Load Balancing Experts in Germany

• Strategic planning, detailed technical preparation and operational management of an email gateway migration in a security-critical government environment.
• Preparation of the technical specification and development of technical concepts and migration approaches in line with BSI requirements.
• Technical requirements management with business units, information security and operations.
• Coordination of external service providers, integrators and implementation partners; maintenance of project plans, milestones, resources, risks and dependencies.
• Regular reporting to project management, the program environment and internal stakeholders.

• Functional management and further development of a team of 28 IT employees (internal & external) in the areas of HelpDesk / HelpLine, RHEL (Red Hat), MUREX (trading system & applications), SAP basic operations
• Management of external service providers (including FI-TS for SAP basic operations)
• Personnel, resource and budget planning for the IT department and projects
• Introduction and establishment of regular communication formats (regular meetings, team and cross-departmental meetings)
• Ensuring application operations in a hybrid environment (Windows / Linux with database and web/application servers)
• Support for transformation projects to modernize the application landscape (e.g. DevOps approaches)
• Building and introducing digital IT procurement for hardware & software (e.g. with DELL)
• Development and management of the „IT Operations DOS" department based on the company strategy
• Preparation of management reports & decision papers on IT projects, optimization potential and automation opportunities
• Representing the department in Rentenbank committees and ensuring regulatory compliance (BaFin §44, DSGVO, BSI, MaRisk)

• Development of an agent-based governance platform for the automated assurance of EU AI Act compliance and ODA-compliant orchestration of AI services in complex enterprise environments.

• Design and implementation of an agent-based "Mission Control" framework (Aletheia Conductor) for autonomous state monitoring and process control.

• Development of "Compliance-as-Code" (CaC) solutions based on OPA/Rego for system-wide enforcement of regulatory guardrails.

• Integration of TM Forum ODA standards (TMF630, TMF622, TMF642) to ensure interoperability and standardization.

• Building a highly available event-driven architecture using Redpanda and CloudEvents v1.0 for near-real-time event processing.

• Implementation of an audit-proof "Evidence Chain" through cryptographic linking of trace logs in preparation for automated audits.

• Tech Stack: Java 21 (Quarkus Native), TypeScript (Next.js), Redpanda (Kafka API), CloudEvents v1.0, OPA (Open Policy Agent) & Rego, TimescaleDB, ZincSearch, Redis, TM Forum ODA, Git, GitHub, Clean Code Development, Like-C4.

Built an international e-commerce platform for a multi-vendor marketplace for digital assets from scratch. Designed and operated cloud native architectures at enterprise scale.

• Designed and operated a highly scalable microservice and serverless architecture
• Built the complete cloud infrastructure with Terraform + AWS CDK in AWS
• Provisioned ECS/EKS clusters (Fargate), Application Load Balancers (reverse proxy), and Lambda functions
• Observability & tracing with CloudWatch, DataDog, Prometheus, and Grafana
• End-to-end setup with DataDog (formerly AWS CloudWatch), Prometheus, and custom Grafana dashboards
• Integration of advanced metrics (including ORM mapper) and distributed tracing with Jaeger
• Robust backup and disaster recovery strategies
• RDS Postgres backups and hourly snapshots
• Read-only, asynchronously synchronized replicas with automated master failover in emergencies
• Minute-level rollback capability through versioned Docker images on ECS and Git-based CI/CD pipelines
• Created CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions for automated multi-stage deployments (Dev, Testing, Prod)
• Integrated Stripe for international payment processing
• Built a marketplace payment system with multiple parties and payout routines
• Used Algolia for high-performance real-time search of digital assets on the platform
• Federation of services with GraphQL and Hasura
• Later migration to GraphQL Mesh
• Test Driven Development (TDD) - unit, integration, and E2E testing with Jest, Vitest, and Playwright
• Used Next.js / React for modern frontend applications in the nx monorepo
• Enterprise security architecture & access control
• Integration of JWT tokens with Auth0, OAuth, OIDC, IP guards, BOLA protection, and secret vaults
• Authorization concepts with RBAC, ABAC, and native Postgres Row-Level Security (RLS)
• Built internal microfrontends with Retool for fast prototyping and operational business processes

