52°22′03″N  ·  04°54′15″E AMS  ·  WDH  ·  CPT

A lab for software, signals & unlikely side-projects.

Run by Gijs Molenaar — systems engineer at Spotify, radio astronomer, occasional brewer and maker of electronic music. Est. 2008.

I work on Spotify's edge and service-mesh infrastructure — the plumbing that keeps a few hundred million listeners connected to what they love.

Before that I spent a decade as a freelance engineer through Pythonic, building data-reduction pipelines for radio telescopes like LOFAR and SKA, simulating the Dutch electricity grid as a testbed for reinforcement-learning agents, and maintaining a small constellation of open-source projects. I hold a PhD in radio astronomy and a master's in artificial intelligence.

Current practice leans heavily on AI as a daily collaborator — using it to sharpen communication, accelerate troubleshooting, and work through complex problems more effectively.

Amsterdam is home, but I'm often in Windhoek and Cape Town. In my spare time I brew beer, make electronic music, and build things with AI that probably shouldn't exist.

Past collaborators

Alliander ASTRON CWI SARAO SETI Berkeley SURF

Questions, ideas, strange projects — gijs@pythonic.nl

Signal open · 52°22′03″N 04°54′15″E