About me
I’m 29 years old. Since 1996, I’ve worked for different start-up companies in Germany. I started off as a programmer, then working as a software engineer and then I quickly rose though the ranks to management, because in start-ups very often the pyramid is built from the top downwards, so they just added staff under my position. During the last ten years, I’ve gained experience as a software engineer, as a consultant, as a team manager and as a project manager. Fortunately, I was able to manage to combine this “hands-on training on the job” with a formal education and earned a master’s degree in information science and business engineering at the University of Regensburg. Today I’m focusing on start-up management and advising investors, IT-conceptual design and assessment.
I recognized that you can only work as a software engineer for so long. I still think that while a lot of the daily management work can be performed by someone without an understanding of the fine-print of the technology he’s working with, a firm footing in computer science is necessary to successfully manage software projects! That simply comes with the fact that the map is not the territory. Software engineers can become the best software project managers. It doesn’t work the other way round.
I’m not alone with this belief. Joel Spolsky, according to his foreword to Richard Chapman’s book “In Search Of Stupidity”, seems to agree with me completely on the issue of programmers becoming the best managers. He also shows the statistics that back this point up.
However, all that doesn’t help if you don’t have necessary resources to complete a project. Finding the right people for a job is just as important as having the right tools. With the people over at coeno, we have found a great resource, just as we have with my brother’s company Trust Solutions and the excellent people at comapro.
Why would you want to work with me?
I think that I can aid you the most when you bring me in before a project is started, preferably while it’s being conceptualized. My main expertise is a broad background in all kinds of technologies and a firm understanding of the requirements for software systems in today’s markets. I also worked as a programmer, diving in directly, which I think is an important point, especially if a project is using cutting-edge technologies or in trouble. This makes it easy for me to act as an interface between your processes and strategy and your IT unit and their subcontractors.
My promise is that I invest a lot of time to keep up-to-date, in-depth knowledge about evolving technology trends and learn about the appropriate tools, so you don’t have to.