Azure DevOps Experts in Cologne

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

• Interim PO for a DiGA-listed digital therapy platform, ensuring compliant product development in a highly regulated SaMD environment (BfArM, BSI) while maintaining delivery pace.
• Challenge: Regulatory complexity combined with hands-on delivery responsibility and only one week of onboarding time.
• Impact: Introduced AI-assisted product development workflows with clear quality standards and reinstated regular short release cycles for faster, more precise delivery. Currently optimizing product development workflows and reducing AI-generated bloat in tickets and documentation.
• Introduced an OCR-based workflow in Langdock that automates therapy plan creation from prescription images.

• Structured analysis and evaluation of business processes

• Gathering, documenting, and prioritizing requirements

• Creating business-friendly and technically executable process models

• Use of Camunda tools

• Deriving requirements and interfaces from BPMN diagrams

• Coordination with stakeholders and business units

• Translating business requirements into technical solution designs

• Implementing efficient and tailored applications

• Systematic collection, analysis, and documentation of requirements

• Prioritizing and validating requirements in close collaboration with stakeholders

• Alignment between business and development to ensure shared objectives

• Creating use cases, user stories, and acceptance criteria

• Continuous requirements and change management throughout the project lifecycle

• Define project goals and create project plans

• Delegate tasks and monitor project progress

• Monitor budgets and inform stakeholders

• Mendix: Architecture, development, and maintenance of custom applications (Microflows, Domain Model, Security, XPath)

• Modeling Mendix workflows for process optimization

• Develop scalable apps with Mendix including REST/SOAP integration with SAP, SQL, Azure & SharePoint

• UI design for Mendix using Atlas UI, Fluent UI, HTML, CSS, JavaScript

• Develop web & mobile apps with Mendix using agile methods (Scrum, Kanban)

• Implement business logic with Mendix Microflows and Nanoflows

• Performance optimization and architecture improvements for Mendix applications

• Conduct Mendix training

• Create technical documentation and best practices for Mendix

• Coaching and mentoring for low-code development with Mendix

Architected and maintained data products for renewable energy operations, covering wind turbine, grid-meter, and weather data. Built scalable ETL/ELT pipelines in Azure Databricks using Delta Lake (bronze/silver/gold layers) and processed data in various formats, including structured and semi-structured data. Contributed to a data quality framework supporting table and column documentation, outlier detection, and completeness metrics across all datasets within a data product. In addition, implemented a DORA KPI Databricks dashboard used across all data products. Optimized CI/CD processes in Azure DevOps to streamline deployment across development, test, and production environments.

Technology stack: Azure Databricks, PySpark, SQL, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Azure Data Lake, APIs, Dremio, Azure DevOps, YAML, Git, Databricks Workflows, Application Insights, Terraform, OpenAI API, Codex, LLM-assisted workflows

• Unified AI initiatives through the central coordination and integration of artificial intelligence projects to increase efficiency and business value.
• Identified and prioritized AI use cases through business process analysis and translated them into structured product backlogs and roadmaps.
• Led change management activities, including the introduction of new digital tools, communication strategies, and training concepts to support cultural change.
• Managed requirements and processes through end-to-end requirements analysis, process modeling, and organizational optimization.
• Scaled agile practices (Scrum, Kanban, OKRs) and promoted cross-functional collaboration and continuous improvement.
• Supported company-wide digital transformation by leading technical change initiatives and strengthening collaboration models.

• AI-assisted creation of test cases and test data
• Creation of test cases based on requirements
• Execution of manual tests
• Defect documentation, retesting and tracking

Technologies & Tools: SCRUM, Jira, Confluence, Zephyr Scale

• Built more than 15 frontend applications and more than 10 backend services across internal tools, back-office workflows, and external portals for installers and end customers
• Automate build and release workflows with TypeScript and Azure DevOps
• Mentor junior engineers through code reviews and technical guidance
• Integrate AI-assisted and agentic development practices into engineering workflows
• Coordinate user experience decisions with UX designers

Tech Stack: Claude Code, Codex, AWS (S3, Lambda, AppSync, Resolver), Next.js App Router, ReactJS, NuxtJS, Vue.js, Storybook, JavaScript, TypeScript, GraphQL, Azure DevOps

AI Strategy & Enablement for SMEs Management consulting – SMEs (e.g. marketing boutique, IT & office services)

Concept and delivery of structured AI introduction and strategy workshops for small and medium-sized businesses. Result: Practical AI status assessment, prioritized use case list, and management decision template as the basis for the next steps in the company’s AI development.

