DevOps | Software Engineering | Leadership

I am a technologist, DevOps engineer, fullstack developer, product builder and entrepreneur. Turning ideas and visions into well-crafted technical solutions is my passion. As former Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of VC-backed cloud startup and market leader Talentry, I have over ten years of experience in software engineering, DevOps, cloud technology, leadership and entrepreneurship. In my role as CTO, I was responsible for building a global SaaS platform that is resilient, scalable, maintainable - and loved by our customers. Being a maker at heart, I have always remained in a hands-on engineering role while building a high-performance engineering organization.

Today, I act as an independent DevOps and software engineering consultant on a freelance basis. I enjoy both working as a hands-on engineer as well as taking over interim leadership roles. Although generally tech-agnostic, the stack I enjoy working with most is AWS, Terraform, Python, Typescript and React.
 

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My Experience

DevOps & IT Security

• Definition of the technical platform vision and responsibility for the entire system and cloud architecture 
• Running highly available and secure services, Kubernetes clusters and database systems for a global, multi-product HR SaaS platform
• Multiple migration projects of production systems, moving from legacy vendors and Azure to AWS (Kubernetes, EKS, Terraform, EC2, ECR, ELB, S3, Lambda, RDS, DynamoDB, KMS, Elasticsearch, ElastiCache, SQS, SES)
• Establishing proactive monitoring and alerting practices (CloudWatch, CloudTrail, SNS, DataDog, ELK, Prometheus, Grafana, SolarWinds) 
• Continuous optimization of CI/CD pipelines and deployment practices (immutable infrastructure, infrastructure-as-code, blue/green deployments, auto-deployments of feature branches, build speed reduction) 
• Continuously improving end-to-end developer experience (development environment performance, Docker caching, build process & tools, npm, gulp, Webpack, BrowserStack, GhostInspector)
• Overall responsibility for technical and organizational IT security and networking, for both cloud-based product infrastructure as well as internal IT (e.g. TLS/HTTPS, DNS, VPN, Azure AD, Office365, SSO, VPC, Security Groups, Bastion Hosts, AWS VPN, AWS Secrets Manager, HSTS, XSS, OWASP, internal IT security guidelines, building an internal ISMS, preparing for ISO27001 certification)
• Preparing and managing regular third-party IT security and data protection audits as well as penetration tests as required by enterprise customers (OWASP, GDPR, risk evaluation, remediation roadmaps) 
• Overall responsibility for data protection and in-depth experience with technical considerations of GDPR, close collaboration with external data protection officer
• Finding technical solutions for enterprise customer requests like handling data according to Russian data protection regulations or US-specific employment laws
• Management and delivery of more than 30 integration projects, including IBM Kenexa, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle Taleo, SmartRecruiters and greenhouse.io
• Close collaboration with customer-side decision-makers from the areas of IT, IT security, data protection, HR and purchasing

Software Engineering & Machine Learning

• Responsibility for overall software architecture and technical implementation of the product vision, from operational development to building and directing cross-functional product and engineering teams
• Shaping the agile software development life cycle across teams (Scrum, Kanban)
• Evaluating and gradually introducing domain-driven design to the code base
• Driving the execution of the roadmap of a highly configurable, multi-product HR SaaS solution that is available in 11 languages on three platforms, targeted at international enterprises (Python/Django, React.js, PHP/Symfony, Angular, REST, Kafka)
• Implementation of enterprise features like SSO, Workflow Automation, Domain Whitelisting, White-Label Branding, Custom Data Models, Compliance Management
• Building a serverless, Lambda-based integrations platform to facilitate efficient and flexible integration projects with customer HR and applicant tracking systems 
• Development and deployment of machine learning models predicting user behavior and exploratory data analysis (Jupyter, SageMaker, Numpy, Pandas)
• Direction of external engineering teams in Spain, Serbia, Vienna and Romania
• Management of customer implementation projects for corporates and SMEs

Entrepreneurship

• Co-founded and successfully built up Talentry GmbH, a leading and growing cloud software company in the talent relationship space with international enterprise clients such as Vodafone, Henkel, Universal Music or Axel Springer
• Successful closing of multiple venture capital financing rounds with a sum of over €9 million, partnering with Nauta Capital, Global Founders Capital and others 
• Many years of strategic collaboration with a high-profile advisory board

Leadership

• 8 years of experience as co-founder & managing director of a leading SaaS startup
• Total budget responsibility of over €4 million per year
• End-to-end hiring of various roles (including Tech Leads, Fullstack Developers, DevOps Engineers, VP Product, Designers, Product Managers), including sourcing, screening, interviewing, negotiating and optimizing recruiting processes
• Leadership and mentoring for tech leads, establishing the leadership approaches “Servant Leadership” and “Radical Candor”
• Disciplinary and technical leadership as well as personal development of more than 20 team members in the areas of Engineering, DevOps, Internal IT, Product Management and Design
• Introduction and continuous optimization of a company-wide target framework based on OKRs (Objectives & Key Results)
• Building an agile, value-based and healthy corporate culture (Kununu Top Employer, Focus-Business: Top Employer Medium-Sized Businesses 2018-2021)