Tell us about yourself — Where are you from, what are your interests, and what were you doing before joining social.plus?

I'm from the Netherlands, also known as Holland. And the people that are from there are called Dutch, not to be confused with Deutsch – I know, it can be confusing! I work in the Marketing Team, as Marketing Technology Manager. Before joining social.plus, I worked at a web agency in the Netherlands which specializes in creating websites that combine photography with creative layouts. Outside of work I ride my motorcycle to explore around town, and cook a lot of Western and Indonesian food.

Describe your journey at social.plus — How has your role evolved and what does a typical day look like for you?

I joined as a Webflow developer and gradually took on more across automation, SEO infrastructure, internal tooling, and AI integrations. No two days are identical, but most involve a mix of building, optimizing workflows, pipelines and the website.

What do you love most about your role? And what's the biggest challenge you navigate?

I love being at the intersection of design, code, marketing, and AI. What drives me is the problem-solving process itself: figuring out how to get something to work, exploring different approaches, learning best practices, and then continuously improving on what we built. The challenge that comes with it is knowing where to go deep versus where "good enough" is actually the right call. When your role spans a lot of ground, there's a real risk of spreading yourself too thin.

What are your favorite perks of working remotely at social.plus — and how has remote-first working shaped the way you work and live?

Remote-first didn't just change how I work, it changed where I can live and what my daily life looks like. By working from home, there's no commute, and you can structure your day entirely around deep work, control your environment: the noise level, the temperature, the rhythm of breaks. That level of ownership over your own day compounds quickly, better sleep, healthier food, better energy, better focus.

The energy that used to go toward commuting now goes toward things that matter more, both inside and outside of work, being way more productive as a result.

How would you describe what social.plus does to a friend VS to a 5-year-old?

Friend: We build the infrastructure for in-app communities. If you're making an app and you want users to have feeds, groups, chat - all of that - you don't have to build it from scratch. You plug in our SDKs and you've got the foundation. Harley-Davidson and Ulta Beauty are examples of companies using social.plus to power the community side of their apps.

5-year-old: You know how you can chat and share memes with your friends on apps? The company I work for builds the pieces that make that work, so the people making the apps don't have to build all of it themselves.

Community is at the heart of what we build - what does "community" mean to you personally?

To me, community is the opposite of audience. An audience consumes; a community contributes. You can have thousands of followers and still not have a community. What makes it real is engagement, not just consuming each other's content.

What drew you to the tech industry? What's one piece of advice you'd give someone just starting out?

I got drawn into the tech industry by starting out as a graphic designer at software companies. My experience is mostly on the marketing side of tech, so that's the angle my advice comes from: learn by building, not by consuming. It's tempting to spend time reading about the latest tools and trends, but the learning that actually sticks comes from doing. Pick a tool or an AI assistant, start with something small you want to build, and you'll learn more in an afternoon than in a month of scrolling.