Rüdiger Schulz

Designed, built, and launched an internal event planning web application used by over 100 department leads for a large event, despite having no dedicated testing phase.

Ensured smooth, failure-free operation during first production use, leading to the tool being adopted for future events.

Automated catering calculations and related workflows, significantly reducing email communication and manual computation effort for meal planning.

Managed deployment and hosting on a Linux server using Coolify, including application setup and runtime operations.

Hired and guided a communication designer on UX while independently owning all technical decisions and implementation.

Developed and maintained core user-facing pages (search results, homepage, SEO landing pages), with a focus on robust automated tests, page performance, CMS integration, and SEO best practices.

Designed and implemented a new end-to-end lead funnel (Vue.js frontend, serverless backend) for customer inquiries, including protections against spam and fraud and integration with customer service tooling for CRM and manual review.

Delivered two multi-day online workshops on REST API design and implementation, upskilling internal teams on modern API practices and standards.

Integrated external realtor data and tools into the platform, enabling profile pages for key realtor partners and ensuring data consistency between their systems and the marketplace.

Designed and developed back-office applications and maintained the core platform using reactive Spring Boot with Kotlin.

Integrated the web application with SugarCRM to synchronize customer and deal data across systems via custom spring-data repository.

Migrated disparate cloud and CI setups (Heroku, Netlify, Travis CI) to a unified stack on Google Cloud, CircleCI, and Kubernetes, streamlining deployments and operations.

Introduced Kubernetes/Helm to the team by running an introductory workshop and establishing basic deployment patterns.

Designed Redis data structures to support performant, scalable access patterns in the new architecture.

Designed a web frontend for managing user access to internal VPN by running customer workshops, clarifying requirements, and translating them into a detailed UI concept.

Implemented the frontend as a React/Redux single-page application using test-driven development with Jest and Enzyme, covering edge cases discovered through mockups and user flows.

Led technical management of the online forum and social network, owning further development of the JavaScript frontends and Spring-based backends.

Drove the migration of legacy Perl and PHP backends to modern Java and Kotlin APIs, improving maintainability and alignment with the current stack; achieved 90% test coverage of new code.

Managed operations using Docker containers running on Hetzner, including deployment and runtime environment management.

Planned and defined the overall system architecture and coordinated contributions from the developer community; grew development team from two to ten persons.

Contributed to the development and maintenance of a large monolithic e-commerce backend in a multi-team setup, using Spring (MVC, Security, Data), Hibernate/JPA, and PostgreSQL with test-driven development and Maven/TeamCity.

Co-created a greenfield personalized product recommendation service in a cross-functional team, designing and implementing it independently of the existing monolith.

Provided architectural input on integrating the recommendation service and preparing it for a future microservices landscape, including interface boundaries and data flows.

Designed and implemented the core platform for a community-driven mobile content service, from initial concept to live production deployment.

Evaluated and selected the technology stack with a focus on modularity, scalability, and reusability, enabling the platform and team to grow without major rewrites.

Designed a modular architecture that allowed new developers to onboard quickly and contribute without deep knowledge of the entire system.

Ran small-scale offline marketing experiments to drive early user acquisition and validate interest in the product.