Observability Experts

Product:

• Built a production-ready AI platform for generating brand-aware marketing images and videos from product data, user requirements, and uploaded media.
• Own the platform architecture, technical roadmap, API design, security, deployment workflow, operational reliability, and model-provider strategy.
• Developed the core platform in .NET and built supporting AI and workflow prototypes in Python, applying language-independent API contracts and structured interfaces between services and model providers.
• Implemented reliable background processing with RabbitMQ, persisted workflow state, idempotent handling, retries, failure recovery, logging, secure storage, authorization, and credit accounting.
• Made pragmatic build-versus-buy and model-routing decisions based on reliability, latency, cost, and maintainability rather than novelty.

Agent Orchestration & RAG Systems

• Built and compared agent workflows using Microsoft Agent Framework, LangGraph, and LangChain, including tool use, conditional routing, clarification steps, state management, and hand-offs between agents.
• Implemented reusable .NET components for agents, prompts, tools, model providers, structured responses, and retrieval with pyvector, making it easier to change AI providers without rewriting the core workflow.

• Architected an enterprise Fabric-based data-product governance framework, authoring data contracts and schema-validation KPIs to enforce completeness, freshness and SLA standards across reporting data products.
• Operationalized pipeline observability by integrating Dagster orchestration data into automated data-health reporting, proactively validating data integrity and pipeline reliability before production reporting layers refresh.
• Established BI-as-Code and end-to-end governance through Git-based version control, CI/CD and Alpha→GA release management, strengthening lineage, schema-drift detection and production change traceability.

Task: Operator development and observability

Technologies and skills: Kubernetes, Valkey-Operator, Crossplane, Backstage, OpenPortal, OTEL, Grafana Cloud, Azure DevOps, Artifactory, Flux, Alloy, Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, OCF, Copilot

What I did:

• Evaluated/developed Valkey-Operator
• Set up OpenTelemetry
• Integrated it with OpenPortal/Backstage/CrossPlane

• 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

Temporary employment

• System black-box integration tests (BBIT, IVVQ): Execution of regression, release, confirmation and conformity tests for safety-critical braking control units in the railway industry
• Software Test Application & Integration: Runtime configuration of software components and libraries, validation of interfaces, configuration dependencies and component interactions
• Test Automation (FEAT Framework): Co-development and further development of an automated test framework for test execution, reporting and result analysis
• Functional Safety (SiL4, FuSi): Ensuring compliance with safety requirements, traceability and coverage as well as conformity with EN50126/28/29
• Test Automation for Communication Components: Configuration and validation of fieldbus (CAN) and Ethernet-based TCMS data communication interfaces (TRDP and CIP)
• Requirements Analysis & Shift-Left (PTC Windchill ALM): Analysis of software and system artifacts to identify gaps, ambiguities and redundancies early in the SDLC
• Test Design & Test Case Development: Derivation of test conditions and coverage strategies and implementation of data-driven test cases (DDT) including reusable test data fixtures
• CI/CD & Automation (Python, PowerShell, Jenkins, SVN): Automation of build, test and HIL deployment processes as well as integration into CI/CD pipelines
• Test Data & Configuration Management (XML): Maintenance and adjustment of XML test vectors and system configurations with automated integration into test environments
• Non-Functional Testing: Execution of performance and load tests to assess stability and system behavior
• Agile Development & Defect Management (JIRA, Confluence): Work in Scrum teams, test coordination, review of test artifacts as well as defect tracking and root-cause analysis
• Error Analysis & Debugging (CANoe, CANalyzer): Analysis of errors and message flows across multiple system levels (application to bus)
• Model-Based Analysis (UML, Enterprise Architect): Specification of SUT/SOW and support for systematic test control
• Process & Test Documentation: Creation of integration and test documentation according to internal quality and certification requirements

Support for Transformation Projects:

• Expert CTO advisory and enterprise architecture consulting for several short-term transformation projects, ensuring measurable improvements in project outcomes and technical business alignment.
• Supporting strategic IT initiatives for diverse clients, driving digital transformation and optimizing technology operations to increase business value and operational efficiency.

