B/HBerry HijwegenLinkedIn
AI ENGINEER / PRODUCT FOUNDER / SPEAKER

BERRY HIJWEGEN

I build intelligence into products.

An AI foundation at Hogeschool Utrecht, product ownership at Where It Happened and production AI at AFAS. I work across infrastructure, software, product design and the operations around them.

Explore selected work Read my approach
WORK IN CONTEXT / THREE PLACES
LEARNING / OWNERSHIP / ENGINEERINGMAP / OSM
END-TO-END RESPONSIBILITYFrom system to customer.
01 / SYSTEMSEngineerArchitecture / integration / reliability
02 / EXPERIENCEDesignInterfaces / editors / customer flows
03 / OPERATIONSRunLaunch / measure / improve
01 / SELECTED SYSTEMS

Selected work.

Production AI at AFAS and the personalization platform behind Where It Happened.

01Enterprise AI / AFAS SoftwarePLATFORM + PRODUCT

A shared AI platform for product teams.

One client for AI requests, backed by model routing, retrieval, function calling, monitoring and usage controls.

Unified clientRAGFunction callingMonitoring
PRODUCTRequest01 / input
SHARED AI LAYERRoute. Ground. Observe.
POLICYRAGTOOLS
SELF-HOSTEDPRIVATE CLOUDCUSTOM MODEL
02Digital commerce / FounderPRODUCT + OPERATIONS

Personalized products, from live preview to delivery.

The product editor, rendering pipeline, storefront and fulfillment flow behind Where It Happened.

ConfiguratorE-commerceInternationalizationOperations
Personalized Delft blue photo tile by Where It HappenedREAL PRODUCT / PERSONALIZED DELFT BLUE TILE
WHERE IT HAPPENEDFrom upload to physical product
01UPLOAD
02STYLE
03PREVIEW
04MAKE
03STOREFRONTSNL / EN / DE
02 / WORKING PRINCIPLE

PRODUCTION AI IS A SOFTWARE ENGINEERING PROBLEM.

Models change. The product still has to be secure, observable and maintainable.

01

Check whether AI is needed

Start with the work a user needs to complete. Use AI only when it makes that work meaningfully better; otherwise, choose the simpler system.

02

Separate product from model

A stable interface lets models and providers change without rewriting the product.

03

Measure it in production

Monitor quality, usage and failure modes against the cases the product actually sees.

03 / TALKS & FIELD NOTES

Public talks and notes.

01
TECHORAMA NETHERLANDS / OCT 2025

AI in production: how AFAS deploys, monitors and manages AI models

60 MIN TALK02
FIELD NOTE / 2026

From idea to working agent experience with 100+ colleagues

HACKATHON WINNER
Portrait of Berry HijwegenPORTRAIT / SESSIONIZE 2025
04 / ABOUT

AI engineer. Product founder.

I am an AI Engineer at AFAS Software and founder of Where It Happened.

My work spans AI infrastructure, C# and Python integrations, product interfaces, e-commerce and the operational work required to keep those products running.

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SELECTED EXPERIENCE
EDUCATION / 2018 - 2022HBO-ICT / Artificial IntelligenceHogeschool Utrecht
EARLY ROLESData, development & teachingMorssinkhof-Rymoplast / Goedgemerkt / HU
ACTIVE / FOUNDERWhere It HappenedPersonalized products / commerce
ACTIVE / ENGINEERAI EngineerProduction AI / AFAS Software