Bas de Kort

Welcome. I'm Bas de Kort: freelance backend developer and AI engineer for small and medium-sized businesses. Pragmatic, with AI where it really adds value and plain code where it works better.

Look around. Below is a selection of my recent work, who I am, what I'm good at and what working together looks like.

recent.json

A game that started as a joke

A game that started as a joke

article

Nov 12, 2026

Out of things to watch on Netflix, and kids playing Minecraft. What started as a joke became Shipwright Shore: a survival game I build as a backend developer, with AI on the oars and myself at the helm.

In developmentShipwright Shore

Shipwright Shore

project

Nov 11, 2026

A blocky survival game with a way out: the ship you build yourself. For phone and desktop, fully offline, with procedurally generated worlds, textures and music.

about.json

Bas de Kort
{
"name": "Bas de Kort",
"location": "Herveld, Gelderland, Netherlands",
"born": "Sep 6, 1979",
"age": 47,
"bio": "Started out as a social worker, but somewhere along the way I turned out to be better at debugging code than people. By day I lead three PHP teams at Proud Nerds, build backends and integrate AI into everything we make. By night I freelance under my own name; from LLMs to agents, it's code with an opinion.",
"current_roles": [
{
"type": "freelance",
"company": "Bas de Kort",
"title": "AI Engineer & Fullstack Developer",
"location": "Herveld"
},
{
"type": "employed",
"company": "Proud Nerds",
"title": "PHP Team Lead, AI Engineer & Senior Back-End Developer",
"location": "Nijmegen"
}
],
"available_for_freelance": true, // small businesses with a real question
"years_of_experience": 25, // and counting
"origin_story": "From Kindertelefoon (the Dutch children's helpline) to REST APIs to AI agents; the path wasn't planned, but in hindsight it makes perfect sense."
}
// parsed in 0.003s; no errors, one unique career path

skills.json

{
"core_stack": [
{ "name": "PHP (OOP)", "level": },
{ "name": "Back-End Architecture", "level": },
{ "name": "AI / LLM integration", "level": },
{ "name": "REST APIs", "level": },
{ "name": "Typescript/ Javascript", "level": },
{ "name": "CSS / HTML", "level": },
{ "name": "Leadership / Scrum", "level": },
{ "name": "Server maintenance / DevOps", "level": }
],
"tools": [
"Laravel", "OpenShift", "Docker", "Git", "Claude",
"OpenAI", "WordPress", "MySQL", "Redis"
],
"also_known_for": [
"AI agents & prompt engineering", "Data migration",
"CMS development", "Cross-media campaigns"
],
"secret_power": "Understanding people. Not for nothing I started out as a social worker."
}
// those soft skills don't come from a tutorial but from real conversations

numbers.json

25years back-endsince 2001
5clients maxreal attention, no ticket stack
€295per monthstarting rate, not a project price
24hresponse timedirect line to the builder

offering.json

AI engineering

LLM integrations, prompt engineering and agentic workflows. AI in the development process; critical and with fallbacks in your end product.

Custom back-end work

Pragmatic PHP backends, REST APIs and integrations. 25 years of experience in production; code that lasts for years without a hype stack.

Advice & second opinion

Code reviews, architecture sketches and technical sparring. Honest about what AI does and doesn't solve for your situation.

subscription.json

Software is never "done". That's why I work on a subscription basis: a fixed monthly price, something concrete delivered every month. Three packages, from €295 to €1,195 per month.

See the packages →