My story as a web native

I still remember that massive book my brother gave for my twelve’s birthday. Back when going online involved a modem, Netscape Communicator, more bits and pieces of software, and a few minutes just to get everything started. But thanks to that book and some funny ideas in my head as motivation, I learned JavaScript, HTML and CSS to create my first interactive websites in the mid 90s. Later I learned TurboPascal and Delphi to create desktop software. These initial sparks lead to studying computer science with a mix of graphic design and usability engineering. While hacking away on uni assignments and little open source side projects, I started working on designing and building a CMS for a small web agency — cutting edge technology back then with a WYSIWYG editor and a in-place editing — and it paid my bills. Being curious about living and working abroad, I then took a junior researcher position at the University of Trento in Italy in 2007. After two years, I changed to work as research engineer at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence in Germany. I learned a lot during that time but also realized that I’m not a 9-5er office person. Thus, in 2013, I started working as a freelance web technology consultant & developer and gathered experience in marketing, technical writing, and communications. And just before the crypto frenzy was in full swing in 2017, I started my deep dive into blockchain technology and by the end of that year, I joined the Nimiq Project as full time contractor. If you’re a German speaker, Hollow White might be an interesting project for you. I started hollowwhite.de together with a good friend from uni — he wrote a book and together with turned into an interactive text adventure. The source code is on GitHub.

Throughout my career, I’ve experienced a wide range of projects, teams, frameworks, and management approaches. I worked with privately held companies, universities, research centers, start-ups, as well as NGOs/NPOs. I learned that a) it’s important to love what you do, b) that working culture is at least as important as the software stack, c) the importance of project management is often underrated.

While moving through projects, I also moved through countries and continents and became an avid traveler with a love for refreshing my synapses by immersing into new cultures and ideas. So, during these years I lived in Germany, Italy, Greece, Australia, Taiwan, and Costa Rica and understood what a beautiful and colorful place our little blue marble is. It’s at the core of my personality to seek for harmony within myself, with friends, colleagues, and nature as a whole.