Hofstede received his Master of Arts in Computer Science in 1989 at the Radboud University Nijmegen, and his Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science in 1993 with a thesis entitled "Information modelling in data intensive domains" under supervision of Eckhard Doctorate. Falkenberg.
Hofstede had started his academic career in 1989 as researcher in the Software Engineering Research Centre of the Radboud University Nijmegen, where he published his first technical reports in cooperation with Sjaak Brinkkemper, Patrick van Bommel, Erik Proper and others In 1993 he was appointed Associate Professor at the Radboud University Nijmegen. In 1996 he started in Australia was lecturer at the University of Queensland.
In 1997 he switched to the Queensland University of Technology where he became senior lecturer in 1998, Associate Professor in 2000 and Professor in 2008 in the Faculty of Science and Engineering.
In 2010 he is also appointed part-time Professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Information Systems Group.
