Michielvan der Ros

Staff engineer and tech lead for web

Frontend architecture. Design systems. Developer experience.

About

Ten years on tomtom.com, from the online store to the platform underneath. Before that: games, interactive documentaries and agency work.

Storyblok MVP. Speaker. Mentor at Codam.

How I work

  1. 01Red, green, refactor

    Test first, make it work, then make it clean.

  2. 02Names tell the story

    Name things after the domain, not the plumbing.

  3. 03Leave it cleaner

    If nobody needs it, delete it.

  4. 04Clarity over cleverness

    Readable beats clever.

The route

Legend

Select a skill to highlight it on the route.

Waypoints
Languages
Frameworks
Content
Search
Architecture
Design
Accessibility
Developer experience
Media

2004 – 2008

Interaction developerWaag Societynow Waag Futurelab

Interactive applications for web, game consoles and touchscreens.

The Waag Society logo, the Waag building in a black circle
Waag Society
Interface of the Rietveld Schröderhuis website, with video and rooms of the house
Rietveld Schröderhuis online, 2005
Game map of medieval Amsterdam from the mobile history game Frequentie 1550
Frequentie 1550, 2005
The science lab in the observatory of Teylers Museum, seen from below
Teylers Bètalab, 2008

2008 – 2010

Senior developerVirtual Fairground

Club Galactik, an online multiplayer game with 3D characters.

Club Galactik, players exploring a colourful 3D space station
Club Galactik, 2009
Custom designed Heineken bottles from JouwHeineken.nl
JouwHeineken.nl, 2009

Talk Flash on the Beach · Brighton · 2009

3D rendering optimisation for MMOs

Three Minute Wonder

Rendering dozens of custom 3D avatars at once in an online game.

Slide about a sprite sheet factory, projected on stage at Flash on the Beach
Watch the talk

2010 – 2012

Senior interaction developerRandom Studio

Interactive work for major brands, with Random Studio and Champagne Valentine.

Bee in the City for Bugaboo, the yellow Bugaboo Bee stroller on a city crossing with a Watch film button
Bee in the City, Bugaboo, 2012
Workers in a tomato field, from the Heinz First Harvest campaign
First Harvest, Heinz, 2011

2012 – 2020

Freelance frontend developerXNY.nl

Interactive documentaries, educational games and web apps.

  • Co-hosted the Hackastory hackathon at ISOJ in Austin, Texas.
  • Educational games, winner of the Comenius EduMedia and N.O.T. Innovation awards.
The XNY logo, overlapping translucent letters in teal and orange on a dark background
XNY.nl
Comic book cover art for Bibi the Protector, one of the Female Superheroes stories
Female Superheroes
Het Nader Gehoor, choose one of three reconstructed asylum interviews
Het Nader Gehoor, 2016
The Price of Basmati, a web documentary about rice farming in Punjab
The Price of Basmati, 2017
On the Ground Reporter logo over a panorama of rice field workers in Indonesia
On the Ground Reporter, 2014
The Hackastory logo, a rocket with a yellow flame next to the word Hackastory
Hackastory at ISOJ, 2017

Talk Reasons to be Creative · Brighton · 2018

Digital storytelling and journalism

Ten years of interactive journalism, behind the scenes: the stories, the tools, the tech.

Comic book cover art for Zainab the Runner, an interactive story about an ultra runner in Afghanistan
Speaker page

2016 – 2025

Tech lead, frontend engineerTomTom

tomtom.com, from the online store to the corporate site.

  • One-step checkout for the online store.
  • Rebuilt the corporate site in 2018: React, server-side rendering, headless CMS.
  • The design system behind every page.
  • Newsroom on Next.js and Storyblok, the first step off Tridion.
  • Moved to the cloud, GitHub and TypeScript.
The tomtom.com home page, maps and location technology for businesses and drivers
tomtom.com
The TomTom newsroom with the latest press releases
Newsroom

Talk Frontend Developer Meetup at ING · Amsterdam · 2017

Creating the smoothest checkout experience for TomTom.com

With Paul Tondeur

A single page checkout in React and MobX: why TomTom needed it, the UX design, and the code.

The Presentation topics slide on a video wall, the reasons, the outside and the inside, with the speaker on stage at ING
Meetup page

2025 – now

Staff engineer, tech lead web developmentTomTom

Architecture of the TomTom web platform.

  • Moved all content to Storyblok.
  • Rebuilt the Traffic Index in Astro, React and Svelte.
  • Redesigned the site navigation and its content model.
  • Brought the design system in line with Figma and Storybook.
  • Kubernetes platform with GitOps deployments.
  • Grand Prize, Storyblok x AWS Hackathon.
The TomTom Traffic Index, congestion in cities worldwide shown as 3D bars on a dark world map
TomTom Traffic Index 2026

Talk JoyConf · Amsterdam · 2025

Navigating the challenges of localization during a company pivot

With Danielle van Zuijlen

How TomTom moved its localization from a monolithic CMS to Storyblok.

The Migrating to Storyblok slide with flying geese, next to Danielle van Zuijlen on stage at JoyConf 2025
Watch the talk
Interview after the talk at JoyConf 2025 in Felix Meritis, Amsterdam
Interview

Talk DEVWorld Conference · Amsterdam · 2026

How to prevent a rewrite

Rewrites are expensive and rarely deliver. How to keep a frontend evolving instead.

Title card of the talk How to prevent a rewrite at DEVWorld Conference 2026
Watch the talk

Talk JoyConf · Mainz · 2026

One space to rule them all

Keep it simple, don’t repeat yourself, also for content. Since 2022 TomTom runs its consumer, business, newsroom and legal sites from a single Storyblok space, without staging.

JoyConf 2026 speaker card for Michiel van der Ros, Staff Engineer and Tech Lead at TomTom, Rheingoldhalle Mainz
Agenda