Pieter Kruithof, MS, CSPO, CUXP

Principal User Researcher with over twenty years of experience driving product strategy

Summary

Pieter Kruithof is a highly pragmatic user experience research professional with specialized expertise in cloud technology, covering the infrastructure, middleware, and application layers.
With over seven years of experience, Pieter has engaged with developers, architects, and operators on a variety of topics, such as infrastructure management, CI/CD processes, and serverless technologies.
Previously, Pieter served as the UX Team Lead for the OpenStack open-source cloud project, working alongside major contributors from companies like Red Hat, IBM, HPE, Intel, and Cisco.
During his tenure with OpenStack, Pieter led the creation of cloud personas, redesigned the operations portal, and conducted numerous customer studies involving organizations such as Wikimedia, CERN, Intel, Spectrum, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).
Pieter holds certifications as a certified user experience professional (CUXP), scrum product owner (CSPO), and a product management level III certification from Pragmatic Institute.
He pursued his MS at Virginia Tech and completed his BS at Western Washington University.
His professional journey includes roles such as User Research Lead in Digital Business Automation at IBM, User Research Lead for Cloud Pak System at IBM, Sr User Researcher at IBM, UX Team Lead and Strategist at Intel Corporation, Senior UX Designer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and various roles in User Experience Research.