---
title: Career Plan 2026
description: Jan Wilmake's active job search; Moyai and Blixt intro calls completed; LinkedIn search resumed May 28; HACKADAM meetup
category: Career
---

# Career Plan 2026

As of early 2026, [[Jan_Wilmake]] is conducting an active job search from [[Groningen]], Netherlands. Following the end of his [[Parallel_AI]] contract (November 2025) and a recovery period over December 2025, he entered 2026 seeking stable employment that combines technical depth with AI/LLM work.

## Context: 2025 Opportunities Declined

The 2026 job search comes after a year in which Wilmake declined a notable number of inbound offers and partnership opportunities, preferring to maintain independence:

| Opportunity | Outcome |
|-------------|---------|
| Skyfire | Declined |
| ComposioDev | Declined |
| Cloudflare DevRel partnership | Stalled / rejected after prolonged negotiation |
| StackOne | Declined |
| SocialDatabase | Declined |
| Iterate.com trial (~$3,600) | Trial completed; full-time offer declined |
| Ben Tossell (investor interest) | Not pursued |

This pattern reflects a recurring tension between independence and stability, informing his more pragmatic approach to employment in 2026.

## Target Role Profile

Stated preferences:

1. **Daily collaboration** with peers of comparable or greater technical ability
2. **AI/LLM-adjacent work** — API integration, LLM orchestration, context tooling, or agent infrastructure
3. **Location**: Groningen (preferred) or remote-first; Amsterdam acceptable
4. **Company type**: Product company or consultancy with genuine technical depth

Self-described strengths relevant to applications:

- Deep expertise in TypeScript/JavaScript, React Native, Cloudflare Workers
- Rare combination of technical implementation experience with AI/LLM systems
- Track record of building products from zero to paying users independently
- Experience with MCP (Model Context Protocol), OpenAPI ecosystems, and Cloudflare edge infrastructure

## Target Sectors and Companies

### Groningen / Local

| Company | Role Type |
|---------|-----------|
| [[New_Nexus]] | Agile Analyst |
| Stekz | Engineering |

For [[New_Nexus]], Wilmake prepared extensively for the Agile Analyst role, studying Domain Driven Design (DDD), Behavior Driven Development (BDD), Specification by Example (SbE), and SAFe. His pitch: *"I've spent years building complex systems for demanding clients, and I've noticed the highest-leverage work is always upstream — getting the problem definition right before a line of code is written."*

### API / LLM Orchestration Space

Notable targets include Nango (API integration), OpenRouter (LLM routing), Composio (agent tools), Scalar, and Zuplo.

### Remote-First / Amsterdam

Linear, Oxide Computer, Val.town. Amsterdam targets include PromptWatch and Lemni.

## Networking Strategy

In-person networking events planned in Amsterdam:

- **AI Tinkerers** (aitinkerers.org)
- **Internet Friends**
- **HackAdam**

Active on X (Twitter) as @janwilmake for professional networking and product announcements.

## Ongoing Side Projects (2026)

Active independent work alongside the job search:

- **[[uithub]]** improvements (token counts, library mode, advanced filters, open-sourced March 2026)
- **[[forgithub]]** — Dashboard for GitHub, Context for GitHub (launched December 2025)
- **gcombinator.com** — HN article+comment context tool (launched January 2026)
- **[[ContextArea]]** — context engineering and MCP client (launched February 2026)
- **[[Markdown_Browser]]** — browser for the second web (launched March 2026)
- **[[SimplerAuth]]** — auth library collection (consolidated December 2024)
- **[[OpenPolsia]]** — open-source variant of Polsia (started March 2026)
- **[[Grok_Thyself]]** — X data sync tool (launched April 7, 2026; 40 sign-ups, 3 paid users)
- **[[Self-Driving_Repos]]** — autonomous agent orchestration on GitHub repos (launched April 8, 2026)
- **x402** / payment-native platforms research

## Job Search Activity

### March 2026: Public Announcement

On March 20, 2026, Jan publicly announced his job search on X: *"Hi! Based in the Netherlands, I'm looking for a new opportunity as full-stack product engineer with experience with React (Native), Node.js and Cloudflare, and generally, building entire products from scratch. DMs open!"* The post received 14 likes.

He also expressed interest in several roles posted by founders including a staff infrastructure role at Nebula, a position at [[Biscuit]] in Amsterdam, and an AI PM role via thenanyu.

