .NET Framework Beta 1
Community Contributor to Open source projects
7+ Years Firefighter

Technical Expertise

Message Brokers & Transports

  • RabbitMQ Expert
  • Azure Service Bus Expert
  • Amazon SQS Expert
  • MSMQ Expert
  • SQL Server as Transport Expert
  • MQTT >2 yr
  • Apache Kafka 0.5-2 yr

Languages & Frameworks

  • C# / .NET Expert
  • NServiceBus Expert
  • MassTransit >2 yr
  • ASP.NET Expert
  • LINQ / TPL Expert

Databases & Persistence

  • SQL Server Expert
  • RavenDB Expert
  • CosmosDB >2 yr
  • PostgreSQL >2 yr
  • Azure Table Storage 0.5-2 yr
  • MongoDB 0.5-2 yr
  • Redis 0.5-2 yr

Architecture Patterns

  • Event-Driven Architecture Expert
  • Event Sourcing & Projections Expert
  • Append-Only Data Models Expert
  • CQRS Expert
  • Pub/Sub Expert
  • Microservices Expert
  • Domain-Driven Design >2 yr

Messaging Patterns

  • Enterprise Integration Patterns Expert
  • Idempotent Processing Expert
  • Outbox/Inbox Patterns Expert
  • Routing Slips / Sagas Expert
  • Exactly-Once / At-Least-Once Delivery Expert
  • Publish/Subscribe Expert
  • Routing Expert

Design Principles

  • Single Responsibility Principle Expert
  • Eventual & Strong Consistency Expert
  • Idempotency by Design Expert
  • Loose Coupling Expert
  • Versioning Expert

Distributed Systems

  • CAP Theorem Expert
  • BASE / ACID Expert
  • Partitioning & Sharding Expert
  • Clustering >2 yr
  • Concurrency & Parallelism Expert
  • Isolation Levels Expert

Observability & Monitoring

  • OpenTelemetry Expert
  • Semantic Logging Expert
  • Real-time Endpoint Monitoring Expert
  • Prometheus >2 yr
  • Azure Application Insights >2 yr
  • Jaeger / Distributed Tracing >2 yr
  • Seq >2 yr

Cloud & DevOps

  • AWS >2 yr
  • Microsoft Azure >2 yr
  • Docker >2 yr
  • GitHub Actions >2 yr
  • CI/CD Pipelines >2 yr
  • Scripting >2 yr

Protocols & Caching

  • HTTP Protocol & Caching Expert
  • Cache Invalidation Techniques Expert
  • REST APIs Expert
  • CDN Integration >2 yr

System Integration

  • Data Format Translation Expert
  • Protocol Bridging Expert
  • Message Bus Bridging & Migration Expert
  • API Design & Integration Expert
  • Legacy System Connectivity Expert

Operating Systems

  • Windows Expert
  • Linux Debian-based >2 yr
  • Linux Fedora >2 yr

Development

  • Version Control / Git Expert
  • Unit Testing Expert
  • Integration & Acceptance Testing Expert
  • Wire Compatibility Testing Expert
  • Performance & Load Testing >2 yr
  • Mocking Expert
  • NuGet Package Management & Signing >2 yr

Web Development

  • ASP.NET Core Expert
  • Websockets >2 yr
  • SignalR >2 yr
  • Javascript >2 yr
  • Razor >2 yr
  • MVC >2 yr
  • Swagger/OpenAPI >2 yr
  • WebAuthn 0.5-2 yr

Security

  • Vulnerability Assessment & Remediation Expert
  • Secure Serialization & Deserialization Expert
  • Email Security: SPF / DKIM / DMARC >2 yr
  • Certificates & PKI >2 yr
  • Certificate Authorities >2 yr
  • LetsEncrypt / ACME >2 yr
  • GDPR Compliance 0.5-2 yr

Networks

  • Firewalls >2 yr
  • Reverse Proxies >2 yr
  • TCP/UDP >2 yr
  • HTTP >2 yr

AI

  • Prompt Engineering 0.5-2 yr
  • ChatGPT 0.5-2 yr
  • Claude Code <0.5 yr
  • MCP Theoretical
Theoretical <0.5 yr 0.5-2 yr >2 yr Expert

Experience

January 2015 - Present

Distributed System Design Consultant

NBraceIT (Own consultancy)

Independent consultancy providing expertise in distributed software architecture, helping organizations translate complex business processes into robust, scalable systems.

  • Event-driven architecture design and implementation guidance
  • Distributed systems consulting, training, and workshops
  • Performance optimization and troubleshooting
July 2014 - Present

Solution Architect, Trainer & Core Contributor

Particular Software (NServiceBus)

Core team member at the company behind NServiceBus and the Particular Platform — the leading .NET framework for distributed, event-driven microservices.