Technologies: ABAC, AWS CDK, AWS CloudWatch, AWS ECS, AWS EKS, AWS Fargate, AWS RDS, AWS S3, Algolia, Auth0, DataDog, Docker, GitHub Actions, Grafana, GraphQL, GraphQL Mesh, Hasura, JWT, Jaeger, Java, JavaScript, Jest, Kotlin, Kubernetes, Monorepo, Next.js, OIDC, Playwright, Postgres, Postgres RLS, Prometheus, RBAC, Redis, Retool, Serverless, Stripe, Terraform, TypeScript, Vitest

• Built an MCP (Model Context Protocol) layer for Mwanachama's agency service, turning domain manager methods into callable AI-agent tools. This included a composite tool that builds a full organization design (org chart, goals, workflows, RACI matrix) from one specification.
• Built the chat-driven agency builder (Wakala Studio and API), where an organization describes its structure in natural language and an AI agent uses those tools to construct and modify the live design.
• Added an insights service so an organization can review AI-agent interactions and completed work. Insights from that review feed back into solution design, gated by architect and user sign-off.
• Alongside this, designed and built the platform itself: ~20 Go microservices on PostgreSQL, Flutter and React clients, deployed on Kubernetes.
• AI agents scan the platform autonomously for security gaps and run scripted tests, covering API (Postman-style) and UI testing. The rest of the work stays supervised. No rogue agents, promise.
• Building an AI-native enterprise platform that structures organizational data, workflows and responsibilities for both people and AI agents.
• Models accountability through RACI, allowing human and AI participants to take different operational roles, including Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed. AI agents can also take controlled approval roles where the organization assigns that responsibility.
• Extended the organizational and operational-risk themes from my Executive MBA thesis into software, making roles, processes and controls explicit and machine-readable.
• Structures enterprise context so LLM interactions use more relevant information instead of repeatedly processing large amounts of unstructured content.

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Scope:

• Operation and configuration of the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, including network, storage, and security design.
• Implementation of centralized observability solutions (Prometheus, Grafana, alerting).
• Development of CI/CD pipelines, GitOps workflows, and automation frameworks.
• Training and enablement of operations and development teams.

Result: Accelerated service delivery, transparent operational metrics, and sustainable knowledge transfer.

• Modernization of a large-scale Java enterprise application*

The project is modernizing a complex enterprise application that has grown over many years. The existing Spring-based legacy system runs on Java 8, OSGi, and Eclipse RCP and is being gradually migrated to a modern, maintainable architecture with Java 25 and Quarkus.

Marcus works on analysis, architecture, refactoring, and implementation. One focus is on untangling historically grown structures and dependencies and on building a clean, sustainable Java and Quarkus technology stack.

Tools & technologies: Java 8, Java 25, Quarkus, Hibernate ORM with Panache, EclipseLink, OSGi, Eclipse RCP, Maven, JUnit, Mockito, REST, JSON, Git, Eclipse IDE, IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, Jira, Confluence

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

Task:

• Design and build a proof of concept (PoC) for a future-proof virtualization platform, taking secure system architectures into account
• Assess the current state of existing infrastructures and develop selection and evaluation criteria for the right OS virtualization platform
• Carry out the requirements analysis and then create and prioritize tickets in the ticket system
• Complete and continuously update a tool evaluation matrix based on PoC results
• Support team knowledge building through clear documentation of the approach and results in Confluence
• Enterprise analysis of existing hardware (creating different BoMs)

Technologies: Vmware, Vmware Aria Operations, Osism, Canonical OpenStack, FishOs, Linux, Terraform, Ansible, Confluence, Alma

• Conceptual consulting for securing business processes
• Consulting for planning and implementing IT and IT security projects
• Security and policy checks, process optimization, contingency planning
• Project management and interim management in IT infrastructure and information security

