Profileimage by Achim Strauss Senior Full Stack Developer from Madrid

Achim Strauß

available

Last update: 07.08.2023

Senior Full Stack Developer

Graduation: German Diploma Computer Science
Hourly-/Daily rates: show
Languages: German (Native or Bilingual) | English (Full Professional) | Spanish (Limited professional)

Attachments

cvachimstrauss.pdf

Skills

With more than 8 years of experience in Frontend and Backend Development, I have a success-history of helping my customers building reliable and maintainable solutions. As a Frontend Developer, I am proficient with the latest frameworks and TypeScript. As a Backender, I work mostly with C\# and Node.JS with REST and GraphQL. I look beyond component boundaries, applying also smart DevOps and automation practices, greatly improving my team's velocity. I quickly understand the business side of my customers and support it with my entrepreneurial thinking. Time-critical environments are a welcome challenge to me.
As an agile advocate I had the chance to actively contribute to the agile mindset of many teams.
I am an excellent communicator with many years of experience in fully remote working. Contracting me for your project will have a positive impact on your team, your product, and your success.

Project history

08/2021 - Present
Mobile Developer &Backend (Remote)
Aimopark (Other, 250-500 employees)

The company is a provider for parking solutions in the nordic countries of Finland, Sweden, and Norway.
Their existing solution is phased out due to organizational changes and replaced by a new one that will be tailored to the needs of consumers, businesses with need for parking solutions, landlords, and administrators. The solution uses a microservice java backend, a react backoffice product as well as a B2C mobile application.

The customer experience of the Aimopark parking solution includes a modern mobile app, which allows the customers to park in parking spots, parking houses, EV-charging, licenseplate recognition, as well as buying long term parking tickets.
I transitioned on my own iniciative from the development team for the backoffice solution to a Fullstack role, supporting the development in a team of five other developers in mobile development.
The solution offes a coherent user experience for Android, IOS, and web, developed from the same codebase by utilizing the React Native framework.

Besides mobile-frontend feature development, I also worked on the GraphQL based Backend for Frontend (BFF). One of my achievements was the setup of the automatic release to Google and Apple Appstores for various environments. Further I improved the Sonarcloud setup of the CI pipeline.

11/2020 - 07/2021
Senior Frontend Developer (Remote)
Aimopark (Other, 250-500 employees)

The company is a provider for parking solutions in the nordic countries of Finland, Sweden, and Norway.
Their existing solution is phased out due to organizational changes and replaced by a new one that will be tailored to the needs of consumers, businesses with need for parking solutions, landlords, and administrators. The solution uses a microservice java backend, a react backoffice product as well as a B2C mobile application.

I onboarded as replacement for the lead Frontend Developer if the backoffice software solution. The solution was already for for a short time in development and had recently changed its state library from redux to react-query. I quickly found my way to a productive working mode, where I worked since then closely together with the UX designer, other developers, and the users.
Several architectural improvements were iniciated by me, as well as upgrading of libraries and introduction of supporting tooling such as linting and automation within the build pipeline. I drove forward for the usage of development patterns and best practices. My focus is on the delivery of readable code and expanding my domain knowledge beyond my immediate needs to allow for a most suitable implementation for the customer.

03/2019 - 10/2020
Software Architect & Cloud Developer (Remote)
Voith (Industry and mechanical engineering, >10.000 employees)

The multinational, family owned Voith Group is a leading company in the industrial machinery and mechanical engineering industry. Worldwide it has over 19.000 employees and in 2017/2018 it declared a sales volume of 4.209 billion. Voith has in recent years strongly invested into renewing their offering, extending it to serve its customers with IoT platform services.

I startet as replacement for a Senior Cloud Architect in the team, just after the initial transition from an on-premise-only to a containerized cloud based installation had been delivered. I quickly took over additional tasks outside of the DevOps area helped re-juvenating the codebase and application, by assuming additional Frontend and Backend responsibilities whilst advocating to dare greater refactorings.

Equipped with broad experience in Frontend and Backend, I continued to constantly stand up for quality improvements, drove proactively a database cleanup initiative, renewed the neglected protractor based end-to-end tests and was generally caring for product quality, whilst advancing with backlog driven development tasks. 

I was a technical advisor for the Product Owner and a partner for the Scrum Master, even taking over temporarily the Scrum Master position.
The inherited, rancher-based cloud installation was transformed by me into a Kubernetes-based cloud installation, in alignment with the platform team of Voith. 
Additionally, I positioned myself as the driver of renewing the existing application. As end-of-lifetime for core frameworks were exceeded, I created an architecture approach for a step-by-step transition, thereby allowing a cost efficient approach to keep the application maintainable. Further I spearheaded the technical transition in the development team and motivated the team to realize several proof of concepts.