Activities

• Needs analysis and individual preparation of the consulting formats
• Facilitation of a structured AI status assessment including vision, mission, and target picture
• Identification and prioritization of relevant AI use cases and action fields
• Creation of management decision templates and roadmaps
• Raising awareness for opportunities, risks, and success factors of AI introduction
• Support for first customers with AI-supported automation scenarios
• Supporting people and teams through the change process of AI introduction (CM)

Methods / Tools / Technologies

Methods:

• AI status assessment & use case analysis
• Workshop moderation / facilitation
• Requirement Management
• Change Management (PROSCI)

Tools:

• Generative AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT, Claude)
• Automation/AI coding tools (e.g. n8n, Claude Code, Visual Studio, Antigravity)

Technologies:

• Prompt engineering
• AI workflow automation

• Regulated environment within a German banking group (approx. 8,500 employees, hybrid cloud strategy).

• Responsible for operating, provisioning, and continuously securing business-critical platforms – including a GenAI chat application, a big data/AI platform, and data science workspaces based on Azure Virtual Desktops and VMs. Ownership of Azure DevOps projects for ShaiHulud and React2Shell, as well as BSI alerts – Security Operations improvements across the SDLC.

• Deployment responsibility for the GenAI chat application, big data/AI platform (BDAI), and data science workspaces (AVD/VM-based) in the respective landing zones.

• Deployment & release management: end-to-end responsibility for deploying portal and service applications across multiple Azure landing zones, including technical approvals, compliance with development team deployment guidelines, and ensuring ITIL-based change and release processes via ServiceNow.

• Azure landing zones & network architecture: design, provisioning, and operation of Azure landing zones for 3-tier web applications with enhanced network segmentation, VNet peering, hub-and-spoke architectures, private endpoints, and firewall integration across separate subscriptions and tenants.

• Azure DevOps governance & operations: ownership of the Azure DevOps organization, including projects, repositories, and CI/CD pipelines; implementation of governance requirements such as branch policies, approval gates, permission models, and audit-ready operating structures.

• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform): design, implementation, and operation of a modular Terraform architecture for standardized cloud infrastructure deployment, including state management, provider versioning, reusability, and policy-as-code approaches.

• CI/CD pipeline engineering: design, operation, and optimization of complex YAML-based CI/CD pipelines with multi-stage deployments, template standardization, self-hosted agents, integrated secret management, and automated quality and security checks.

• Git migration & platform consolidation: planning and execution of repository and pipeline migration from Azure DevOps to GitLab CI/CD, including automated scripts, full Git history transfer, pipeline porting, and platform consolidation.

• Container & platform operations (AKS): operation and security assessment of containerized workloads on Azure Kubernetes Service, centralization of on-premises container registries for ACR.

• OpenShift (OCP) security reviews: security assessment of code baselines, build pipelines, and deployment processes for on-premises OpenShift clusters with critical applications, and derivation of specific hardening recommendations.

• Shift-left security & DevSecOps transformation: introduction of a company-wide shift-left approach for early security integration in development and deployment processes, enabling developers to perform self-led security checks and sustainably reduce vulnerabilities before production (IDE integrations, pre-commit hooks, local scanners).

• Software supply chain security: analysis and mitigation of supply chain risks in NPM- and Yarn-based applications through dependency audits, CI/CD pipeline hardening, token rotation, and restriction of risky build and lifecycle mechanisms.

• Frontend & framework security (React / Next.js): security assessment and coordination of critical vulnerability remediation across platform applications and web frameworks, including coordination and complementary technical mitigations with all teams following BSI alerts.

• Software composition analysis (SCA): introduction and operation of automated vulnerability scans for container images, pipelines/artifacts, and third-party dependencies, including SBOM exports within CI/CD pipelines.

