Jelle Dehn

Robotics & AI Engineer | Software Developer

Computer Science Master's graduate focusing on Artificial Intelligence (Reinforcement Learning) and Software Engineering. My experience spans from robot learning on physical hardware (a Huggingface SO 101 arm and a 12-ton excavator) to robust CI/CD workflows, complemented by an entrepreneurial perspective on value creation.

Experience

Founder May 2025 – Apr 2026
Autonomous Excavator Startup (Pre-Seed) | Freiburg, Germany

Evaluated market opportunities and technical requirements for autonomous heavy machinery. Completed the Ideaboost startup accelerator. Conducted customer discovery with construction companies to identify the highest-value use cases for autonomous solutions through interviews and on-site visits.

Jelle on an excavator
Working Student in Product Development May 2022 – Dec 2023
OXID eSales AG | Freiburg, Germany

Built an automated pipeline utilizing GitHub Actions for evaluating enterprise data via Machine Learning and scheduled web scraping. Contributed to core PHP product development with a focus on clean code and reliable CI/CD workflows.

Education

M.Sc. in Computer Science Feb 2022 – Mar 2026
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

Focus on Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning.
Master's Thesis: High-Precision Excavator Control under Unknown Dynamics via Belief State Estimation. Addressed the Sim-to-Real gap by developing a self-supervised learning approach for latent representations of hydraulic dynamics, deploying the Reinforcement Learning policy on a physical 12-ton excavator in cooperation with Bosch.

Erasmus Exchange Program Jan 2024 – Jun 2024
UPV/EHU Gipuzkoako Ingeniaritza Eskola | San Sebastian, Spain

Completed coursework entirely in Spanish

B.Sc. in Computer Science Oct 2017 – Feb 2022
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

Bachelor's Thesis: Implementation and evaluation of AI planning algorithms.

Erasmus Exchange Program (B.Sc.) Sep 2019 – Mar 2020
ENSEIRB-MATMECA - Bordeaux INP | Bordeaux, France

Completed coursework entirely in French.