Furthermore, I added a state-of-the art RESTful api functionality to the old framework including authentication, validation, and model-binding, to allow for a better standardized integration with third-party consumers of the service without the need to upgrade the framework.

01/2019 - 02/2019
Senior Frontend Developer (Remote)
Voith (Industry and mechanical engineering, >10.000 employees)

The multinational, family owned Voith Group is a leading company in the industrial machinery and mechanical engineering industry. Worldwide it has over 19.000 employees and in 2017/2018 it declared a sales volume of 4.209 billion. Voith has in recent years strongly invested into renewing their offering, extending it to serve its customers with IoT platform services.

I started as a Senior Frontend Developer in a distributed team from Germany, Finland, UK, USA, and Spain. I helped from the begining to deliver features in the Angular (Frontend) and Node.js (Middleware service) from the first days.

I joined in a critical time, where quality issues were a problem to the IoT platform. After a short onboarding I re-instated a previously removed unit-testing framework and adapted it to the existing multi-application product landscape in the Frontend, to allow for building up automated testing.

This included Angular+Jasmine, but I also adapted the existing gitlab CI-Pipeline for the proper CI/CD integration. Due to changes in the team, I quickly assumed responsibility also in the Java Microservice Backend, where I helped for a short time with the maintainance.

Over the three months I was in the project, I used my fresh view to the project to challenge settled practices. The lead developer introduced the NgRx-library to the project and pioneered the usage together with me. I assumed further responsibilities outside my initial objectives, by doing manual integration and regression testing.

08/2018 - 12/2018
Frontend Developer
Gofore (Internet and Information Technology, 500-1000 employees)

I setup the internal tool "Mad-News" to give useful information to my colleagues, including querying of bus-schedules, alarms, and a slack-channel integration. I deployed the application on a raspberry pi and it is since then used as an information panel in the local office.

07/2018 - 08/2018
Senior Fullstack Developer (Remote)
FINGRID (Energy, water and environment, 250-500 employees)

Fingrid is the operator of Finlands national electricity grid. It is partially state owned and was founded in 1996. Its 380 employees manage the grid-infrastructure to allow its customers to deliver electricty to end-customers.

As an early-adaptor to OpenData standards, the company had already an OpenData platform in place. A CKAN data-lake was maintained while a Java Backend connected to the datasource. This allowed registered end-users to export Excel files that could be requested via a framework-free JavaScript Frontend.

I joined the team when the customer decided to improve the existing solution with additional datasets and more detailed exports. Pixel-perfect sketches of a new public Frontend had been created to improve usability and I implemented following the outlined design of them. All changes besides the CKAN administration were implemented by me. As the only developer with multiple stakeholders, I managed to deliver the to the highest satisfaction of the customer. Despite challenging deadlines, I improved and refactored the code for better maintainability.

The application is publically available still today.

01/2017 - 06/2018
Software Architect, Lead Developer, DevOps & Agile Coach
MunichRE (Insurance, >10.000 employees)

Primary insurers face a high load of manual work when processing applications to insurance products, specially in the health and life division. The whitelabel software developed at MunichRE consists of a backoffice application to manage prospect cases, and a physician/customer-facing application to input insurance-relevant medical history in questioneer form. A semi-automatic, rule-based evaluation is applied to the data, aiding the underwriter in the evaluation process and reducing time spent per-case significantly.

I joined the team as the first and sole developer. My broad experience in Backend and Frontend technologies enabled me to create a scalable architecture from scratch, integrating it in the companies strategically chosen cloud environment (Azure). I setup CI/CD pipelines to automate build and test environments, as well as multiple stages. With a growing team I naturally became the Lead Developer. My initial architecture persisted and allowed for fast growth of the application, the team, and processes. With no Scrum Master present at first, I actively shaped the Agile mindset of the team members from the very beginning, until a Scrum Master joined. Later I still continued to help shaping the team into an agile setup. As a true Fullstack Developer, my involvement to DevOps automation did not decrease when a lead DevOps role joined and I kept my architecture angle to the project by being involved in all layers and technologies.

10/2016 - 12/2016
Fullstack Developer & Agile Coach
HumediQ (Pharmaceuticals and medical technology, 10-50 employees)

HumediQ was a small, growing company with startup mentality in the sector of healthcare hardware and software. It focused on innovative healthcare solutions, aided by modern consumer technology. It has since then been aquired by Varian Medical Systems. The oncare project allows for integrated patient care through a patients' mobile device, focused on the oncologic treatment.

I continued to work in a role as UI/UX designer, though my role also evolved in supporting conceptionalization of user stories, as well as their implementation. I continued to improve the team's scrum process by taking over the role of the Scrum Master and facilitator.

