Employee Spotlight: Jesse van der Schoot

Meet Jesse van der Schoot, ML Engineer at KickstartAI. With a love for math and a drive for efficiency, he uses AI to solve complex, real-world problems. Jesse's goal is to create solutions that people adopt and rely on, making impact part of the process.

Let's dive into his journey, what excites him about building AI, and how collaboration shapes his work.

What’s your role at KickstartAI? 

I’m a machine learning engineer and I work on complex ML and AI projects for our partner companies. Basically, my job is about using the latest AI techniques to solve real-word problems, and that’s something I really enjoy. 

Can you share your journey into AI? 

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve liked doing things efficiently, for example by optimizing boring tasks so they take as little time as possible. That made math my favorite subject in school, which eventually led me to study industrial engineering. During my studies, I was introduced to data science and later pursued a master’s in data science and AI.

I started my career as a data scientist, and from there, moving into AI and machine learning engineering was a natural step. It's all about solving problems smarter and faster in production.

What’s something in our projects that genuinely excites you?

I find it very exciting that we’re not building AI for the sake of it, but that we’re trying to make it work in complex, real-world settings. Innovation is easy; adoption is the hard part. It’s often overlooked, but that’s what I find most challenging and rewarding.

This is why I really appreciate our approach to projects: we start by identifying the problems where AI can make a difference, and then create a solution around that in collaboration with the people who are actually going to use it. So building something together across teams and companies is definitely a very interesting part for me. 

What do you enjoy about working at KickstartAI?

Besides the focus on AI adoption, I really like that there’s room to innovate and experiment. We’re encouraged to stay up to date with the latest advancements, so there’s always this buzz in the office people asking, “Have you read this?” or “Have you seen that?” 

I haven’t experienced this anywhere else, and it’s very cool that we get to transfer this knowledge to our projects. For example, a recent paper that came out largely applied the same methods and techniques we’re using in our project with NS on unattended object detection at train stations the project where I focus on. For me, that was a great validation that we’re working at the forefront of AI development

What drives you in your work? 

What drives me the most is seeing the real-world impact of what I build. It’s not just about writing code or training a model it’s about seeing that work translate into something people actually use. When a prediction leads to a decision, or a tool I’ve developed improves a business outcome or helps someone down the line, that’s when my work feels meaningful. 

What are your go-to AI tools? 

I can’t live without my AI assistants! ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude I use them all and all three are usually open in a tab somewhere. Lately, I’ve been using voice mode quite a lot as well because it’s more efficient. I think I’ve reached a point where I use an LLM (with search enabled) first, before using Google.

What’s your advice to people considering a career in AI? 

I’d say the most important thing to remember is that AI is a fast-changing field. If you already know how to code, make sure you start integrating AI into your work. There’s really little to gain by proving you can do it without it, and that mindset might hold you back.

If you don’t code yet, use AI to help you learn. And take the time to understand the fundamentals of software engineering and statistics, which are at the core of how AI works. Underneath every model, it's all math and yes, there are still errors, so a solid grasp of the basics matters.

Fun fact about you? 

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve unintentionally taught myself this strange ability. If you tell me a (relatively known) football player, I know their jersey number off the top of my head. It has become my weird little party trick. 

I don’t have a photographic memory, but when I see their jersey number, it just sticks. I somehow trained my own jersey number AI model in my head. Crazy, right? 

💡 Want to learn more about KickstartAI and our mission to accelerate AI adoption in the Netherlands? Check out our website, explore our open positions, or connect with Jesse on LinkedIn!