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

• Worked as freelance Senior DevOps Consultant on-site for IBM at a European Union Agency, operating in a highly secure, air-gapped environment managing classified systems.
• Led automation and DevOps initiatives for a large-scale OpenShift platform (>400 nodes), driving deployment efficiency, GitOps adoption, and operational automation using Ansible, Python, and Bash while ensuring compliance with security requirements.
• Spearheaded automation of release and deployment workflows in a private cloud environment hosting 400+ OpenShift nodes, significantly improving deployment speed and reliability.
• Migrated existing playbooks, roles, and templates from Ansible Tower to Ansible Automation Platform (AAP), ensuring full compliance with fully-qualified collection names (FQCN) and preparing custom Execution Environments (EE) for containerized automation.
• Implemented GitOps Agent for AAP Controller Configuration as Code, enabling automated synchronization (CRUD) of Ansible Controller objects based on repository-stored configuration definitions using GitHub webhooks.
• Designed and automated complex multi-step operational workflows including environment cleanup, Helix cluster component re-creation, Kafka topic management, and OpenShift object lifecycle management across ~100 environments.
• Achieved a reduction of multi-day manual operations to under a few hours through automation improvements spanning multiple AAP clusters and OpenShift environments.
• Integrated Ansible Automation Platform with Thycotic (Delinea) Secret Server via lookup plugin to enhance secure credential management in automated processes.
• Managed deployment tasks, platform troubleshooting, and Istio network configurations while adhering to stringent EU PSC security and compliance standards.
• Collaborated with infrastructure and application teams to refine deployment procedures, develop naming conventions, and continuously improve automation coverage in an air-gapped, classified environment.

• Designed and implemented modular AI assistants for sales and business processes within the Microsoft ecosystem (Agentic AI, Copilot extensions)
• Frontend architecture and development with React + TypeScript for embedded chat and assistant surfaces (streaming UI, Hooks, React Query, OpenAPI clients)
• Enterprise-level agent development: reusable skill/agent library, MCP servers, review and compliance gates
• LLM integration into the user experience: Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI, tool use, RAG pipelines, prompt engineering, guardrails
• Architecture and code review consulting, and mentoring within the AI development team
• Integration with Microsoft Graph, Power Platform, and Azure services
• Technologies: React, TypeScript, Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, MCP, RAG, Microsoft Graph, Power Platform, Azure

• Fully on-premises LLM document-examination platform for a compliance-critical banking domain: agentic LangGraph pipeline with deterministic verification, every AI judgment structured and source-anchored; ~960 automated tests, zero data egress
• GPU throughput engineering (quantized serving, speculative decoding, prefix caching): 9.5x extraction speed-up, 500+ multi-document case files per day on a single A100
• AI-native EDI/EDIFACT integration platform (~116k LOC Java 25 / Spring Boot 4, 1,900+ tests): LLM-drafted partner mappings machine-verified before go-live (DFDL conformance, field-coverage checks, dry runs), ~99.5% byte match on real customer files — replacing weeks of manual mapping per partner

• Overall responsibility for platform transformation across ERP, CRM, PIM and AI-supported process automation
• ERP transformation: Introduction and migration to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
• CRM & Growth Stack: Implementation of HubSpot as the central CRM and platform for lead and marketing automation
• Product data & Commerce Enablement: Introduction of an ePIM to scale Category Management and digital Commerce processes
• AI-supported process automation: Design and introduction of agent-based AI workflows to automate processes in Business Services, Accounting, Tender Management and Marketing
• Building a scalable platform organization consisting of Product Development, DevOps, UX, Cloud Engineering and Corporate IT
• Introduction of modern product and portfolio governance (e.g. OKRs, portfolio boards, value-based roadmaps) to manage technology-driven initiatives
• Harmonization of heterogeneous system landscapes and transformation into a modular, scalable platform architecture (ERP, CRM, PIM, integrated customer journeys)
• Coaching and development of Product Owners, Tech Leads, Delivery Managers and UX teams in building a scalable product organization

• 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.