Impact
Self-reliance as a result
Technical leadership that takes the pressure off
Moving Independently Into the Future
Less dependent on others thanks to having in-house .NET expertise on the team.
Quality-focused
About
Every day, Ziggo customers place an order. Faster speeds, a new sports channel, a complete business network. What seems like a simple confirmation to them is, behind the scenes, a chain of processes that must work seamlessly: a customer layer where the order is received, a service layer that translates exactly what’s needed, and a resource layer where, ultimately, a physical box somewhere on a street is configured. That translation process is called orchestration.
Ziggo operates in a competitive market where customers can decide every day whether to stay or leave. Security is the top priority, followed by stability: customers must always get what they pay for. To support this, VodafoneZiggo opted for a new orchestration platform built in .NET and C#.
For the team tasked with building and maintaining this platform, that meant a major shift: from Java to a programming language they had to learn all over again.
“Rock stars take the initiative. But at some point, they also say: ‘This isn’t working; we need to do things differently, and it *can* be done differently.’ And I think that’s really powerful.”
THREE MONTHS TO DELIVER ON A PROMISE
A predominantly young team of developers had to transition to a language they weren’t yet fully comfortable with within a single quarter. The deadline was set, and VodafoneZiggo’s management demanded certainty. Gerard van Eijndhoven, Chapter Lead for Orchestration and Service Intelligence, took on the challenge: “Then we’ll make it happen. I have confidence in my team.” A unique partner for Team Rockstars IT, who approaches technology through the lens of people management.
Gerard saw the challenge—and not just in the time pressure. “In this business, three months is a very short time. On top of that, I’m not a software engineer.” To set this up, he brought in an experienced Rockstar, Quirijn Slings, Senior .NET Developer: someone who could represent Gerard on the technical side in managing his team. “He had to be able to step in for me in managing the team, from a technical standpoint,” says Gerard.
This was especially true for a newly appointed senior developer, who had been working at Ziggo for some time but was taking on a leadership role for the first time. Gerard specifically entrusted Quirijn with guiding him through this transition.
ROOM FOR AUTONOMY, BUILT ON STRUCTURE
For Gerard, Quirijn’s arrival meant peace of mind and relief. “The feeling that there’s someone by your side who says, ‘I’ll take care of it.’” Quirijn started by establishing structure. He brought the developers together in a virtual scrum team, with daily stand-ups, a backlog, and specific tasks. For the transition to .NET and C#, he developed a workshop for experienced Java developers: no basic explanations—just the differences right away.
The new platform makes work easier. The environment now configures itself automatically with a single start button—using the same logic that will soon be used to set up a production environment as well. A generic CI/CD pipeline automates version control, builds, code quality, and artifact management. Custom .NET libraries eliminate repetitive work: registering a workflow now requires just one line of code instead of twenty to thirty.
But it wasn’t just about technique. Gerard focused on what his team needed to succeed on their own: trust, autonomy, and targeted guidance. Quirijn helped create those conditions. “He talked to people to foster that self-confidence and self-reliance,” Gerard explains. “He did that on his own initiative and out of his own maturity. He needed very little guidance to do the right thing.” Meanwhile, Gerard kept management informed and stayed in close contact with Quirijn. To see if the approach was working, he regularly checked in with his developers: “Can you work independently in the new environment? Do you feel ready for it?”
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A TEAM TRUSTS ITSELF
On April 1st, what Gerard had promised was there: the team was ready to tackle whatever came their way. “Quirijn played the biggest role in us meeting that deadline.”
The reduction in turnaround time that the new Ziggo platform will ultimately deliver stems from the choice of platform itself, made at the strategic level. What Quirijn added was something else: trust and self-reliance. And that’s precisely where the added value lay. “If you have happy employees who are satisfied and dare to take the initiative on their own, the results will follow naturally. Not the other way around,” said Gerard. The most important results for Ziggo:
- Team became independent, operational, and confident within a single quarter, despite using a different programming language
- Generic CI/CD pipeline, reusable across multiple projects, with automated code quality checks
- Custom .NET libraries reduced repetitive work to a fraction of the original lines of code
- The experienced “Rockstar” did not replace the internal senior staff, but helped the developer mature more quickly into a senior role so they could lead the team independently
After three months, the original task was completed. Quirijn was then asked to take on the role of product owner for one of the first applications on the new platform
Collaboration
Gerard has known Team Rockstars for three years, and that trust formed the basis of how he approached this collaboration. And that’s exactly what Quirijn appreciates: “Ziggo’s trust—like, ‘that guy knows what he’s doing; we didn’t hire him for nothing.’”
Speaking about the power of collaboration, Quirijn says: “I certainly couldn’t have done it so quickly without the team’s senior developer. We complemented each other very well.” Gerard emphasizes that Rockstars take the initiative and speak up when something can be done better. “This isn’t working; it has to—and can—be done differently.” It’s precisely that level of commitment—rather than just clocking in hours—that he finds so impressive.
That same level-headedness is evident in how Gerard looks back on this transition. There was no need for a dashboard. His employees already had his trust. They simply became noticeably more confident month after month.
