About Me
Hello,
I'm Matthias, 38 years old, happily married and father of two lovely kids. I'm offering consulting & coaching services in software engineering.
That means I like to read, write, and discuss program code! Preferably in Java, JavaScript/ES6, or Python.
I put a high emphasis on "clean code" paradigms, automated testing & DevOps.
my software development skills
I have been working in highly collaborative, cross-functional developer teams as both developer and product owner for almost 15 years.
Some claim that "Agile is dead". Well, it might or might not be, but in my experience it's sadly often misunderstood or mis-applied. It is the core values of Agile which remain crucial for me.
I can support teams in embracing those values, boost their productivity, and have more fun!
my principles of coaching dev teams
Last but not least, my educational background and passion is in everything about Geospatial / GIS. I've been in love with maps ever since my childhood.
It's not a must-have, but I very much like to work in that domain.
my experience with geodata & GIS
~
ENGINEERING
LANGUAGES
Java (17), Groovy and JavaScript/ES6. To a lesser degree Python. A bit C++ and PHP a long time
ago. Bash helps with many things. Linux user.
Keen to look into Kotlin, Golang or Rust.
PARADIGMS
I have fun writing and discussing clean and expressive code with my teammates. I embrace Extreme Programming methods when meaningful, especially pair programming.
I enjoyed a lot working trunk-based, otherwise advertise short-lived branches and human code reviews.
TESTING
JUnit 5 or Spock in the backend, Jasmine / Jest in the frontend. Selenium-based tools for service / system tests.
Testing means a lot to me, I like to work test-driven, putting a high focus on clean test code.
FRAMEWORKS
I’ve worked with the Spring framework (Boot, Data, Security) for almost a decade now. I have a bit experience in Django as well.
Frontend-wise, I’m an experienced React developer (up to v16), plus some older JS tools from the pre-React era.
Keen to look into FastAPI, Vue & Flutter.
DESIGN & UX
I don’t shy away from CSS, I’m familiar with advanced concepts, Flexbox, CSS Grid, Sass and Less. I wrote automated tests to ensure rendered pages look identical across different browsers. I have optimised web pages for page speed and Web Vitals.
I’m a hobby graphic designer and frequent user of GIMP and Inkscape.
DATABASES
I’ve been using PostgreSQL for 15+ years, and am familiar with SQL query performance optimisation. There was a time when I wrote a lot of functions in PL/pgSQL.
Basic knowledge of SQLite and MongoDB.
Keen to look into DuckDB, and vector databases.
DEVOPS & CLOUD
Working in containerised environments with Docker for almost ten years now. Deployed into the Google Cloud Platform or AWS using Kubernetes.
I flourish in highly collaborative setups where empowered dev teams have an end2end ownership for building & running their code, integrating & releasing small changes often.
MONITORING & ALERTING
I’m happy digging logs, building dashboards & alerts based on the ELK stack, Prometheus & Grafana, or more recently with Datadog. I’m familiar with SRE concepts and setting up an incident management.
SYSTEM DESIGN / ARCHITECTURE
I’ve worked extensively with the design & implementation of REST APIs, typically in a micro-service environment. More recently worked with GraphQL. I have worked in-depth with event-driven architectures using Apache Kafka and RabbitMQ.
I was part of a pioneering work group shipping “micro-frontends” at REWE, using a dynamic page composition approach.
DEV TEAM COACHING
"We never deploy on Fridays."
"I still need to 'fix' all those broken tests, it just takes too much time."
"Let me check your massive PR. Yeah... LGTM. Please merge, but make sure to have QA guys test it thoroughly."
"Let’s do a hotfix, our regular pipeline is too slow. We need this urgently on prod, let's skipt QA."
...?!
Gotcha!
With 10+ yrs experience working in agile (or so-called) teams, I've been there, too.
Broken windows that never get fixed, but everyone happily stepping through?
Awkward silence about the elephant in the room, e.g. everyone except the PM knowing the delivery forecast will never be met?
Low participation or motivation to reflect on your work culture in routine team retrospectives?
No more! Let's fix your process
and deliver value daily, without drama.
Because software engineering is a team activity.
Whatever your product / project is, it can only ever be as good and successful as the teams building it.
I support teams and organisations in embracing a radical Agile mindset. Thus, teams can have more fun, become more lean, and productive. The software they build will target user needs better and be more satisfying for both stakeholders and customers.
For happy coding,
satisfied developers, and customers.
❤️
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT COACHING
I have a “no shitshow agile” mindset of maximum transparency, honest assessments, early feedback, and a radical customer value driven process.
I’m a JIRA expert, and like to leverage it (and other tools) for streamlining the team process, capture and visualise team metrics.
DEVELOPER EXPERIENCE
I’m convinced that a great developer experience (DX) leads to a great user experience (UX). Thus, more attention should be paid to optimising DX!
I can support in establishing a highly collaborative culture in dev teams, drive inspiration and innovation through frequent feedback sessions, team workshops, and team metrics.
I find liberating structures a great tool, and have hosted some workshops using them.
(TECHNICAL) PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
As a product owner, I worked across multiple teams and gathered strong experience in both stakeholder and development team management.
I’m used to think from the user perspective, and want to understand the value behind everything I am designing, building, or reviewing. I have successfully applied methods from Design Thinking & UX Research.
GEOSPATIAL
My background and passion is in geospatial data.I love everything around maps, and our whereabouts.
Me and my family are based here, btw:
I graduated in Geodesy and Geoinformatics from the University of Hannover. Those studies gave me a solid background in many fields, including mathematics, statistical analysis, cartography, land surveying, geodesy, gravimetry, remote sensing, and geospatial computer science.
I'm always keen and extra motivated to work in the geospatial domain. I follow the developments in the community closely, especially about the more recent advent of cloud-native geospatial.
Let's transform your location-enabled data into the modern age of cloud-native geospatial.
🌍 🛰️
GEOSPATIAL DATA PROCESSING
For almost two decades I have been utilising PostGIS, pgRouting, GDAL, OGR, GRASS, Geotools/JTS, Shapely, OGC Services et al. within both programmatic and Desktop GIS driven processing pipelines.
I have worked extensively with both vector and raster data analysis and processing, often involving large amounts of data.
I prefer to work with the rich palette of open-source geospatial tools, including QGIS, over the ESRI suite.
WEB GIS
I love to explore and create any kind of maps. I have used Geoserver, OpenLayers, Leaflet, Google and Mapbox SDKs, leveraging the great OpenStretMap data for creating them.
I am familiar with the OSM data structure, and the Nominatim geocoder.
Keen to look more deeply into rising “cloud-native” geospatial concepts, e.g. STAC, TiTiler, or the GeoParquet format.