Under my guidance, the team committed to improve quality by adhering to coding standards, utilizing automation processes, and implementing unit-tests. To support the iniciative, I created a build automation process and setup a physical build monitor in the developer office.

07/2016 - 09/2016
Fullstack Developer
HumediQ (Pharmaceuticals and medical technology, 10-50 employees)

HumediQ was a small, growing company with startup mentality in the sector of healthcare hardware and software. It focused on innovative healthcare solutions, aided by modern consumer technology. It has since then been aquired by Varian Medical Systems. The oncare project allows for integrated patient care through a patients' mobile device, focused on the oncologic treatment.

I joined the R\&D team as a UI/UX expert to advise the CEO on possible graphical solutions for a pressing feature and also supported the team in implementing them. After gathering requirements and providing UI expertise, I took the architectural lead over this feature and lead the team by example through the implementation.

In a high pressure environment I also supported the team with my scrum expertise, when the team’s project lead was vacant. I lead the team to success by acting as a role-model for clean code with an eye for detailed but lean solutions, whilst teaching clean-code principles.

01/2016 - 06/2016
Backend Developer
Europes biggest Eyewear Retailer (undisclosed) (Consumer goods and retail, >10.000 employees)

The company is a major market participant in the field of retail eyewear in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It seeked to support its franchises with a centralized customer database, that allows joining the benefits of a contact-lens online subscription model, together with the personal care of a widely available local shops. Sensitive eye geometry and customer data can be gathered and maintained by local eyecare professionals, while the subscription and mailorder is handled on the customers mobile device.

I joined the team as a developer for the REST- based Backend application, for a part of the software that allows the branch employees to gather, store, and inspect medical information regarding a customer's eye-geometry. I quickly took on more responsibilities and extended my role to support the BI and conceptionalist in the team.

Due to time-to-market pressure, the opportunity for proper onboarding was scarse. I was able to deliver userstories from the backlog from the first day. Due to the high statisfaction with my work, the customer was happy to extend my position several times.

The self driven agility in the team was exemplarious and I participated and supported the process extensivly. I provided numerous input to the agile culture of knowledge sharing, continuous feedback, communities of practice, and many more agile ceremonies.

03/2014 - 12/2015
Software Engineer
Serenata Intraware GmbH (Other, 10-50 employees)

Serenata IntraWare was a small-sized business that provides whitelabel CRM solutions for the Hospitality-Industry to high class hotel chains around the world. The company’s headquarter is located in Munich, Germany and had around 30 employees.

I was responsible for customizing guest facing applications to the customers corporate identity and style guidelines. In a given project scope, I customized all guest facing newsletter and member portals of new and existing hotel chains. My responsibility was to adapt the existing white label solution to visual guidelines from the customers, as well as the implementation of customized business logic.

04/2015 - 08/2015
Fullstack Developer & Lead Developer
Serenata Intraware GmbH (Other, 10-50 employees)

Serenata IntraWare was a small-sized business that provides whitelabel CRM solutions for the Hospitality-Industry to high class hotel chains around the world. The company’s headquarter is located in Munich, Germany and had around 30 employees.

I was brought into the project as development lead for an application when the deprecation of an involved third party API was threatening to shut down functionality of the social media integration of the inhouse solution. The intentional scope was to replace affected parts to maintain the application.

After investigations, I advised additional architectural changes for the application, reflecting incompatibilities since its initial release. I demonstrated how the existing application could be improved when extended with the Facebook Webhook API. Full responsibility to the implementation was given to me for upgrading and extending the existing application with Facebook WebHooks.

Both applications together form a sound solution in observing the endcustomers social media presence entirely and relating all possible user actions to marketing measures.

01/2015 - 03/2015
Fullstack Developer & Data Integration Developer
Serenata Intraware GmbH (Other, 10-50 employees)

Serenata IntraWare was a small-sized business that provides whitelabel CRM solutions for the Hospitality-Industry to high class hotel chains around the world. The company’s headquarter is located in Munich, Germany and had around 30 employees.

For the integration of a new customer, an interface to a major online reputation management (ORM) provider was required. An existing integration application of Serenata IntraWare's NetHotel suite had to be modified, to allow for additional and future ORM technology partners.

Taking over the project as the lead integration developer, I reviewed and adapted the proposed interface specifications towards the ORM provider. I carried out thorough architectural improvements in the existing application and extended it for the new ORM provider. Later on, I was assigned to extend the application further for an additional ORM provider.

The new application is delivered to multiple customers of Serenata IntraWare and allows them to connect their online reputation directly to guests.

