arc42 Experts in Germany

• Functional requirements management for DIVID, the Umweltbundesamt platform for administering the single-use plastics fund. Focus: entitled parties, sub-entitled parties, and benefit reports.
• Consolidation and analysis of specifications, Jira, Confluence, functional concepts, and UX designs. Independent structuring and delimitation of requirements, as well as identification of contradictions, gaps, and dependencies.
• Creation and quality assurance of implementable user stories with clear, testable acceptance criteria. Preparation of decision alternatives and coordination with business, development, UX, and QA through team refinement.
• Conducting manual and technically assisted accessibility tests. Coordinating findings with QA and the Product Owner for further planning and implementation.
• Result: more consistent requirements, clearly defined processes and stories, and transparent open decisions. Separation of assumptions from confirmed requirements; better basis for implementation, refinements, and QA test cases.

Tools used: Jira, Confluence

• Technical leadership across hardware, firmware, and software teams; scope: hardware/firmware team (4 people) and leadership group (5 people)
• Consolidated and documented a product family that had grown over more than 15 years and aligned it with CRA compliance — from the bare-metal I/O module to the cloud interface.
• Provided the most important customer product with the essential requirements and architecture documentation within two months — for a firmware landscape that had grown over more than 15 years. It now supports the customer’s modernization strategy.
• Established a monthly reporting line to the supervisory board and executive board within three months: nine meetings since 12/2025. The report itself is versioned and built from the CI pipeline; it is based on automatically collected activity and release data instead of assessments.
• Built a container-based CI/CD infrastructure from scratch: cross-compilation, host tests, and documentation builds in one continuous pipeline.
• Introduced declarative QA gates for DevOps and development artifacts — from the start using lefthook instead of pre-commit, executed in a dedicated container image.

Technologies used: arc42, req42, tpo42, docToolchain, PlantUML, ArchiMate, C4 model, ADR, C, C++ (GTest), CMake, Bare Metal (ARM Cortex-M3/M7), OCI containers, Jenkins, lefthook, Prometheus, Grafana, SBOM, CRA, OPC, SCADA, PLC integration, IPv6 migration, Zero Trust, Sociocracy 3.0, Cynefin

Stabilization of an Azure/.NET landscape in live operation.

• Architecture, DevOps, and operational readiness; technical decisions under time pressure
• Azure DevOps, monitoring, ETL/ELT, cloud security, FinOps, and data-mesh-related topics

Technologies: Azure DevOps, .NET, CI/CD, monitoring, FinOps

• Recurring problem in my own AI-assisted projects: requirements analysis, use cases, and architecture decisions can be created quickly with AI support, but remain difficult to follow and scattered across Markdown files – knowledge is lost as soon as it is no longer in the context window. arknet turns requirements engineering and architecture knowledge into structured, verifiable data instead of plain text: requirements, use cases, and architecture decisions form a consistently linked knowledge graph, traceable from requirement to architecture decision – queryable by both people and AI agents. Technically based on RDF/OWL and a custom MCP server.

• Result: Working MCP daemon, Docker image published automatically to GHCR, nine hexagonal modules, eleven ADRs (including an Open-Core licensing model). Requirements engineering and Ubiquitous Language hexagons are active. Public as a Community Edition under Apache-2.0 since 07/2026 (github.com/kogn-io/arknet), together with the Claude Code plugin and GHCR image; Open-Core model.

• Label: Java, Maven, RDF, RDF4J, OWL, SPARQL, Model Context Protocol, Spring AI, Docker, GitHub, Git, Claude Code, Obsidian, DDD, Hexagonal Architecture, ArchUnit, JUnit, AssertJ, Interface Development, Software Architecture, Continuous Integration, Knowledge Management

• Clarification of project objectives, scope and the target business vision for building the AI-based knowledge database.
• Derivation of the initial architecture and implementation strategy for the Zasterbot chatbot, including separation of the MVP and further development stages.
• Development of a target business vision for building a structured knowledge database and integrating a future chatbot.
• Derivation and prioritization of use cases for information retrieval and provision by the chatbot.
• Modeling of data structures and flows for the effective organization of the knowledge database on the Base44 platform.
• Design and implementation of data models for storing and linking relevant information.
• Development of processes for extracting, analyzing and preparing raw data for the knowledge database.
• Ensuring data consistency and quality as the basis for the future chatbot.
• Planning the integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) for precise and context-specific answers.
• Implementation of functions for analyzing and displaying data from the knowledge database.
• Use of the Base44 platform with JSON Schema-based entities and a flexible permission concept.
• Implementation of Deno functions for backend logic, event processing and connecting external APIs.
• Integration of OpenAI services for initial data analysis.