### Early April 2026: Individual Outreach

In early April 2026, Jan continued pursuing opportunities. On April 9, he responded to a senior full-stack engineer listing at **ViewMax.io** by pointing the founder to his GitHub portfolio, and also expressed interest in joining **@jdanjohnson**'s team (Miami-based, open to part-time).

### April 12–13: Amsterdam Startup Job Browsing

On April 12, 2026, Jan spent an extended session browsing **startupmap.one** — exploring 175+ Amsterdam startup jobs and clicking through to Airweave, Transferz, LangWatch, Oaky, Orderchamp, Happeo, Workwize, and Stacks AI. On LinkedIn, he browsed founding engineer and AI roles at Venta AI (YC S23), Ascending AI, Carv, LangChain Amsterdam, and kapa.ai.

### April 13–14: ProfitPath Interview Prep

Jan researched **[[ProfitPath]]** (profitpath.com) — an Amazon FBA / online arbitrage SaaS — as a potential employer. He browsed their jobs page (Senior Product Engineer opening), blog, and parent company (Fourbite GmbH). He ran a dedicated Claude session for interview preparation lasting approximately 16 minutes.

On April 14, Jan also publicly declared cold outreach as the single most critical skill for builders in 2026.

### April 14–16: Merge Labs and Other Targets

Jan researched **Merge Labs** (merge.io) — a unified API platform. He browsed their blog, X profile, careers page, and a Senior Application Engineer opening. He also checked job listings at **Safe Superintelligence Inc.** (SSI) and a Cloudflare job opening.

### April 17: Intensive Job Search Day (Peak Activity)

April 17 was the most sustained job-searching day recorded. Jan ran extensive LinkedIn searches for remote TypeScript/fullstack roles, including specific listings at:

| Company | Role |
|---------|------|
| **Tether.io** | Developer Relations P2P (100% remote) |
| **Mistral AI** | Software Engineer, Fullstack/Frontend |
| **Mistral AI** | Applied AI Engineer, Fullstack (EMEA) |
| **Checkly** | Senior Product Engineer AI (remote, UTC-3 to UTC+3) |

He also searched X for *"hiring"* threads, finding **The Agents Company** and a Cloudflare job opening.

### April 19: SILA Inbound + Continued Browsing

On April 19, 2026, Jan received and replied to a recruiting email from **SILA** — a startup seeking a founding engineer. He also checked the **Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2026)** thread on Hacker News and browsed careers at **Featurebase** (a Product Engineer opening) and **Better Stack**.

### April 20: MCP Deep-Dive and Amsterdam Apartment Hunting

April 20 was driven by three threads: **MCP research**, **job hunting**, and apartment hunting in Amsterdam. The MCP deep-dive included watching Anthropic's David Soria Parra talk on *"The Future of MCP"* (~21 min), browsing the MCP spec repos and GitHub discussions. Job hunting included visits to the Wellfound listing for a **Founding Engineer** role at **Topliner** (Amsterdam/The Hague/Rotterdam or Remote).

### April 21: Security/MCP Exploration and Composio

On April 21, Jan explored the intersection of MCP and cybersecurity — including a Claude session on *"MCP for pentesting and security testing"* and registration of the domain **hackbot.cc** (see [[Hackbot]]). He viewed LinkedIn listings for AI Security and Security Engineer roles.

He also explored **Composio** (composio.dev) as a potential employer, browsing their blog, job listings, and documentation extensively.

### April 22–24: Content and Networking

Jan checked the newly shipped Cloudflare **Billable Usage Dashboard**, explored [[Jonas_Templestein]]'s **cf-artifact-viewer**, and continued LinkedIn networking. On April 24, he read Jonas Templestein's influential idea about Cloudflare API bindings.

### April 27–28: New Inbound Leads

- **April 27**: Received a recruiting email from **TOPLINER** and read a **Founding Product Engineer** job posting from **[[Moyai]]** (`moyai.ai`) — an AI monitoring platform — researching the founders (Robert Hommes, Vladimir Vuckovic) on LinkedIn.
- **April 27**: Extended LinkedIn TypeScript job search including listings at Haystack People and Youwe.
- **April 28**: Browsed rental properties in Purmerend on Funda and checked **Go Captain AI** on LinkedIn.

