Skip to content

Thor Henning Hetland

Thor Henning Hetland

Software architect. AI development pioneer. Community builder.

Founder of eXOReaction and JavaZone. Chairman of IASA Norway. Java Champion. Based in Oslo, Norway.

I've spent 30 years building software, communities, and organizations. These days I'm focused on what happens when experienced architects work with AI, not just alongside it.

What I'm working on

  • Skill-Driven Development

    SDD is a methodology for structured AI collaboration that compounds daily. Proven 25--66x productivity gains across manufacturing, finance, energy, and security.

    About eXOReaction

  • Synthesis

    Local-first knowledge infrastructure for AI-augmented teams. Indexes hundreds of files per second, sub-second search, zero cloud dependency.

    Learn more

  • Workshops & Training

    Hands-on SDD workshops for development teams. From half-day intensives to multi-week mentoring programs. Real code, real methodology, real results.

    Get in touch

  • JavaZone & Community

    Co-founded JavaZone in 2001 -- now Scandinavia's largest developer conference. Still active in IASA, still believing that communities move the industry forward.

    Organizations

Recent proof

In January 2026, I built lib-pcb -- a complete PCB design library in Java. 197,831 lines of code. 7,461 tests. 8 format parsers, 28 validators, 17 auto-fixers. Manufacturing-ready Gerber output.

Time: 11 days. Industry standard for equivalent scope: 10--18 months.

This wasn't magic. It was methodology -- Skill-Driven Development applied systematically with Claude Code. The kind of thing I teach in workshops.

Writing

I started blogging about cloud computing in 2009, back when "the cloud" was still a debate. The archive has those early posts. New writing on AI-augmented development and SDD is coming.

Read the blog

Find me