About Me

Welcome to my minimalistic webpage. This website represents me and my work as a software developer. I may or may not add more content and features to this website.

DevOps Engineer

gridscale GmbH

I maintain and build PaaS services based on gridscale infrastructure.

Projects & Responsibilities:

  • Managed Kubernetes: I contribute to the overall maintenance on a managed Kubernetes product.

Software Engineer & Cloud Architect

DEXPRO Solutions GmbH

I mainly work as software developer, building upon the core product of the company.

Projects & Responsibilities:

  • PHP Monolith Refactoring: Splitting code up into modules, upgrading legacy codebase, adding patterns to improve overall architecture and enable increased productivity.
  • Rewrite an HTTP API to REST: During the monolith refactoring I rewrote the entire legacy HTTP API into a new REST-full API.
  • Implement a lincense module for on-prem software: This enabled the company to distribute software safely without having to fear unlicensed use.
  • Dockerize the software stack: I pushed our development team towards containerizing our software (via Docker containers). Doing so, i implemented all required infrastructure to support both development and productive deployment.
  • Design and implement cloud architecture: I implemented the two major iterations of the companies scalable public cloud which made per customer installations obsolete and improved the reliability as opposed to non-repeatable, manual deployments.
  • Product Backlog Management: I largely manage the product backlog of my team. Breaking down roadmap epics into smaller stories and organizing bug tickets.
  • Platform Engineering: One ongoing challenge is to build up a platform of commonly used services which all products can rely on. I explore and evaluate approaches to enable other developers to build upon.

Dual Study - Computer Science and Business Management

xSuite Group GmbH / DEXPRO Solutions GmbH

I had the great opportunity to both study "Computer Science and Business Management" (Wirtschaftsinformatik) at the NORDAKADEMIE and work as a software developer at xSuite Group GmbH (formerly known as WMD Group GmbH). During this time I was lucky enough to switch to the DEXPRO Solutions GmbH where I finished my dual study and started working full-time.

Skills

Programming Languages

These are programming languages I am comfortable working with.

Go: I love the simplicity and concurrency model of this language.
5/6
JavaScript + TypeScript: I used JS/TS mostly for backend development.
4/6
Java: First programming language I started using since 7th grade.
5/6
C#: Due to the similarities to Java I am also able to navigate the C# ecosystem.
5/6
PHP: Not my favorite choice for personal projects but a good language for small / mvp-oriented projects.
3/6
Rust: I'd love to learn Rust but have not yet had appropriate opportunities to do so.
1/6

DevOps

During my activities as software developer I have also spend quiet a large amount of time on learning tools / technologies to improve the development and delivery process of the applications I worked on.

I am motivated to improve the overall development velocity of a team and find it rewarding to see CI/CD practices bringing real business value and developer happiness.

These are some of the tools I have worked with.

Docker: I am able to maintain Dockerfiles and use them to deploy applications on single VMs or Swarm clusters.
5/6
Kubernetes User: I can maintain and deploy applications using common approaches (Helm, GitOps) on a managed cluster. In addition I am confident in using the Kubernetes API for more customized solutions.
5/6
Kubernetes Admin: Starting with my position at gridscale, I have gained deeper insights into the administration of Kubernetes clusters.
2/6
Gitlab CI / Azure DevOps Pipelines / GitHub Actions: I am capable of automating the usual tasks which arise when automating software delivery.
5/6
Ansible: I generally use Ansible to set-up new VMs and manage packages and application deployments on them.
3/6
Terraform: I mostly use Terraform to provision larger groups of resources.
3/6
Packer: I rely on Packer to build VM images, often combining them with Ansible playbooks.
3/6

Frameworks

I have noticed a trend to focus only on frameworks when it comes to communicating skills. While I understand that it is helpful to see that someone knows Laravel, Spring Boot, .NET or React, I do think that frameworks often try to archive similar things, just in slightly different ways.

Therefore I have decided to not explicitly list frameworks here. If you want to talk about frameworks, feel free to ask. Sure, I have had contact with the mentioned frameworks and I am confident that they are great tools to work with.

Leadership

There is also stuff besides computers...

I already had the opportunity to lead a team of developers through several challenges while working on a large, old monolith. This application was a great (but sometimes painful) learning experience for more than one reason. When working on that project, I had not only to manage technical complexity but also the challenges of onboarding new team members.

During that time I was able to learn a lot about team dynamics and how to lead the team towards self-organization. We introduced retrospectives where we adapted our process and improved our collaboration.

A key discovery of mine was that true leadership requires first and foremost the skill to manage oneself. I think that leading a team of great people requires first and foremost the understanding, management and proper communication of one's own values, emotions and goals. This results in the ability to clearly communicate and motivate others.