SEPA Experts in Germany

Time-limited interim assignment filling a vacant program leadership position: joint leadership of a complex software project and orchestration of several agile teams (business, development, and DevOps teams), as well as actively driving change processes.

• Program Management & Planning: Responsibility for creating and updating milestone, resource, and budget plans to ensure project objectives using agile and hybrid methods.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Promoting cooperation and knowledge sharing across teams; resolving blockers through proactive conflict management and targeted facilitation.
• Stakeholder Management & Transparency: Ensuring transparent and audience-appropriate communication within and outside the project organization using modern project management tools.

• Objective/Motivation: PAYONE urgently needs a 360° view of its customers. So far, PAYONE has had no company-wide master data strategy. It is not possible to identify customers across all relevant systems.

The organization is to be enabled to identify customers across all relevant systems. Establishing the basis for master data management at PAYONE

• Challenge: Due to company acquisitions, the system landscape is very heterogeneous. The company is highly dynamic and burdened with many system harmonization and integration projects, meaning that resource bottlenecks and changes in project priorities repeatedly create an almost impossible task.

Due to BaFin findings, the project has a central task and role. The first focus is the migration of all customers, including their AML/KYC data, from the master data backend systems to Salesforce. This is intended to resolve one of the largest findings and establish the corresponding ODD/EDD processes.

In addition, customer data must be harmonized in Salesforce. Previous migrations resulted in duplicate customer records in some cases. The aim is therefore to maintain only one customer in Salesforce and, using the relevant information from the backend systems, also be able to identify which products the customer uses and in which processing systems the customer obtains PAYONE services.

Project: ONE Customer

Budget: €1.5 million

Team: 10/30 employees (full-time/part-time); 4 vendors/providers

Integration: 8 (subsystems/interfaces)

Applications: Salesforce; SAP S4/HANA; in-house developments

Tools: MS Office; Jira, Confluence, SharePoint

Methods: Hands-on; Agile (SAFe); Prince2

CRM and revenue platform managing billing and subscription workflows.

• Scaled payments infrastructure across data products, direct debit expansion and automated abuse prevention, generating $416K in annualized operational savings ($8K/week) by eliminating redundant gateway calls.
• Owned backlog and sprint execution for autonomous checkout abuse detection pipelines, designing real-time risk guardrails and velocity heuristics that blocked card testing attacks.
• Architected enterprise billing migrator user stories and data reconciliation mechanisms, achieving zero-downtime subscription state transitions and cutting $60K in infrastructure overhead.
• Expanded European direct debit (SEPA) payment capabilities, managing cross-squad API dependencies and automated webhook error-handling to eliminate checkout friction.

• 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

Methodology: Agile project management

Goal: Digitization and implementation of CCD2 requirements within the Consumer Finance systems.

Analysis, identification, and assessment of business requirements, as well as their transfer into technical implementation requirements. Coordination and status reporting of the various requirements. Documentation and process management using UML and BMPN. Cross-functional stakeholder management, UAT testing, data management, API architecture management.

Tools: Jira, Confluence, Visual Code, Sql Developer, Enterprise Architect, MsOffice, Bruno, ALM, Camunda, Figma

Project: SCS (Settlement / Clearing Services)

Settlement platform serving multiple trading and clearing venues — counterparty risk safeguarding, settlement volume reduction, central risk management, and post-trade anonymity.

Technologies: Java 17, Spring Boot 3, Microservices, Spring Data JPA, SonarQube, Fortify (SCST), Mockito, Jenkins, OpenShift, Maven, Podman, GitHub, JIRA, Liquibase, Swagger, AMQP, Apache Camel, Terraform, PostgreSQL, Instana, Graylog.

• Identified and remediated CVEs in third-party libraries using SCA tooling, strengthening the security posture of production components.
• Maintained 90% code coverage with SonarQube, improving code quality and reducing production defects.
• Enabled mTLS for database authentication and message broker connections, enforcing encrypted, certificate-validated communication.
• Designed and deployed microservices with asynchronous, REST-based communication between components.
• Optimized a high-volume REST API (~200K requests) by reducing response time from 3s to 2s (33% improvement), boosting throughput and reliability under production load.
• Automated build and continuous integration pipelines using Maven and Jenkins.
• Orchestrated containerized workloads on Podman/OpenShift and governed schema evolution with Liquibase, ensuring reliable, repeatable deployments across all environments.
• Optimized Java code and implemented EHCache-based caching, improving application performance.
• Streamlined release management by governing application images, JAR versions, and dependencies through DBAG Artifactory, ensuring version consistency and audit traceability across environments