### April 30: Parallel AI $100M Raise

On April 30, 2026, Jan noticed the trending X topic *"Parallel Web Systems Raises $100M at $2B Valuation for AI Web Tools"* — a significant validation of [[Parallel_AI]], his former employer. He also discovered the **Amsterdam Tech Connect | AI Coding Agents Edition** event (May 7) and began researching Amsterdam hotels for May 4–8.

### May 1–6: Amsterdam Trip Preparation and Admin

Jan prepared for an Amsterdam trip (May 4–8), booking accommodation and checking transit routes. On May 4, he completed his **BTW (VAT) tax filing** and booked a **30-minute meeting with [[Ives_van_Hoorne]]** (founder of CodeSandbox / [[Biscuit]]) for May 8, later rescheduled to May 12.

On May 6, Jan resumed the **Topliner** Founding Engineer application on Wellfound and researched **PromptWatch** (`promptwatch.com`).

### May 7: Amsterdam Trip — Coding Resumes, Amsterdam Tech Connect

May 7 was a pivotal day. Jan attended (or prepared for) the **Amsterdam Tech Connect | AI Coding Agents Edition** event. More significantly, he resumed active coding after roughly seventeen consecutive days without development — working on a technical assignment (likely for PromptWatch) using NestJS/Fastify.

### May 8: Moyai Interview Request and Ives Reschedule

On May 8, Jan received a **"CV Request - Moyai Interview"** email — confirming that **[[Moyai]]** is now at the interview stage. The meeting with [[Ives_van_Hoorne]] was rescheduled from May 8 to **May 12, 2026 at 11:00 UTC**.

### May 11: Arsen Meeting and Atlas Agency

On May 11, Jan had a **~30-minute Google Meet call** with **Arsen Ibragimov** (connected through Wijnand Karsens, via **[[Topliner]]**) — showing the [[Self-Driving_Repos]] landing page during the call. He also received a [[Moyai]] email about connecting and scheduled a chat with **Dineke Mulder** at **Atlas Agency** (a recruitment firm).

### May 12: Ives van Hoorne Meeting and Biscuit Exploration

May 12 was dominated by deep exploration of **[[Biscuit]]** and a meeting with its founder **[[Ives_van_Hoorne]]**. Jan spent ~30 minutes building a project called "Publican" inside Biscuit, then had a 30-minute Google Meet with Ives, showing the [[OpenPolsia]] dashboard and GitHub repository.

### May 13: Atlas Call, Biscuit Follow-Up, and Moyai Research

May 13 featured multiple developments:

- **Atlas Agency / Dineke call**: ~24-minute Teams call with Dineke Mulder
- **Biscuit follow-up**: Received an email from **Maria Martin** at [[Biscuit]] about the Publican project; discovered the **"Bakin' Biscuit"** builder event in Amsterdam on May 15
- **[[Moyai]] deep-read**: Two reads of the Moyai blog post *"Mission defines strategy, and strategy defines structure"*
- **Polarsteps**: Visited careers at polarsteps.com — a new potential job target

### May 14: Hemelvaart Holiday — Blixt Call Booked

On May 14 (Ascension Day holiday), a calendar invite arrived for a 30-minute intro call with **Floris** from **[[Blixt]]**, scheduled for **May 20, 2026 at 3:00–3:30 PM CEST**.

### May 15: Moyai Escalates, Biscuit Event Day

- **[[Moyai]] intro call with Robert**: Email received — *"First intro call with Robert from Moyai"* — Jan's most advanced interview pipeline.
- **Bakin' [[Biscuit]] event**: Builder day at Biscuit's Amsterdam office.

### May 17: Moyai Call Booked

On May 17, Jan visited the Calendly booking page for the [[Moyai]] intro call and selected the **May 19, 2026 at 13:00 CEST** slot after re-reading the invite email three times.

### May 19: Moyai Call Completed, Job Application Blitz

May 19 was a pivotal day. The morning opened with an **extensive job-hunting session**, during which Jan applied to multiple new positions:

| Company | Role | Status |
|---------|------|--------|
| **Youwe** (Groningen) | Senior Full-Stack Headless Developer | ✅ Applied |
| **Lightdash** (YC-backed) | Full Stack Software Engineer | Explored |
| **Learned** | Senior Fullstack Developer | ✅ Application started |
| **Harborn Digital** | Front-end Developer | Explored |
| **Foreside** | Fullstack Developer | Explored |

Mid-morning, Jan completed the **[[Moyai]] intro call** (~11:00–11:32 CEST) with co-founder Robert Hommes and **Wijnand Karsens**. He had prepared a PDF deck titled "Presentation for Moyai — AI Agent Reliability & Observability" and showed his GitHub profile during the meeting.