Overview of relevant projects:

• 2025: Consulting on a DLP concept and for Digid GmbH.
• 2025: Consulting for a customer after a cybersecurity attack in which the IT infrastructure was compromised and the attacker gained M365 tenant admin rights. Investigation and recovery of the IT infrastructure. Preparation of recommendations for increasing IT security.
• 2025: Continuation of the projects listed below for Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems and Norddeutsche Landesbank.
• 2024: Preparation of a DNS concept including consulting on DNS strategy and technology, DNS design, DNS security, load balancing, reverse lookup zones and automation. Preparation of a DHCP concept including consulting on DHCP design, the central DHCP management system and automation. Consulting on the operation of the products mentioned, operating processes, and adapting the IT documentation and IT service description for Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems.
• 2024: Analysis and assessment of the network and security infrastructure established by the providers with regard to the overall architecture, consisting of the design and components. Development of proposed solutions to improve current operations, maximize performance and security, and reduce complexity. Presentation of the results, their causes and possible solutions to C-level management, including the required decision templates. Development of a SASE concept based on a Zero Trust architecture for Norddeutsche Landesbank.
• 2024: Continuation of the projects listed below for Atlas GmbH and Deutsche Vermögensberatung AG.
• 2023: Consulting on resolving findings from an IT security assessment of the IT infrastructure, conducting proof-of-concepts for DDoS protection and Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM) with Zscaler (ZIA, ZPA & ZDX), creating a new security architecture based on Zero Trust, redesigning a Cisco ISE implementation and designing a DNS security solution to protect guests and financial advisors for Atlas GmbH / Deutsche Vermögensberatung AG.
• 2023: Continuation of the projects listed below for Digid GmbH, Vaillant Group GmbH (until 09/2023), Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (until 05/2023) and Union Investment IT-Services GmbH (until 07/2023).
• 2022: Preparation and review of white papers for infrastructure and security architectures, planning new network infrastructures for Deutsches Luft- und Raumfahrtzentrum.
• 2022: Development of a concept for the technical and process-related modernization of a disaster recovery plan for United Nations Volunteers.
• 2022: Development of a concept for moving measurement data to a cloud environment, introducing Network Access Control and conducting an awareness training session for Digid GmbH.
• 2022: Development of a network segmentation concept for DZ Hyp AG.
• 2022: Development of a network segmentation concept for Bundesagentur für Arbeit.
• 2021: Development of a new load balancer architecture for Bundeswehr Fuhrparkservices GmbH.
• 2021: Vulnerability scan and penetration test of a web frontend, including evaluation and preparation of recommendations for remediation, taking risk and probability of occurrence into account, for customer ifi GmbH.
• 2021: Consulting, concept development and sub-project management for introducing a Network Access Control solution (certificate authentication and MAC address bypass) and macro-segmentation (area and zone concept based on dynamic assignment of endpoints) in office and production IT for customer Vaillant Group GmbH.
• 2021: Upgrade and optimization of the LAN and WLAN infrastructure for customer United Nations Volunteers.
• 2021: Development of a target concept for modernizing the IT security infrastructure consisting of the DMZ (Cisco switches, firewalls, WSA, ESA, SMA), internet access, admin and management networks and wireless LAN, including support during implementation, for Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe.
• 2021: Creation of a micro-segmentation concept based on Cisco DNA and SGT and Zero Trust for Union Investment IT-Services GmbH.
• 2021: Review and update of ISMS Level-3 policies and preparation of process instructions for customer Software AG.
• 2021: Project management for the global Tec-Refresh project Meraki WLAN 2.0, coordination of outsourcing the LAN/WLAN infrastructure to a managed service provider and preparation of a WLAN concept for automated guided vehicles for customer Heraeus Infosystems GmbH.
