Selenium Expert

• Industry: Insurance, Trade, IT
• Customers & Projects: Consulting and selling insurance and similar services
• Main tasks: Insurance consulting (health insurance, retirement planning, wealth building); commercial services, inside and field sales; sales data analysis and forecasting; customer consulting and support; opening a new sales headquarters for private and business customers; business development & innovation management; business use case development; process optimization; stakeholder management; team leadership and training; preparation and delivery of trainings;
• Technologies used: Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Draw.IO, Camunda 8, Java (8, 17,21,25), Git, Spring Boot, Spring Batch, Spring Data REST, Spring Web, Spring Security, J-Unit, Playwright, Lombock, Vaadin, H2, PostgreSQL (16, 17 18), pgAdmin, Docker, LLMs, JasperSoft Studio, JasperReports

• Focus: System architecture, cloud-native platforms, microservices, API design
• Product: Pflege-Pfad is a digital placement platform that directly connects relatives of people in need of care with verified care services and caregivers – without an agency and without ongoing fees.
• Business analysis & process design:
• Analysis of the German care market and identification of the key pain points of both target groups.
• Modeling of core business processes: registration, verification, care request, application, placement, and rating.
• Definition of the business model as a freemium/premium model with optional contact unlocking.
• Creation of user stories and requirements documentation for relatives, care services, and administrators.
• Design of trust and quality assurance mechanisms with document upload, admin review process, and rating system.
• Coordination with stakeholders and validation of product decisions with potential users.
• Technical implementation:
• Design and implementation of the entire platform architecture as the sole developer.
• Design and implementation of a REST API with Spring Boot and Kotlin, including JWT-based authentication.
• Development of the frontend as a single-page application with Angular 17.
• Implementation of the AWS infrastructure with EC2, RDS PostgreSQL, S3, CloudFront, and IAM.
• Document upload with AWS S3 using presigned URLs to verify care services.
• Email notifications via Resend API.
• AI-supported care service search via OpenAI API.
• Implementation of complete user flows such as registration, login, password reset, and the placement process.
• Development of an admin panel for user and care service management as well as analytics.
• CI/CD with GitHub Actions and containerized deployments with Docker.
• End-to-end tests with Playwright.

Technologies: Kotlin, Spring Boot 3, Spring Security, JWT, JPA/Hibernate, PostgreSQL, Angular 17, TypeScript, RxJS, AWS (EC2, ECS, S3, CloudFront CDN, RDS PostgreSQL, IAM), nginx, GitHub Actions, Playwright, Maven, Git, OpenAI API, Resend API, Docker, Scrum, i18n (DE/EN/TR), Kiro, feature flag architecture.

Maturing their API practices on both a business and technology level. My role covers strategy, architecture, developer advocacy as well as hands-on software engineering, enabling both technical teams and business leadership to adopt and act on API-centric principles effectively. Coincidentally, we also establish GitOps, DX and platform best practices with this project.

Highlights:

• Aligning executives with the initiative by clarifying strategy, replacing misconceptions and myths with facts, clarifying the value of existing assets and enabling informed decision-making
• Formulating a way forward for API Lifecycle Management at OTTO
• Driving platform progress and fostering developer engagement by hands-on engineering work towards strategic goals

API Lifecycle Management, Team Topologies, Organizational Evolution, Regulatory, Platform Advocate, Developer Platform, Communities of Practice, Terraform, Kotlin, Kafka, Kong, WSO2, Apigee, Gravitee, Backstage, AsyncAPI, OpenAPI, API Design, AWS, React, Node.js, TypeScript, Redocly, reactive programming, CDC, Golang, Gin, GitOps, DX (developer experience), stakeholder management, roadmaps, workshops, discovery.

• Elevator emergency call reorganization project: Project to evaluate and define a new technical solution for connecting elevator emergency calls for all facilities of DB InfraGO passenger stations.

• Objectives: Secure, redundant connection of all locations across Germany. Definition of the technical solution, documentation, subject-matter support and management of specialist and line organizations.

• Identification and commissioning of technical solutions.

• Management of documentation and approval of the technical solution in DB regulations.

• Definition and tracking of the roadmap for describing the solution.

• Preparation of a rollout plan to avoid shutdowns.

• Coordination and implementation of decision proposals for steering committees.

• Communication of the solution to all committees and regional areas.