• Development of safety-related embedded software for a mobile machine on a Hydac TTC 2390 controller.
• Implementation in C with consideration of SIL 3 / ASIL D and MISRA-C:2025.
• Implementation of communication via CAN, CANopen, and J1939.

Standards, guidelines and norms: ISO 26262, IEC 61508, MISRA-C:2025

Technologies: C99, Hydac TTC 2390, Infineon TriCore Aurix TC397, Hightec C/C++ Compiler, PC-lint Plus, CAN, CANopen, J1939, MISRA-C:2025

With project PRIZMA, DB will modernize its infrastructure on the one hand, and develop a fail-safe IT landscape on the other hand, which can be restored quickly and securely in case of a disaster.

• Capture current architectures of existing systems as well as methodical consulting and development of target architectures
• Deepen and maintain the building plan / target IT landscape
• Implement technical architecture concepts & architecture descriptions
• Implement migration concepts for updating and further developing the platform and information systems
• Assess submitted improvement suggestions as part of the project
• Capability management: identify capability gaps, develop target visions, and support transformation planning within the enterprise architecture.
• Create a compatibility matrix of the components in use and compare dependencies of specific versions
• Create an IT concept for extending the platform with the following topics: hardware and software requirements, security, licensing, high availability, load balancing, backup & recovery, update strategy, monitoring integration, etc.
• Coordinate with business architects as well as technical architects from the cross-functional architecture area of the PRISMA program for the topics (backup, Active Directory, monitoring, Citrix, and business applications ...)
• Status meetings and alignment of project planning with the Release Train Engineer / Project Manager
• Advise the Release Train Engineer / Project Manager in identifying project risks
• Advise the System Architect Engineers in steering the implementation of the concept
• Implement the IT concept
• Document the infrastructure

Label: MS Project, LINUX, Windows, ORACLE, Java, REST, SharePoint, Microsoft Exchange, UML, Enterprise Architect, BPMN, AZURE, AWS, V-MODEL, Micro Service, VisualStudio, SAP S/4HANA, SCRUM(SAFE), ESB (TIBCO), Python, Innovator, LeanIX (TOGAF), Ansible, Ansible Tower, Ansible Automation, ROBOT, SpringBoot

Topics:

• Further development of the CRM system NKAM and technical separation of “direct” and “indirect” sales
• Redesign of the discount management area and outsourcing to another system.
• Designing numerous improvements on the wholesale side to reduce manual effort down to the level of user stories.

• Client: Prime Force Group GmbH

Technologies used: Java 25, Spring Boot 4, MapStruct, JSpecify, PostgreSQL, Redis, Liquibase, REST/OpenAPI, Apache Kafka, Apache Solr, OpenID Connect via IronGate/Keycloak, SAP Customer Data Cloud, JUnit, Testcontainers, Karate, Playwright, GitLab monorepo with CI/CD, Jenkins, JFrog Artifactory, FluxCD, Docker, Kubernetes on Azure, OpenTelemetry, arc42, Jira, Confluence

The Team Management Center is the new central platform of the DFB for planning, managing, and carrying out team activities for the national teams - from squad selection and training camps to communication with players, clubs, and legal guardians. The platform is designed for multi-tenancy for the DFB and regional associations; player, club, and master data are intentionally not copied, but connected at runtime via the DFBnet APIs.

I have been involved in the project continuously since the architecture and concept phase (Sprint 0) and work in a distributed Scrum team in two-week sprints. In addition to implementation, my focus is on architecture alignment, connecting the DFBnet interfaces, as well as code reviews and test automation as quality assurance in the team.

