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The data foundation,and the AI thatstands on it.

Data warehouses and the AI products that run on them, from source system to interface. One pair of hands, and it runs in production. See fig. 01.

Exploded view of five layers. From the bottom up: source systems, data warehouse, semantic layer, AI layer, application. The thickness of each plate matches how much work goes into it; the data warehouse is by far the thickest.

Part 02The dimensional model: facts, dimensions, history, lineage. Most of the time goes in here and nobody talks about it. Hence the thickness of this plate.

Fig. 01 · The stack, exploded view · plate thickness ~ work

XBAS Business Intelligence · Almere NL · Doc 2026-07

Three layers, one pair of hands.

Most projects start halfway down this list and get stuck on what is missing below it. I build all three, usually from the bottom up: part 02 in fig. 01 carries the rest.

  • DWH

    Data foundation

    Data warehouses, pipelines, models. The foundation that reporting and AI have to stand on. Without this part, the rest is a demo.

    • SQL Server · Azure · Snowflake
    • Dimensional modelling · ETL · lineage
    • Data quality that survives production
  • AI

    AI products

    Language-model applications that survive production: grounded in your own data, evaluated on answer quality, deployed in your own environment.

    • Claude · Gemini · OpenAI
    • RAG · tool use · agents
    • Prompt engineering and evals
  • APP

    Web applications

    The shell around it: the interface where the work becomes visible. Deployed quickly, and built so someone else can pick it up later.

    • Next.js · React · TypeScript
    • Tailwind · design systems
    • Azure · Cloudflare · own VPS

The work.

At the top, what runs in production at clients. Below that my own products, and at the bottom a few demos built in an evening to show what is possible in a short time. That difference is large enough to state outright.

Illustration of a DocumentChat conversation: a question about annual leave, the answer with numbered footnotes, and below it the source line pointing to cao chapter and page.

In production

DocumentChat

Dutch trade union (name withheld) · 2026

An AI knowledge assistant covering hundreds of collective labour agreements (cao's), in daily use at a Dutch trade union. Every answer comes with a clickable source in the document.

  • Python
  • FastAPI
  • Azure AI Search
  • Azure OpenAI
  • SQL Server
Read the case

More in production at clients

Working agreements.

Hiring a single developer raises a few fair questions. The answers are here, including the ones that count against me.

  • Point of contact

    You talk to the person who builds it.

    No account manager between you and the code, no context lost in a handover. What you discuss is what I build.

  • Your data

    It runs in your own environment.

    Your data stays inside your own Azure or on-premise environment. For DocumentChat that was a hard requirement from the client, and therefore the architecture: no document text leaves it.

  • Continuity

    Built to be handed over.

    That I work alone is a real risk, and a promise does not solve it. What does: documentation, a mainstream stack and code the next developer can pick up. You are not locked in.

  • AI

    AI speeds up the building, not the thinking.

    AI writes alongside me, and that saves weeks. The design, the data models and the trade-offs are mine, and I can account for every one of them.

Bas Stiekema, looking straight into the lens.
Plate · Bas Stiekema · Almere

Bas Stiekema.

I have been building data warehouses for over fifteen years. For retail groups, trade unions, property managers and a handful of others who need to know what their figures actually mean.

In recent years the work has shifted. Those same foundations now feed AI applications: an assistant that really knows an organisation's collective labour agreements, a semantic layer that makes the AI and the reporting say the same thing. The web shell brings it together so that people can do something with it.

Stiekema Studio is where those three come together. One person, AI as co-builder, and work that runs in production.

Role
Data and AI developer
Experience
15+ years of data warehouses
Trading name
XBAS Business Intelligence
Location
Almere, Netherlands

Half an hour, and you know where you stand.

Not a sales call. You tell me what you want to build or what is not working, I tell you what I would do and whether I am the right person for it. If I am not, I say so.

You pick a time from my calendar in the form on this page. It is booked straight away, with a Google Meet link and a link to cancel if something comes up. No back and forth about dates.

Request · introductory call · 30 min · Google Meet

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