09/2014 - 03/2015
Fullstack Developer & Data Integration Developer
Serenata IntraWare (Other, 10-50 employees)

Serenata IntraWare was a small-sized business that provides whitelabel CRM solutions for the Hospitality-Industry to high class hotel chains around the world. The company’s headquarter is located in Munich, Germany and had around 30 employees.

Serenata IntraWare required a new data interface towards its technology partner Oracle. The new interface had to replace the previous interfaces due to license regulations for data acquisition related to its CRM solution. I was involved as the responsible developer towards the conduction and execution of the implementation of the business critical new application. I took my role after requirements had been loosely gathered by the architect.

My task involved implementation as well as overseeing the overall status and quality assurance. During the project I was in close contact with the solution manager from Oracle to adapt changes as needed. As a direct follow-up project, I was confided with the implementation of the communication back-channel, allowing for a two-way communication.

The project's results had been deployed for one customer and did allow for a scalable installation at future clients as well.

07/2014 - 12/2014
Fullstack Developer
Serenata Intraware GmbH (Other, 10-50 employees)

Serenata IntraWare was a small-sized business that provides whitelabel CRM solutions for the Hospitality-Industry to high class hotel chains around the world. The company’s headquarter is located in Munich, Germany and had around 30 employees.

The company wanted to deliver weather forecasts to guests of their customers within their existing CRM solution.

I acted as the leading software developer for the implementation of the forecast application. Due to compatibility in various email clients, a dynamic creation of images was chosen. I carried out the architectural design and implementation, including the interface to the weather forcast API weatherunderground.com and a sophisticated database caching of this data.
Furthermore I provided test guidelines to the inhouse test engineers.

The result was a dynamically generated and highly visual customizable weather forecast application that generates forecasts for thousands of guests of multiple hotel chains around the world.

03/2014 - 09/2014
User Interface Designer
Serenata Intraware GmbH (Other, 10-50 employees)

Serenata IntraWare was a small-sized business that provides whitelabel CRM solutions for the Hospitality-Industry to high class hotel chains around the world. The company’s headquarter is located in Munich, Germany and had around 30 employees.

A new visual style for the NetHotel suite of Serenata IntraWare had to be designed as part of a case study. After an evaluation phase of the shortcomings of the current visual framework, requirements towards a new framework had been gathered.

Later on, I carried out the creation of visual mock-ups and sketches, for demonstrating the benefits and improvements that a user-focused design is able to provide. Core requirements for a redesign were specified by me and an exemplary project plan was presented. These concepts excited the management to go forward on this project.

03/2014 - 09/2014
Database Specialist
Serenata Intraware GmbH (Other, 10-50 employees)

Serenata IntraWare was a small-sized business that provides whitelabel CRM solutions for the Hospitality-Industry to high class hotel chains around the world. The company’s headquarter is located in Munich, Germany and had around 30 employees.

New customers at Serenata IntraWare often required to integrate the customers former IT landscape within the NetHotel suite. As an integration specialist in multiple data import and export projects, I worte customized T-SQL Scripts to conduct automated imports, as well as the implementation of data-import and export solutions for data migration. These allowed the customer to automatize reoccurring integration tasks and providing its customers with an integration of their diverse IT landscapes.

04/2012 - 12/2012
Business Process Model & Visual Language Designer

DAIMLER AG - NIPRO PROJECT

The Daimler AG is one of the world's leading cooperations in the automobile industry. It employs worldwide over 250.000
employees and at its site in Ulm, Germany, a major research and development facility is located.

Business Process Model & Visual Language Designer




? April 2012 - December 2012 ? Ulm

Achim took part in the research project "niPRO - Personalized and Intelligent Process Portals" (funded by the German Federal
Ministry of Education and Research under Support Code 17102X10). He participated with his research in the search and
development of new graphical notations for Business Process Management (BPM) portals in the context of semantical technologies
and context-awareness. Within this frame, Achim researched and described several new approaches to a business
process notation and an exemplary implementation of a HTML based click through model. This model contributed to a userfriendly
visualization of the BPM.
While the resulting scientific output is confidential and restricted from publishing, some elements have been officially published
"Enabling a User-Friendly Visualization of Business Process Models" 2014.

Research BPMN LaTex CSS HTML Inkscape Adobe Edge

04/2008 - 02/2011
Teacher & Research Assistant
Institute of Databases and Information Systems Uni Ulm (Other, 1000-5000 employees)

* Tutoring students in Programming Systems I.
* Supporting practical courses.
* Maintenance & support of online courses.

Local Availability

Only available in these countries: Spain
I am willing to travel to your premises in regular intervals for e.g. every one or two months.
As I have long experience in remote work I am the ideal match for your position, serving your company and team remotely.
Profileimage by Achim Strauss Senior Full Stack Developer from Madrid Senior Full Stack Developer
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