• SAST/DAST integration: design and piloting of static and dynamic application security tests in close collaboration with security architecture and development teams, for continuous improvement of code and runtime security, and establishing operational acceptance tests.

• Artifact & registry consolidation: analysis and consolidation of all package and container repositories for service applications and AKS workloads, aiming for a centralized, secured registry strategy with centralized vulnerability scanning and governance.

• Dependency-Track & SBOM strategy: advising the compliance board on introducing a central SBOM and vulnerability management platform to increase enterprise-wide dependency transparency and accelerate CVE response capability.

• CI/CD pipeline hardening: security analysis and cleanup of the existing pipeline landscape by removing unused pipelines, improving secrets hygiene, implementing least-privilege principles, and isolating build agent environments.

• Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) optimization: analysis and tuning of existing Azure WAF rules (OWASP Top 10 Core Rule Set, DSR/SDC, custom rules) to defend against known vulnerabilities and exploit patterns, including reducing false positives and improving threat detection.

• Documentation & stakeholder communication: creating and maintaining technical documentation, runbooks, and architecture overviews in Jira and Confluence, as well as active knowledge transfer between operations, development, security, and compliance stakeholders.

• Further development of a policy administration system (contract/claims) for the legal expenses insurer ÖRAG.
• My role: Senior Software Developer.
• The team consists of 12 developers.
• Technologies used: Java 8/21, Java EE, Quarkus, WebLogic, JPA, RabbitMQ, JTA, CI, CD, Jenkins, DB2, Maven, Jenkins, GIT (bitbucket) later GitLab, Junit, Elasticsearch, Mockito, Jira, SonarQube, Scrum, React, Workflow
• Migration and modernization of legacy systems: rewrote C and C++ code in Java to improve maintainability, scalability, and performance. Refactored Python into Java, including optimization and integration into modern architectures.
• Study on the use of AI (Codex) for implementing a Java feature. The goal is to compare the time spent and productivity of AI-supported development with a classic implementation by a developer. The results should show how strongly the use of AI affects development time and efficiency.
• Development of the following tariff calculators for the years 2024/2026: private, companies, doctors, farmers, owner-occupied G + H, landlords, traffic, club, top managers, sales representatives, special criminal law, savings bank, municipal, BayGT, doctors, Dehoga

• Implementation of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with Terraform to ensure a scalable, repeatable, and secure Azure infrastructure
• Implementation and optimization of CI/CD pipelines with Azure DevOps
• Management of container and server environments and AKS

• Responsible for the architecture and development of an AI-native SaaS platform for industrial product portfolio management.
• Designed the modern data platform architecture on Azure for scalable analytics and enterprise data integration.
• Built enterprise data ingestion and transformation pipelines across complex industrial system landscapes.
• Developed graph-based representations of product structures and dependencies for analytical reasoning.
• Designed and implemented an agentic AI framework for AI-supported decision workflows.
• Built scalable analytical microservices and integrated reporting through modern BI technologies.
• Coordinated backend, AI, and frontend development across the MYNR platform stack.

• Further development of the application landscape for Planing, Forecasting and Pricing

• Communication with internal stakeholders to standardize the application landscape across all companies

• Optimization of vendor management

• API and batch processing

• Creation of operating concepts

• Ensuring compliance with requirements and operating processes

• Supporting solution design as well as the implementation and further development of new applications and services

• ServiceNow

• Virtual Machines (Windows / Linux)

• M365 Products

• Azure DevOps

• Web Applications

Focus:

Consulting in reporting and project management for Power BI

Goal:

Creation of IT application dashboards for business areas

Activities:

• Technical consulting and support in managing and coordinating an existing reporting setup
• Structured collection, analysis, and preparation of business reporting requirements
• Technical coordination with defined internal contacts
• Design and optimization of Power BI reports to improve data analysis
• Development of concepts and recommendations for the further development of an efficient and transparent reporting system
• Support in the user-friendly visualization of relevant company KPIs as a basis for decision-making

Tools/Skills: MS-PowerBI, DAX, MS-Office 365, PowerQuery M, BCS