### May 20: Blixt Call Completed

The **[[Blixt]] intro call with Floris Weers** took place from approximately **13:00–13:30 CEST** via Google Meet — earlier than the originally scheduled 15:00 slot. Jan performed last-minute preparation just before the call, reading Floris's X post about automatic integration tests and Blixt's post about AI-driven testing with forked databases. During the call, Jan showed the [[OpenPolsia]] dashboard as a portfolio piece.

Earlier that morning, Jan explored **INDEX by [[Parallel_AI|Parallel]]** — a new system that indexes websites for AI agent discovery. He also viewed the **front-end Member of Technical Staff** job listing at Parallel on Ashby.

### May 21–24: Post-Sprint Decompression

Following the high-intensity interview week of May 19–20, the period May 21–24 was largely passive. No follow-up emails were sent to any pipeline targets during this stretch, allowing several of the warm relationships to go cold.

### May 25–27: New Interests Emerge

- **May 25**: Wildcamping trip planning emerged as a new thread — researching bivouac spots near Groningen, purchasing trekking gear. Evening: Jan noticed the **MCP 2026-07-28 release candidate** specification (stateless, no handshake, no session ID).
- **May 26**: Returned to the MCP RC spec for focused reading; LinkedIn messaging session suggesting continued professional networking.
- **May 27**: No job-related activity.

### May 28: LinkedIn Job Search Resumes — HACKADAM Day

May 28 marked a shift back into active job search mode. Jan browsed **100+ recommended LinkedIn job positions**, clicking into multiple listings including a Full-Stack Developer role at YOHR Consultancy.

The **[[HACKADAM]]** indie-maker meetup in Amsterdam is taking place today — Jan was personally tagged by @AbnerHout on May 22. The event offers an in-person networking opportunity.

### Pipeline Summary (as of May 28, 2026)

| Company | Contact | Stage | Days Since Last Action |
|---------|---------|-------|----------------------|
| **[[Moyai]]** | Robert Hommes, Wijnand Karsens | ✅ Intro call completed May 19 | 9 days |
| **[[Blixt]]** | Floris Weers | ✅ Intro call completed May 20 | 8 days |
| **[[Biscuit]]** | Ives van Hoorne, Maria Martin | Post-Bakin' Biscuit (May 15) | 13 days post-event |
| **Atlas Agency** | Dineke | Call completed May 13 | 15 days |
| **[[Topliner]]** | Arsen Ibragimov, Wijnand Karsens | Networking call completed May 11 | Wijnand confirmed as key network node |
| **Youwe** (Groningen) | — | ✅ Applied May 19 | Awaiting response |
| **Learned** | — | Application started May 19 | Awaiting response |
| **YOHR Consultancy** | — | 🆕 Application form visited May 28 | New lead |
| **[[Parallel_AI]]** | — | Front-end MTS role viewed May 20 | No application filed |
| **Lightdash** (YC) | — | Explored May 19 | Decide on application |
| **Harborn Digital** | — | Explored May 19 | Decide on application |
| **Polarsteps** | — | Careers page browsed May 13 | No follow-up |

## Active Side Projects (April–May 2026)

In addition to the ongoing projects listed above, Jan's April–May 2026 side projects include:

- **[[ProductSim]]** — AI-powered E2E browser testing on PR preview deploys (launched April 15, 2026)
- **[[Hackbot]]** — Early-stage exploration of AI-powered security/pentesting via MCP (domain registered April 21, 2026)
- **[[Browser_History_Extension]]** — Chrome extension syncing browsing history to GitHub

## See Also

- [[Jan_Wilmake]]
- [[Parallel_AI]]
- [[New_Nexus]]
- [[uithub]]
- [[Grok_Thyself]]
- [[Self-Driving_Repos]]
- [[Groningen]]
- [[ProductSim]]
- [[ProfitPath]]
- [[Hackbot]]
- [[Biscuit]]
- [[Ives_van_Hoorne]]
- [[Moyai]]
- [[Blixt]]
- [[Topliner]]
- [[OpenPolsia]]
- [[HACKADAM]]
- [[Browser_History_Extension]]