Senior AI expertise, on your terms

Fractional AI & Data Science Consultant

ML, data engineering, and AI strategy — embedded in your team, without the full-time commitment. 10+ years building production ML systems across finance, automotive, computer vision, medical diagnostics, and deep tech. From architecture and model development to hiring your first ML engineer.

10+
Years in ML & AI
PhD
Theoretical Physics
6
Industries
AMS
Amsterdam, NL

Senior AI expertise without the overhead

Affordable

Senior AI/ML expertise without a €120K+ salary commitment. Scale your investment to what you actually need.

Embedded

Not an outside consultant dropping a report — I join your team, attend standups, and ship code alongside your engineers.

Flexible

Start with a focused assessment, scale to fractional leadership. Adjust as your needs evolve — no long-term lock-in.

Cross-pollination

Working across industries means I bring proven patterns from finance, automotive, medical, and deep tech to your specific challenge.


Three engagement models

Assessment & Strategy

A focused exploration of your challenge. I review your data, infrastructure, and workflows, then deliver a prioritized roadmap of ML/AI opportunities ranked by impact and feasibility. Includes build-vs-buy recommendations and a scoped first project proposal.

Days to weeks

Build & Ship

End-to-end ML development from prototype to production. Custom models, data pipelines, infrastructure, self-hosted LLM deployments. I write the code, design the architecture, set up CI/CD, and make sure it actually works at scale. Includes privacy-preserving and sovereign AI deployments.

Weeks to months

Fractional Leadership

Embedded as your interim CTO, Head of ML/AI, or technical lead. I own the technical roadmap, make architecture decisions, build and mentor your team, interface with investors, and write production code. Full ownership — then I hand it over.

Months (ongoing)

Companies I've worked with

End-to-end ownership — from research and architecture to production deployment and team building.

Nostics Medical Diagnostics
Interim Lead Data Science
Designed foundation library for deep learning diagnostics, deliberately testing across multiple devices, strains, and operators to ensure robust real-world performance. Documented validation strategy for FDA. Hired first data scientist.

→ Prevented unnecessary €100K+ equipment upgrade by identifying untapped potential in existing instruments through data analysis and literature research.

Medical AI Experiment Design Foundation Library Team Building
Huawei R&D Amsterdam
Team Lead Computer Vision
Designed energy-efficient neural network for detecting street geometry from mobile cameras. Built GPU infrastructure, ML development environment, and CI/CD pipelines for the R&D team.

→ Delivered real-time on-device processing integrated into Huawei Maps on 100M+ smartphones.

Edge AI Computer Vision Team Lead Kubernetes Production ML
TomTom
Senior Software Engineer — HD Maps
Deep probabilistic computer vision model reconstructing outdoor scenes from sparse LiDAR scans, combining PointNet, U-Net and VAE architectures.

→ Built production infrastructure processing TBs of imagery weekly on Kubernetes with 98% accuracy across varying weather and country conditions.

LiDAR 3D Vision Sensor Fusion Production ML
ING Bank
ML Engineer
Probabilistic graphical model for network risk of large lending customers. Hierarchical time series forecasting for adaptive balance sheet. Graph neural network on 1TB transaction dataset. Recommender system for marketing.

→ Models deployed for €120B balance sheet forecasting across multiple countries.

Finance GNN Forecasting Risk Probabilistic ML
Kew Ward — Engineering
ML Expert
Deep learning to characterize hysteresis patterns in hydrogen engine data. Variation metrics and tracking systems for solenoid valve manufacturing.

→ Developed production variance tracking system reducing manufacturing inconsistency in solenoid valves for luxury automotive.

Engineering Manufacturing Time Series Hydrogen
DataMeister — Tokyo
ML Developer
Price forecasting engine for hotel chains. Scraped market data, built time-series model for supply and demand.

→ Revenue-optimizing price recommendation engine deployed for hotel chain pricing decisions.

Revenue Optimization Time Series Pricing

Huawei  |  TomTom  |  ING  |  Nostics  |  Kew Ward  |  DataMeister

Cross-industry experience

I've built production ML systems across finance & banking, automotive & maps, computer vision, medical diagnostics, engineering & manufacturing, deep tech, privacy & sovereign AI, tourism & revenue, and edge AI. Working across domains means I recognize patterns and solutions that specialists in a single industry often miss.


Technical toolkit

Machine Learning

  • Custom deep learning architectures
  • Probabilistic ML & Bayesian methods
  • Computer vision (2D, 3D, LiDAR)
  • Time series & forecasting
  • Graph neural networks
  • Physics-informed modeling
  • Optimization & experimental design

Generative AI

  • LLM application design & RAG
  • Self-hosted open-source models
  • Privacy-preserving deployments
  • Document Q&A systems
  • LLM-based data extraction
  • Custom GPU infrastructure (build or rent)

Engineering

  • Python, R, C++, Julia
  • PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX
  • Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD
  • GPU infrastructure & MLOps
  • FastAPI, PostgreSQL, cloud
  • Full-stack prototyping

Leadership

  • Technical roadmap ownership
  • Hiring & team building
  • Architecture decisions
  • Investor-ready documentation
  • Vendor evaluation
  • Stakeholder communication

Sjoerd de Haan

Machine learning engineer and technical leader with a background in theoretical physics (PhD, University of Groningen; Master's in Mathematics, Cambridge). A decade of building production ML systems — from quantitative finance at ING, to HD maps at TomTom, to leading a computer vision team at Huawei R&D Amsterdam, to interim lead data science for a medical diagnostics startup.

What I bring is a rare combination: I can design a neural network architecture, set up the GPU infrastructure to train it, build the production API to serve it, and explain it to investors. I write the code myself, then build the team to maintain it. I also run Data Driven Lab Consulting and write at sjoerddehaan.com.

Education

PhD Theoretical Physics — Groningen

MSc Mathematics — Cambridge

MSc Physics — Groningen

Training

MIT Professional Education — Bioprocess Data Analytics & ML

Location

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Languages

Dutch (native), English (fluent)

Links

LinkedIn · Blog · GitHub

Go Grow AI B.V.

Legal Entity

Go Grow AI B.V.

Trade Names

Go Grow AI — ML/AI consulting (general)
Data Driven Lab Consulting — Science & engineering

Location

Turnerstraat 27D
1076 VC Amsterdam

KvK

83138218

BTW (VAT)

NL862745809B01

Contact

sjoerd@gogrowai.com
+31 6 12261747

Ready to add senior AI expertise to your team?

Book a free 30-minute discovery call. We'll discuss your challenge and figure out whether a fractional engagement makes sense. No pitch, no pressure — just a conversation about what's possible.

Let's dig in → sjoerd@gogrowai.com