• 2021: Project management and technical support for the “Transition of SIEM/SOC Services” project of a customer into a shared environment and assumption of the interim role of Head of Security Operations at customer Datagroup SE.
• 2021: Workshop for a future implementation of Mobile Device Management at customer Allgeier Experts Go GmbH.
• 2021: Sub-project management for introducing a rule management tool for firewalls and recertifying NAC endpoints based on 802.1x and MAB at customer Union Investment IT-Services GmbH.
• 2020: Development of a network segmentation concept for two data centers based on Cisco and VMware for Aareon AG.
• Recording and analysis of the current network architecture, including project initiation.
• Development of a concept for micro-segmentation in the data center and access network.
• 2020: Infrastructure and security architecture audit for customer Stuttgarter Versicherung AG.
• Analysis of the IT infrastructure and IT security architecture with regard to the configuration of network and security components. Additional review of contracts, process descriptions and manuals for completeness. Development of recommendations to improve the stability and operation of the infrastructure. Preparation of a network segmentation concept and project management for implementing the measures from the analysis project.
• 2020: Consulting on setting up an ISMS-Light for customer Josera foodforplanet GmbH & Co. KG.
• 2020: Security architecture consulting for customer Datagroup SE.
• Development of a future IT infrastructure and IT security architecture.
• Analysis of the current IT architecture of all 23 companies.
• Recommendations for optimizing the IT infrastructure and preparation of a comparison between a classic perimeter security concept and the Zero Trust model.
• Preparation of a security zone concept.
• Preparation of an IT infrastructure architecture in coordination with all companies.
• 2018 - 2019: Stream Lead in the Cyber Security program of Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
• Responsible for designing and implementing 9 projects in IT security infrastructure and user access management, as well as managing project managers and experts.
• Project area: Network Segmentation and Access Control.
• Project area: Security Architecture.
• Project area: Privileged, Identity & Access Management.
• Project area: Simplify User Authentication (MFA).
• Project area: Mobile & Endpoint Security.
• Project area: OT Security.
• Project area: E-enabled Aircraft.
• 2018: Security architecture consulting for customer Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
• Project management for the development, evaluation and management of the company-wide information security architecture.
• Development of a security strategy and roadmap to align the security architecture with the Zero Trust model.
• Evaluation of security solutions, services and tools available on the market.
• Definition of requirements for RfPs and evaluation of offers.
• Development, maintenance and monitoring of security architecture artifacts.
• Conducting security assessments of existing and new IT systems and security services.
• 2018: ISMS consulting for customer GLS IT Services GmbH.
• Consulting on introducing and initially operating an ISMS based on ISO27001.
• Auditing the IT environments of the GLS country companies.
• Analysis and assessment of IT security risks and derivation of required measures.
• Development of proposed solutions in coordination with the relevant stakeholders.
• Project management and transition of the ISMS to later operations.
• 2016 - 2018: Security Pre-Sales Consultant for customer Cisco Systems GmbH.
• Nationwide strategic and conceptual consulting for major enterprise customers and financial and insurance customers on Cisco and Meraki security products and services such as Firepower, WSA, ESA, Stealthwatch and ISE.
• 2017 - 2018: Design and implementation of an ISMS for customer Verivox GmbH.
• Conducting various BIAs and GAP analyses.
• Preparation of security policies based on ISO 2700x.
• Assumption of the interim role of Information Security Officer.
• 2017: Preparation of a contingency concept for VPV Lebensversicherungs-AG.
• Review and update of the IT contingency manual.
• 2016: Consulting and project management for the design of cloud and hosting services for customer Vodafone Group Services GmbH.
• Analysis and optimization of the sell-build-run process.
• Preparation of detailed-level designs for cloud products.