• Implementation of a full-stack application with Angular as frontend framework and Java as backend language
• Use of the Swagger OpenAPI specification for REST communication between frontend and backend applications
• Control of a card printer via the Nexus Card SDK framework
• Design and implementation of card management software with web interface and JavaFX module for printer monitoring
• Use of Cucumber tests for test automation and creation of test artifacts for testing outside the development environment
• Use of Wireshark for network investigations to analyze the API of a third-party product and to check the REST API of the self-developed software

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

• Administration and further development of the M365 environment, including Teams, Exchange Online, Intune, and SharePoint Online
• Development of dashboards for performance monitoring with Microsoft Power BI
• Implementation of user requirements and processes with low-code/no-code technologies (Power Apps, Power Automate)
• Use of Jira and Azure DevOps to plan and implement user stories in an agile project context
• Participation in daily stand-ups, sprint planning, sprint reviews, and retrospectives as the technical point of contact
• Planning and implementation of security policies using Azure Conditional Access and multi-factor authentication
• Configuration and deployment of clients and applications via MECM (SCCM) and Baramundi

• Led discovery phase and POC for Shopware to Shopify Plus migration across EMEA markets, evaluating platform suitability, technical architecture, and multi-brand/multi-country capabilities against business requirements.
• Designed reference architecture for Shopify Plus implementation incorporating headless front-end patterns (Vue.js, Nuxt.js), CMS integration (Magnolia), and Azure middleware (APIM, Functions, Logic Apps, Service Bus) for 11 EMEA markets.
• Defined migration strategy analyzing data mapping, cutover approach, and zero-downtime deployment patterns using Varnish caching, GitOps pipelines, and CI/CD orchestration across six vendor teams.
• Architected multi-tenant Shopify Plus governance model with centralized admin, localized storefront customization, and compliance controls (GDPR, data residency).
• Prototyped AI-driven search optimization (LLM.txt, JSON-LD) for product discoverability in Google AI results, demonstrating post-launch performance opportunities.
• Defined EMEA expansion roadmap for 15+ markets through C-level strategic workshops, identifying phased rollout, market-specific configurations, and resource requirements.
• Tech Stack: React, Nuxt.js, Vue.js, Magnolia CMS, Shopware, Shopify Plus, Azure (APIM, Functions, Logic Apps, Service Bus, Front Door), Varnish, SAP, MS Dynamics, Docker, Kubernetes, GitHub Actions, PostgreSQL, Kafka

Enterprise Agile Planning Platform

Key achievements:

• Introduced and promoted shift-left testing practices.
• Established and maintained QA metrics to track release quality and support data-driven decision-making.
• Reviewed Selenium-based automated tests, identifying coverage gaps and prioritizing improvements with the automation team.

Responsibilities:

• Managed QA activities throughout the release lifecycle, coordinating testing efforts and ensuring release readiness.
• Mentored and onboarded 10 QA engineers and fostered knowledge sharing.
• Conducted technical interviews and participated in candidate evaluation.
• Collaborated with stakeholders to improve quality practices.

Project: Process optimization & IT support in an insurance broker office.

Project activities:

• Analysis of processes and definition of requirements
• Consulting for the implementation of a cloud solution (soho)
• Installation and verification of new infrastructure HW
• Cloud installation & configuration
• Definition and creation of use cases
• Performing user acceptance tests (UAT)
• User training / training
• IT support (cloud, PC, server, printer, network)

Label: Insurance, infrastructure, configuration, training, support

• Project: Thermomix Online Mock
• Manual execution of functional tests
• Implementation of automated end-to-end tests
• Execution of regression tests and analysis of results
• Further development of the QA website server using Express.js, Handlebars and Node.js
• Further development of the test environment
• Technologies: Agile software development Scrum, Robot Framework, Python, JavaScript, Git (GitLab), VS Code, Jira, Confluence, Express.js, Handlebars, Phoenix/Elixir

• Customer portal – further development and release change

Technologies / Tools: Clarity, Microsoft 365 / MS Office (especially Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Teams), SharePoint, Helaba internal AI environment

• Team size: 32 people
• Approach: traditional project management
• Planning and management of updates to the customer portal of Wirtschafts- und Infrastrukturbank Hessen to the current manufacturer release
• Coordination of implementation in close cooperation with the manufacturer, portal operator, line organization and other stakeholders involved
• Setting up new test environments for migration and acceptance testing
• Planning of migrations and the required test levels and test procedures
• Creation of the go-live script as well as planning and coordination of cutover, hypercare and subsequent stabilization phases
• Planning the expansion of the portal to include electronic identification
• Planning, monitoring and continuous adjustment of the project plan
• Coordination of development, testing, release preparation and go-live
• Planning and moderation of regular project and coordination meetings
• Management reporting on project progress, risks and actions required
• Regular use of the Helaba internal AI environment to verify and assure the quality of work results and project documents

• Building a data integration platform for high, medium, and low voltage assets for contextual analysis of time series with master data from the SCADA control system (IEC 60870 104), INIS, and SAP.
• Responsibility for the architecture and implementation of the solution, as well as sparring partner for the Product Owner.
• Use of Kotlin, Spring Boot, Maven, TimescaleDB, PostgreSQL, liquibase, Elements IoT, Docker, Kubernetes, Grafana, Python, jupyter, and various API gateways.

• Kubernetes: EKS management, cluster upgrades and stability improvements, Infrastructure-as-Code reviews and updates, AWS support, and cost optimization.