• Architecture and conception
• Development at gitis.de (Laravel, Vue, Blade, CI/CD Pipeline [Rector, PHPUnit, PHPStan, PHP_CodeSniffer])
• Development at plotdesk.app (Laravel, Vue, Inertia, Tailwindcss, Prism, Ansible, Docker, CI/CD Pipeline [Rector, Pest, PHPStan, Pint])
• Development at sales-automation.ai (Laravel, Vue, Inertia, Tailwindcss, Prism, CI/CD Pipeline [Pest, PHPStan, Pint])
• Development at Cynapsis Interactive (Laravel, Filament, Google Ads API, CI/CD Pipeline [Rector, Pest, PHPStan, Pint])
• Analysis and monitoring tool for z-optimations GmbH (Laravel, Blade)
• Development at ProgressMaker (Laravel, Pest, REST-API)
• Development of a data warehouse at ProgressMaker (Laravel)
• Development of SimpleStats.io (Laravel, Vue, Inertia, Tailwindcss, Pest, CI/CD)
• Development of Validation for Laravel (Laravel, Vue, Inertia, Tailwindcss)
• Development of multiple open-source projects (laravel-date-scopes, laravel-schema-rules, laravel-xhprof)

• Design and supervise implementation, testing and rollout of end-to-end processes and system integrations (frontend & backend)
• Integrate with OEMs (Daimler, BMW/MINI) and CPOs (Ionity and others)
• Introduce CPO discount packages with lifecycle processes
• Implement consenting process for GTC & tariff updates and marketing opt-ins via SAP Emarsys
• Automate blocking/unblocking of customers and integrate MS Dynamics CRM and proprietary 3rd level tool
• Coordinate migration and go-live of new fleet portal
• Migrate PSP from Datatrans to Adyen (credit card, PayPal) and integrate SEPA/BACS with Adyen via webhooks
• Support and enhance OpenInformer billing engine: Oracle→PostgreSQL migration, PostgreSQL upgrade, regression test suite, performance troubleshooting, invoice relocation to Azure Storage
• Identify and analyze fraud cases and implement countermeasures
• Provide problem management, incident support and hypercare after major rollouts

Implementation of anti-money laundering requirements in accordance with AMLA/KYC for an international large bank in Munich

Services provided:

• Clarification of the assignment, definition of the work package structure for the AMLA/KYC implementation project
• AI-supported project planning using my own AI workflow for project management
• Creation of the project management plan
• Resource and capacity planning
• Development of collaboration structures between IT service provider and bank client
• Alignment of responsibilities (RACI matrix)
• Management of 5 project members (core team)
• Project control, project monitoring, project reporting
• Communication management
• Escalation management
• Stakeholder management (11 stakeholders)
• Permanent member of the steering committee
• Project representation internally and externally
• Project reporting, management of decision-making bodies
• Project volume: 506 person-days (development effort)
• Risk management
• Quality management
• Organization and running of workshops

Methods: PMI PMBOK, EVM, GWG, DORA, BAIT, KANBAN, AML, AMLR, AMLA, GWG, KYC

IT environment: JIRA, Confluence, Sharepoint, Kantata Kimble, AI LLM Copilot, ChatGPT, anti-money laundering systems (in-house developments and SMARAGD)

• Close collaboration with development teams to ensure alignment with project objectives
• Assessment of in-scope assets, creation of requirements, and support of the public tender process through the selection of a provider
• Creation and maintenance of UML sequence diagrams to document system interactions
• Extensive use of Agile/Scrum methodology and Spotify model
• Development and implementation of cutover and dress rehearsal plans together with the application managers

AI Assistance and Target Vision for Partially Autonomous Energy Portfolio Management

Building an AI control layer directly on the up-to-date daily live portfolio of a large energy provider — not as an isolated pilot, but as an operational extension of the existing DB1 and portfolio management. The goal is the gradual development from assistance through monitoring/alerting to analysis agents with Human-in-the-Loop approvals, supplemented by a role-specific System of Engagement alongside the BI System of Record. At the same time, the business case, target vision and management pitch compared with static monthly reporting are being developed.

• AI control layer: Design and build on the existing live portfolio data product (several million contracts) — development stages assistance → monitoring/alerting → agents with Human-in-the-Loop approvals.
• LLM-supported data analysis: Semantic queries, SQL/tool integration and additional RAG components based on portfolio, plan-versus-actual and data quality data (Azure OpenAI, Snowflake), with drill-downs to individual contract level.
• Analysis agents: Multi-stage agents for variance and driver analyses of churn, price adjustments, volumes and procurement costs.
• Views concept: Role-specific interfaces for business units, management and C-level as a System of Engagement alongside the BI System of Record.
• Business case & pitch: Target vision and cost-benefit argumentation compared with static monthly reporting.
• LLM setup (privacy & security): Coordination with IT Security and Data Protection — EU region, data separation and approval processes.
• Agent architecture: Multi-stage agent pipelines (analysis → validation → summary) with documented data sources, tool calls, review steps and source references for each statement.
• Data foundation: Built on the up-to-date daily DB1 data product (Snowflake, dbt) — portfolio, plan-versus-actual and data quality metrics as the common basis for all AI analyses.
• Guardrails & evaluation: Evaluation and approval processes for LLM responses relating to management-relevant statements — test sets, metrics and human review.
• Prototyping & validation: Iterative validation of agent responses with the business unit — test question catalogue, feedback loops and response quality for each release.
• Roadmap & development stages: Detailed stages from assistance → monitoring/alerting → partially autonomous management, including transition criteria and governance for each stage.
• Integration: Integration into the existing BI and data landscape — BI remains the System of Record, while the AI layer provides interactive drill-down paths as the System of Engagement.
• Enablement: Enablement of business users — prompting guides, training and an operating model for ongoing use.
• Management: Coordination of business units, Data Engineering, IT Security and Data Protection.
• Change Management: Communication and expectation management with business units and management throughout the development stages.

