tech entrepreneur
My profile easily fits into the one of highly-qualified software developers as according to the track record (with over 18 years of experience). In the past I have been managing teams up to 9 people. My role within “greenfield” (startup) environment has been the one of tech entrepreneur (CTO at PriceHubble AG, CTO at QRTag.ch) well-mixed with previous industry roles in software engineering (symmetrics gmbh, Itransition, Sam-Solutions, IRC.by). During the period of 2011-2016 I have been busy enabling researchers in Life Science of University of Zurich to do explorative data mining (Computer vision and image processing with custom-built Openstack-based Science Cloud coupled with HPC technologies) and data analysis (BigData analysis, machine learning, statistical and mathematical modeling) to perform scientifically-driven bleeding edge tasks. At the moment I am professionally active with the cloud-based SaaS digitalization of fintech by applying machine learning to predict prices on the real estate market. We are a small team at the heart of Zurich and we are building great stuff!
I consider myself lucky enough to discover the passion for electronics and computing very early in my life. Already in high school I was building amatuer radio-scheme devices and home computer networks. Playing with the modems (hosting a hobby BBS) and Internet telecommunications was a great deal of fun. Something that has started as a hobby, later shaped my life choices in getting education in software engineering (Dipl. Eng.), computer science (MSc.) and mathematics (Jacobs Bremen University). Tech opportunities available today are encouraging for restless competitive innovation. Out of swarm of streaming keywords I subscribe my attention mainly to the cloud (containers), e-commerce, fintech, VR/AR, blockchain, biohacking, BigData and Deep Learning.
I always try to learn by doing. My professional software career starts 1999 with a 3 months student project (the project was to do rewriting of legacy national database from Clipper to Delphi). I have been coding for an extra paycheck since then on, especially doing web. Another early episode of my career was co-founding IRC.by (2002 – 2004) – first national chat network. We have managed to establish a community of 60k users and even caught the attention of the local media. By now I have engaged and sharpen my skills in variety of multiple IT and software roles: as a system and network administrator, full-stack developer, security analyst, tester, software architect, business analyst, R&D developer, product owner, team leader and chief technical officer.
As a leader I like building efficient teams. Efficient for me means giving enough space for creative thinking outside of the box, i.e. always trying to see the full picture of the product or the solution, not just a few nice features to be add or bugs to be fixed. Keys to that among others are communication in the team; clear understanding of goals, responsibilities and tasks; providing room for learning and growth; motivating discipline and development under strict timeline; nursing the right team dynamics and sense of high-quality standards; openly praising excellency in delivered results. By enabling the right team play I enjoy being a part of achieving more than a single person ever could. Good leading must be always balanced out by pragmatic managing skills. This includes time planning, estimating risks, making the right calls, providing advice and enough information to support decisions in situations of stress or uncertainties, motivating and guiding competitive spirit, setting the priorities right when it comes to engineering debt.
There is always room to learn and improve as long as you see it and have the energy to change.