Designed and developed an AI-powered automation platform using n8n to analyze social media niches, identify target audiences, and automate marketing strategy generation. The solution combined AI agents, workflow orchestration, and data analysis to automate research processes and generate data-driven insights.

• Designed and implemented complex automation workflows using n8n
• Developed AI-powered analysis agents for market and audience research
• Integrated multiple APIs and AI services into automated workflows
• Built automated market, competitor, and target audience analysis pipelines
• Leveraged Large Language Models (LLMs) for information summarization, classification, and prioritization
• Containerized and deployed the platform using Docker

Technologies: n8n, AI Agents, OpenAI APIs, Prompt Engineering, LLMs, Docker, Linux, REST APIs, Webhooks

• Acted as technical consultant to optimize multi-layer ensemble models combining ResNet, CNN-BiGRU-Attention, and XGBoost.
• Guided implementation of a Logistic Regression meta-learner to solve class imbalance problems, achieving 92.86% accuracy and 0.9644 AUC on PTB-XL and Chapman-Shaoxing datasets.

• Understand the customer’s business & technical requirements and translate them into system / technical requirements
• Design and implement Schrodinger’s applications on cloud systems, and experience convincing senior management and senior technical staff of the benefits of their journey with Schrodinger on the cloud
• Provide exceptional technical design and thought leadership, especially around AWS, GCP, and K8s architecture reviews, performance, high availability, cost, and security
• Deep understanding of the Well-Architected pillars and all best practices for building a secure, performant Schrodinger’s applications on the cloud platforms
• Lead technical workshops and advise customers on architectural and strategic IT decisions
• Ensure success in designing, building and migrating applications, software, and services on the cloud platforms
• Educate customers on best practices to ensure their solutions are designed for successful deployment in the cloud
• Work with other team members to ensure quality and customer success
• Define the tickets, tasks, and timelines of projects
• Collaborate with account managers to ensure that the projects are executed according to the defined plan and timeline
• Monitor the progress of the projects, identify risks and issues, and take proactive measures to mitigate them
• Lead and inspire cloud architect teams, provide guidance, and make critical decisions
• Facilitate effective communication and collaboration among team members
• Collaborate with Schrodinger’s managers to improve deployment, support, and configuration of Schrodinger’s applications
• Lead weekly standups and define priorities

• Design and build of a fully isolated AWS offline environment with no outbound internet access for running a browser-based business application
• Design and implementation of a proxy and response service that terminates all external application calls inside the VPC and serves them from locally stored content; identification of the actual communication needs through measurement-based DNS query logging
• Creation of architecture designs and decision papers including a comparison of options (Application Load Balancer with Lambda and S3, reverse proxy on EC2, private API Gateway) assessed by operational effort, cost, and availability
• Transfer of the solution and operations documentation previously available only for Azure to an AWS target architecture, including reassignment of all services and operational processes
• Automated rollout as Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation) with CI deployment via GitHub Actions, plus setup of private DNS zones and an internal certificate chain for operation without internet access
• Creation of architecture, deployment, and operations documentation and handover to the customer
• Build-up of a private cloud platform on OpenStack at provider TelemaxX with Terraform, including FortiGate HA clusters, FortiManager, and Kubernetes
• Introduction of Policy as Code (Open Policy Agent, Conftest) as well as development of MCP servers (Model Context Protocol) to connect AI assistants to operations and project tools

Successes:

• Made the business application fully operable without internet access for the first time; the cause of the loading error was narrowed down systematically to missing CORS headers after the likely certificate issue was ruled out
• Fully transferred an existing Azure concept to AWS and replaced the manually created environment with a reproducible, CI-based rollout

Technology stack: AWS (VPC, Application Load Balancer, Lambda, S3, Route 53 private hosted zones and Resolver query logging, IAM, CloudWatch, EC2, CloudFormation), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, Remote State), CI/CD (GitHub Actions with OIDC, Azure DevOps Pipelines), OpenStack, FortiGate, FortiManager, Kubernetes, Policy as Code (Open Policy Agent, Conftest), offline and air-gap architectures, PKI & certificates (internal CA, TLS, CRL/OCSP), DNS, network segmentation, Linux, Windows Server, Python, Bash, PowerShell, YAML, JSON, architecture design & decision papers, documentation (Confluence, Markdown), Generative & Agentic AI (Model Context Protocol, Agentic AI Coding Tools)