Focus areas:

• Development and implementation of the multi-tenancy concept (tenant model for the DFB and regional associations), including data model, access layer, and Liquibase migrations.
• Design of the person service and the search concept based on Apache Solr.
• Integration of the DFBnet APIs (player, person, and club search, club data), including authentication and synchronous master data synchronization.
• Hardening the integration through resilience patterns: separate read timeouts for each search path, correction of circuit breaker counting, limiting parallel requests, and a club cache to reduce load on the external system.
• Development of self-service endpoints for players (own activities, activity details, games), including an access concept for participants, as well as person documents and file uploads.
• Standardization of API design: OpenAPI annotations, nullability model via a custom ModelConverter, JSpecify migration of the DTOs, and documented API guidelines.
• Build and maintenance of Karate-based API and integration tests, integration tests with Testcontainers, test guidelines, and bug triage from the integration and reference environments.
• Code reviews via merge requests, architecture documentation according to arc42, and architecture decisions (ADRs) in Confluence.
• Automated deployment to the integration and reference environments, analysis of login and OIDC issues in combination with IronGate.

Status: ongoing - as of 08/2026 in Sprint 17, around 940 person hours worked; testable delivery to the integration environment every two weeks.

IT consulting, analysis, architecture design, new and further development, code review, test automation, continuous integration, continuous delivery in backend and frontend areas for Automotive Project Instavalo.

Frontend:

• Implementation of UI components according to specifications, especially style guides and responsive design eith React and Typescript
• Component testing
• Code documentation
• CI/CD with Gitlab Pipeline

Backend / IoT:

• Analysis and architectural design with AWS Greengrass IoT on Edge Devices
• Setting up Microservices containers with Docker Compose on Edge device with AWS Greengrass and AWS IoT IAM, Token Exchange Service, Ansible
• CI/CD with Gitlab Pipeline, Terraform, AWS ECR
• Logging with Fluentbit Lua Language for AWS Cloudwatch
• Python Lambda for AWS Greengrass Recipe deployment on Edge Devices
• Implementation of test-driven development with JUnit, Mockito, and code Coverage
• Jacoco
• Definition of REST interfaces with OpenAPI / Swagger
• Development and enhancement of software based on Java Quarkus, Typescript NestJs NodeJs and Python
• Authentication and authorization in Aws IAM
• Development of REST and gRPC interfaces for the frontend and backend
• Implementation of Maven dependencies with DevSecOps OWASP
• Spring AI, Jetbrains AI Assistant, Junie, Github Copilot, Claude Code, Agents, Skills, Command, Hooks, Subagents

• C# development .Net 8.0
• Technical responsibility for architecture decisions (DDD, Clean Architecture, Microservices)
• Introduction and systematic evaluation of GitHub Copilot, analysis of efficiency benefits, identification of suitable application scenarios, assessment of code quality
• Development of best practices for using Copilot within the team, support during rollout and coaching of individual developers
• Conducting code reviews, architecture documentation according to Arc42
• Building stable CI/CD pipelines with Azure DevOps, introduction of automated quality assurance with SonarQube and .editorconfig
• Collaboration with stakeholders to continuously optimize technical concepts
• Technologies used: Azure Devops Server, Git, Sonarqube, Visual Studio 2022, Sparx EA 17, Nagios LS, Nagios XI, C#, Resharper 2.24.3, Clean Architecture, DDD, EF-Core, Arc24, Microservices, Angular, MediatR, SignalR, Copilot, OpenAI

• Developed a Flutter app for eID ID card logins
• Focus: Flutter, iOS, eID, AusweisAppSDK, Mason, Keycloak, Agentic Coding, Arc42, Jenkins

• PRISMA project
• Ansible automation
• Windows third-level support for Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows 2013, Windows 2016, Windows 2019

• Development and maintenance of IT architectures with embedded Linux systems.
• Designing, implementing, and optimizing backend applications and script-based solutions.
• Analyzing and resolving issues, including troubleshooting and user support.
• Developing and implementing security concepts for cloud solutions.
• Administering networks (DHCP, DNS, NTP, VPN).
• Technologies: Linux, PowerShell, Bash, Python, Ansible, Kubernetes, GitLab CI.
• Methods: Kanban.