How the Dutch Tax Authority Scaled K8s to 99+ Apps

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2026

Speakers: Jerry van Hulst (Belastingdienst) & Marcel Kerker (HCS Company)
Date: March 25, 2026 — London

The Problem

  • New platform (OpenShift, Kubernetes) — high cognitive load
  • Long lead times for new environments
  • Lots of ways to do the same thing — no standardization
  • Enablement lagged behind demand

The Solution: Reduce Cognitive Load

The Onboarding Journey:

  1. Prepare — team readiness assessment
  2. Intake and Compliance — automated compliance checks
  3. Start on NonProd — safe environment to learn
  4. Go to Production — with guardrails in place

One YAML to Rule Them All

  • Built a custom operator instead of a full-blown IDP
  • Single YAML defines an entire project: security, networking, compliance
  • PaaS Operator — open sourced for the community
  • Simpler than Backstage, fits actual organizational needs

Technical Stack

Tool Purpose
Tekton CI/CD pipelines
ArgoCD GitOps deployments
RHACM Multi-cluster management
Kyverno Policy enforcement
Backstage Developer portal (with caveats)

Key Takeaways

  1. Custom operator > full IDP for most organizations at this stage
  2. "One YAML" approach dramatically reduces cognitive load
  3. The PaaS Operator is open source — reusable by the community
  4. Onboarding journey design is as important as the technology
  5. Went from ghost platform to 100+ production apps through enablement

Questions?

KubeCon EU 2026 — London