About Me

I'm Pieter Claerhout, CTO at Contractify, where I define the technical direction and build systems that are meant to last. I'm also responsible for cybersecurity, making sure the platform is not only scalable and maintainable, but secure by design.

I believe most software is overengineered. Simple, well-thought-out solutions almost always win. "Less is more" isn't a slogan—it's a constraint I actively apply in architecture, tooling, and day-to-day development. Complexity is easy to add and hard to remove, so I try to avoid it from the start—even more so when security and AI are involved.

We actively use AI both in our product and in our day-to-day engineering work. Not as a gimmick, but as a practical tool to improve workflows, reduce repetitive work, and build better features faster. The goal isn't to replace engineering thinking, but to augment it—while staying critical about where AI actually adds value and where it doesn't.

I'm a hands-on engineer at heart. I care about clear code, predictable systems, and making pragmatic decisions that don't compromise long-term maintainability. I prefer boring, reliable technology over trendy solutions that introduce unnecessary risk.

I'm open-minded and continuously learning, but I'm also opinionated about how good software should be built: small, focused teams, strong ownership, and direct communication. The best solutions usually come from collaboration, not from over-process.

I contribute to the broader engineering conversation through my blog at YellowDuck.be, where I share practical insights, patterns, and lessons learned from building real systems.

I'm involved in growing engineering teams, but I care more about how we build than how fast we hire. Strong teams are deliberate, not accidental.

My main interests are PHP, VueJS, TypeScript, Elixir, distributed systems, performance, cybersecurity, and applied AI—especially in systems where simplicity, scalability, and security need to coexist.

Outside of work, I spend a lot of time cycling, which, not coincidentally, reinforces the same mindset: consistency beats intensity, and simple plans executed well outperform complex ones.