  • Maintain all transport and persistence implementations across RabbitMQ, Azure Service Bus, Amazon SQS, SQL Server, CosmosDB, RavenDB, and MongoDB
  • Developed the MassTransit connector enabling interoperability between messaging frameworks
  • Design and execute load testing, performance testing, and backwards compatibility testing across transport configurations
  • Coordinated major version releases and platform modernization including ServiceControl storage engine migration
  • Led resolution of critical security vulnerabilities and data integrity incidents for enterprise customers
  • Drove OpenTelemetry integration and built ServiceControl Monitoring for real-time observability
  • Top contributor to documentation; deliver on-site and remote training on distributed systems
  • Provide mission-critical production incident support for enterprise customers
  • Design and execute load testing, performance testing, and backwards compatibility testing across transport configurations
February 2014 - April 2015

Senior Developer

Move4U Web Applications

Internet startup making moving house easier through a comparison website.

  • Built quote calculation systems with geographic distance calculations
  • Developed reliable integrations with external systems
May 2012 - January 2014

Senior Developer

Tellus B.V. / Happy to Serve

Lead generation platform operating across Western Europe.

  • Expertise in message-based architecture, developer coaching, code reviewing, automated deployment, performance, and scaling
  • Deep knowledge of networking, IO, and transactions - bridge between development and operations
  • Created DevOps team to improve release process, severely shortening release cycles and resolving production issues
  • Delivered technical presentations on software design pitfalls, unit testing, and resource management
  • At Happy to Serve: built new multi-currency, multi-language invoicing platform with payment provider integration
January 2008 - May 2012

Senior Developer

Company Webcast B.V.

Complete software platform for scheduling, streaming, capturing, indexing, and transcoding webcasts.

  • Architected real-time multi-region video and metadata distribution via AWS and Akamai CDN
  • Solved complex timing and synchronization challenges between video streams and metadata
  • Built self-hosted proxy infrastructure for reliable content delivery
  • Developed APIs for automated event creation integrating with external scheduling systems
  • Scaled platform to support rapid business growth with cloud-based infrastructure
November 2006 - December 2007

Senior Developer

NetEconomy

Improving quality of the Erase software product.

  • Implemented automated testing and code inspection
  • Established CI/CD practices enabling local builds
  • Introduced pair programming and code reviews
2000 - October 2006

Developer / Senior Developer / Consultant

InfoSupport B.V.

Consultancy across government, banking, insurance, and pension sectors.

  • Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Visa system backend
  • PGGM: Pension calculation modules
  • InterPay: ITA chip environment for ATMs
  • Vecozo: Healthcare chain integrations
  • KPMG Meijburg & Co: Web-based CRM with early AJAX
  • Philips Lighting: Worldwide product information system

Education & Certifications

HBO Computer Science & Information Science

The Hague University of Applied Sciences

MTS Technical Computer Science

Zadkine, Rotterdam

Advanced Distributed System Design (ADSD)

Udi Dahan

Key reference: Enterprise Integration Patterns (Hohpe & Woolf) — foundational text for messaging architecture

Open Source

Active contributor since 2009 with 188 public repositories.

Base64Encoder 44 stars

High-performance Base64 encoder for .NET optimized for custom character sets

dotnet/MQTTnet

Bug fixes for concurrent processing, null reference exceptions, log level mapping

MassTransit

Fault topology diagrams for Azure Service Bus, RabbitMQ, and SQS transports

multimon-ng

FLEX protocol improvements for radio signal decoding (timestamps, cycle estimation, CI/CD)

NServiceBus ecosystem

Extensions for rate limiting, compression, Protocol Buffers serialization, and monitoring

Side Project

P2000 Emergency Alert System

Real-time emergency alerting system using Raspberry Pi with SDR dongle to receive Dutch P2000 pager network broadcasts used by the fire and ambulance services. Decodes radio signals, filters alerts, and publishes via MQTT to trigger smart home automation and Tesla API for rapid response - faster than official pager hardware.

  • Real-time radio signal processing
  • MQTT event publishing for IoT devices
  • Tesla API integration
  • Roster integration
  • Contributions to open source multimon-ng FLEX protocol decoder
  • Raspberry Pi, SDR, ESP32

Community & Volunteering

Volunteer Firefighter

Hoofdbrandwacht (Senior Firefighter)

December 2018 - Present

Serving the community when they need it most. Progressed from aspirant through driver and pump operator to senior firefighter. Currently training as bevelvoerder (incident commander).

  • All core firefighting tasks in the Netherlands
  • Planning and organizing training evenings
  • Hours administration and team leadership
  • Calm decision-making in time-critical situations

Beyond Code

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Problem-solving on the mats

Volleyball

Team sports

Running

Staying fit

Electronics

ESP32, Raspberry Pi, soldering

Piano

DAW workflow, real audio setup

Demoscene

Still listening to Nectarine

NBraceIT

Through NBraceIT, my independent consultancy, I provide expertise in distributed software architecture, helping organizations translate complex business processes into robust, scalable systems.

  • Distributed systems architecture and design
  • NServiceBus and messaging infrastructure
  • Performance optimization and troubleshooting
  • Training and workshops

Reference

"It's not often you see the level of commitment, the depth of insight into issues (both technical and business related) and the deep knowledge of software development as with Ramon. When asking for his review on something you've built or opinion on any subject, Ramon comes up with approaches and solutions that others haven't even thought of. Ramon is invaluable for any team and adds unique value and skill to the team."

— Dennis van der Stelt, Software Architect