Denis - your 1:1 AI coach
1:1 AI coach. Over twenty years building web applications - two of them on RTL Nieuws and RTL Boulevard, and today manager and senior developer at an Amsterdam software company. I started coaching 1:1 because the gap between "people who use AI" and "people who produce with AI" keeps widening.
Why I coach
Most people I meet stay stuck with AI - paying for prompts, hoarding tutorials, never finishing anything. Me, I learned to ship. That gap is why I coach.
The shortcut isn't a better tool. It's working on your real project until it advances - with the reflexes to verify what AI gives you and the autonomy to actually keep going once the coaching is over. It's a method I pass on to you. It lets you put AI to work in any field.
You're standing in an example of it. This site, its blog, its analytics and its payment flow: built solo, with AI, by a developer who is not a designer and not a marketer. That's not a portfolio piece. It's the exact thing I coach you to do.
Amsterdam software company (2024 - today). I ship features and fix bugs on a community platform used by organisations across Europe. Over the last two years: integrating AI features into the product, in two phases; collaborative document editing, straight inside the platform; and two major platform migrations without ever breaking the service for its users.
RTL Netherlands (2022 - 2024). Two years on RTL Nieuws and RTL Boulevard, merging two national news sites into one platform. Load-tested before every peak, monitored so failures were caught before readers were. When it broke, it broke in public.
Healthcare platforms, Australia (2020 - 2022). A community platform for general practitioners, and a mental-health marketplace. Regulated field, real consequences, no room for "looks fine to me". I shipped an AI recommendation engine there in 2020, before anyone called it AI.
My own training company, Australia (2018 - 2020). I wrote the curriculum and trained twenty people into working front-enders, developers and webmasters - in group sessions and one to one. Coaching isn't new to me.
Actency, France (2008 - 2015). Team lead for twelve people, and the person the client talked to. I've spent as long translating between business and engineering as writing code.
Alcatel-Lucent (2004 - 2008). Building internal tools so colleagues stopped doing things by hand. Twenty years later, it's still more or less the same job. Only the tools have changed.
Ethics. I coach in line with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) Code of Ethics: confidentiality, honesty about what's achievable, and your autonomy as the goal.
What I actually do
The goal isn't a better tool. Your project moving forward - and you able to keep going alone. Three commitments to get there:
0 slides
Every session focuses on a real friction. We solve it together and move forward, using my methodology.
I never touch your keyboard
I show a move, we do it together, then you do it alone. You're the one with hands on the keyboard. If you haven't understood it, we haven't finished.
Built to make you autonomous
We work on principles and reflexes, not version- or model-specific tricks - code (terminal, Git, Claude Code) or no-code (claude.ai: Projects, connectors). What you learn this quarter still works after the next Claude or ChatGPT update.
The program - three sessions, one outcome: autonomy
No video library. No homework. We work on your real project, in real time. You leave each session with something you can use the next morning.
Hands on it today
We launch your real project on your machine - hands on the keyboard in the first half hour. You leave with a real piece moved forward, and one move you can reuse.
Produce, and verify
You produce with AI applying a developer's reflexes: we define the expected result, then verify it after - proof, not "looks good". Your safety net: commit, revert, tests. You leave with output you trust and can check yourself.
Run it solo
You run solo while I stay quiet - and you see you can do it without me. My job is to make myself unnecessary. You leave with your own method to redo what we did together on your own - and go further, on solid ground.
"If you can't redo it without me, we haven't finished. Autonomy is the deliverable - not a dependency on one more coach."
Outside the work
Two things a CV won't tell you:
- Coaching live in FR / EN
- Former elite athlete - I optimize everything, sometimes too much.
Reach me on LinkedIn, or directly through the fit-check flow if you think there's something here for you.
Ready to move your projects?
It all starts with a free 30-minute call. No pitch: we look at one of your real blockers, and we decide together whether it makes sense to work together.