Results:

• Built on an existing up-to-date daily data product with several million contracts
• Established an LLM setup coordinated with Data Protection and IT Security in the EU region, including data separation and approvals
• Defined three development stages through to partially autonomous management
• Designed role-specific views for business units, management and C-level
• Developed the business case and management pitch for the development stages
• Established an iterative response-quality validation process with the business unit
• Designed the operating model for assistance operations and initiated validation

Stack: Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Foundry, Snowflake, dbt, React, TypeScript, Entra ID, RAG, Agentic AI, analysis agents, Human-in-the-Loop, Prompt Engineering, LLM Evaluation, LLMOps, GDPR / EU region, Azure DevOps, Python, SQL, Change Management

• Agile project "PEPSi annual vacation planning MVP Lite" (digitalization project).
• Definition of state transitions for the JUP Lite functionality.
• Creation of user stories for login/logout and registration.
• Quality assurance of the business-side concept.
• Preliminary analysis for the transformation from the old PersPlan to DigiPEP.
• Tools used: Signavio, MS Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Jira, Confluence, Mural, Miro, Conceptboard, MS Teams, Mattermost.

Enterprise & Cloud Security Architect supporting the modernization of the SDK application landscape as part of the KVNeo transformation program. Responsible for enterprise architecture, cloud governance, security architecture, and the definition of technical standards for strategic business applications.

Key responsibilities include architecture governance, target architecture development, cloud and integration architecture, security-by-design, and the translation of regulatory requirements into sustainable technical solutions across multiple business domains.

Responsibilities and achievements

• Designed and reviewed target architectures for strategic insurance applications and enterprise services.
• Developed architecture documentation based on Arc42 and Architecture Decision Records (ADRs).
• Defined governance models, architecture principles, and technical guidelines for cross-domain initiatives.
• Supported the modernization of archive, document management, and output management platforms.
• Designed integration architectures using REST APIs and event-driven communication patterns.
• Led architecture discussions with enterprise architects, development teams, product owners, and business stakeholders.
• Translated regulatory requirements such as DORA and ISO/IEC 27001 into practical architecture decisions.
• Designed security concepts covering Identity & Access Management, authorization, authentication, auditability, and logging.
• Supported SIEM integration, security monitoring, and enterprise logging concepts.
• Evaluated technical risks, technical debt, and architecture improvements while providing decision papers for architecture boards.
• Established architecture governance processes and contributed to enterprise-wide transformation initiatives.
• Supported cloud governance activities and the definition of secure cloud architecture standards.
• Facilitated architecture workshops and coordinated cross-functional stakeholders across business and IT.

Technologies & Methods Microsoft Azure • Arc42 • Architecture Decision Records (ADR) • REST APIs • Event-Driven Architecture • Microsoft Entra ID • Active Directory • IAM • SIEM • Cloud Governance • Enterprise Architecture • Security Architecture • Azure API Management • Jira • Confluence • Draw.io • DORA • ISO/IEC 27001 • Agile • Scrum

• Consulting, training, and coaching in the financial sector on strategy, organization, and IT topics

• MorgenFund: Advising the operator of a fund platform on software selection for a sub-ledger "Cash Accounts" based on Virtual IBANs (VIBAN)

• Structuring requirements, market screening, creating RfIs, communicating with vendors, and conducting the selection process

• UniCredit/HypoVereinsbank: Workstream lead "Booking and Customer Reporting" in the payment transformation project "PULS"

• Business analysis, creating business requirements and aligning solution items as part of the functional specification with the bank's IT service providers

• Business analysis of SEPA CT and SWIFT MX (.camt, .pain, and .pacs formats), change management, team lead for a virtual team of fifteen line experts, and stakeholder management

• equensWorldline Germany: Program management for three projects of the SWIFT service bureau (CBPR+, ESMIG, and Euro1Step1 migration) as part of the SWIFT MX migration

• Managing individual project managers regarding overarching goals and requirements; reporting to internal and external committees and stakeholders; coordinating with dependent projects and programs

• Project management/PMO: interim project management, stand-in for project managers, resource planning, budget and cost management, general PMO tasks