APG is transforming pensions for millions of dutch people

Every person in the Netherlands building up a pension through APG has a record that can date back to the 1970s: guarantee arrangements that have been replaced but must still apply, partners who divorce, remarry and transfer pension rights again. Robert Erdkamp gives the example of someone who divorced more than 10 times and remarried the same partner several times, with pension rights transferred back and forth each time. “You can imagine the challenge this creates for our systems.”

Across a participant base of millions, this is no longer an isolated case. All that history must be translated flawlessly into a single amount: the starting point for the new system. The pressure is tangible. Erwin de Graaff, People Manager at APG: “We make plans, but parts of them may already be out of date tomorrow.” New work is regularly added, while the deadline remains fixed: with the exception of the SMPS fund, everything must be migrated before 1 January 2027, including ABP, the largest fund. Ten teams are now working on Pensioen van Straks. Rockstars contribute to three of them.

“To be honest, we also simply hire extra hands,” says Robert Erdkamp. But Rockstars bring React expertise that APG still needed to develop internally and has now embedded in the organisation. Together with APG colleagues, they are building the user interface for pension administration. That requires technical expertise and an understanding of the pensions domain. “The quality of the frontend work is simply very good,” says Erwin.

Ramona Domen is a Rockstar and Scrum Master for three teams. Every two weeks, they discuss errors and areas for improvement. Pension administration staff are involved early. “A screen that works technically can feel illogical to them. Their feedback prevents rework later,” says Ramona.

Festina Finance provides the core application; Rockstars build the APG-specific customisations on top of it. The employee interface runs on React. The Java layer collects information and connects systems to support the application and its customisations.

Rockstars contribute to Playwright tests written in TypeScript. For the Java layer, the teams use unit tests and Cucumber. Regression tests check that existing functionality continues to work as expected after changes. Engineers also take Camunda workflows into account. This is essential when migrating funds to the new pension system.

Sometimes five teams are needed for a single piece of functionality. Each team may think it is finished, while the components do not work together. That is why teams coordinate before development, and testers from both sides jointly check the integration in the test environment. Before user acceptance testing.

HONESTY KEEPS TEAMS FROM GETTING STUCK

Ramona’s motto is “under promise, over deliver.” During a multi-year programme, you cannot continually overload people. She translates business requirements into achievable work and makes clear what is and is not possible. And that is a good thing, says Robert Erdkamp: “Someone who is honest and prevents teams from getting stuck with unrealistic demands.”

At the end of each fund’s transition comes hypercare: several weeks during which a team works continuously alongside pension administration staff to ensure a smooth transition. Rockstars are not part of hypercare themselves. Their role is to keep the remaining teams working at full speed while colleagues temporarily move to hypercare.

The results are visible over the years. Ramona: “Year 1 compared with year 2 compared with year 3 — there is an enormous improvement.” Each hypercare period is completed faster and with fewer errors than the last, even though the funds now making the transition are larger and more complex.

Erwin also sees an effect on the people themselves. The Rockstars are “the ones taking the lead in their field”: they involve colleagues in finding smarter ways of working, even under the intense time pressure facing the entire programme.