Shopify Experts

Workflow-automation SaaS for operations teams (Berlin, 120 people); full-time freelance engagement reporting to the CEO: an initial 12-month interim mandate, extended twice through the AI build-out; owned product for one squad and coached the other product managers on process.

• Led generative AI (LLM) integration into the core product: from LLM-powered steps to natural-language workflow authoring and step-level automation suggestions, plus AI-managed dynamic workflows, shipped behind eval gates with human-in-the-loop fallbacks: AI-drafted workflows grew to 31% of all new workflows, and median time-to-first-workflow fell from 3 days to 4 hours.
• Packaged the AI capabilities as a usage-based add-on priced on executed automation steps, working with sales and marketing on positioning: ~€800K added ARR in the first year, and adopting accounts churned 1.8 pp less.
• Owned the roadmap end to end: replaced feature-request-driven quarterly planning with an outcome-based rolling roadmap built on quarterly bets and explicit kill criteria, presented monthly to the executive team and quarterly to the board.
• Rebuilt the product-management operating system: weekly customer-discovery cadence incl. workshop facilitation, RFC/decision-doc reviews and a single quarterly metrics narrative; coached four product managers, one promoted to senior during the engagement.
• Closed the engagement as scoped: hired and onboarded the permanent VP Product, handed over the process playbook and roadmap, and exited on schedule in June 2026.

• Building strong awareness within the company around nearshoring
• Engagement Manager in the Nearshore Competence Center
• Responsible for nearshore consulting, partner screening and technical onboarding, designing and implementing cooperation scenarios, change management, stakeholder management, participation in steering committees, and collaboration with IT and business units
• Tools used: Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Azure Devops, Microsoft Sharepoint, Conceptboard
• Key results: Establishment of a nearshoring strategy, successful identification and implementation of outsourcing partnerships, delivery of change management and stakeholder management at the highest level

• Project management in the area of "Campaign, Offer and Performance Management Classic" for PAYBACK partners from the retail, FMCG and financial services sectors
• Campaign planning, development and implementation of offer-specific concepts and measures for the channels newsletter, digital advertising (web and app), stand-alone mailings and the print mailing "PAYBACK points overview"
• Coordination with PAYBACK program partners (including American Express, Netto, EDEKA, Marktkauf & Trinkgut), PAYBACK specialist departments and agencies
• Documentation of tasks and processes as well as onboarding of the future role holder

• Coordination and planning, execution, documentation, and analysis of test cases
• Development of test concepts considering best practices (e.g., test pyramid) with a focus on reliable, automatable test runs
• Implementation and maintenance of test cases according to the test concepts
• Technologies: Citrix Workspace, Shopify, Jira, Xray, MS Teams, MS SharePoint, Confluence, MS Office 365

Support in restructuring the e-commerce area after the previous role holder left. Instead of just a temporary solution, this created the basis for the future organization and further development of the area.

Focus areas

• Analysis of the existing e-commerce area
• Structuring tasks and priorities
• Defining the future role profile
• Support in recruiting and onboarding

Results

• Structured handover to the new e-commerce lead
• Clear foundation for the further development of the area

project-based mandate

• Responsibility for marketing, growth, and market expansion strategies for several supplement brands
• Planning and execution of marketing, content, and promotional measures to increase visibility, reach, and revenue
• Building, scaling, and optimizing international sales channels via Shopify, Walmart, eBay, TikTok Shop, Kaufland, Rakuten, EMAG, etc.
• Coordination of product launches, rebranding initiatives, and optimization of brand positioning
• Creation and alignment of product, content, and campaign briefs for different target groups, markets, and platforms
• Managing collaboration with external partners, fulfillment, logistics, marketplace, and distribution partners
• Coordination of product information, claims, platform requirements, and approval processes for international markets
• Analysis of digital performance metrics to identify growth and optimization potential

• 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

PLANT-MY-TREE®-per-order

The application enables Shopify merchants to automatically place tree-planting orders for every incoming order. By integrating ecological contributions directly into the purchase process, the manual effort for tracking and billing reforestation initiatives is eliminated. The system increases transparency for end customers through real-time visualizations of the ecological impact directly in the storefront. The architecture is based on a modular monolith with Spring Boot in the backend and an integrated React app inside the Shopify admin area. The solution uses webhooks to capture order data in an event-driven way and integrates the weclapp ERP system for automated monthly invoicing. An app proxy mechanism provides dynamic statistics such as CO2 compensation and planted trees without any performance loss for the merchant shop.

Tasks:

• Design of the modular software architecture based on Spring Modulith to ensure high maintainability
• Development of the event-driven business logic for evaluating Shopify orders via webhooks
• Implementation of automated invoicing by connecting the weclapp REST API
• Building the frontend using React Router and Shopify App Bridge for native integration
• Design of the database model and implementation of the persistence layer with JPA/Hibernate and Prisma
• Integration of internationalization processes for global use in the frontend and email communication
• Automation of deployment processes using Docker and GitLab CI/CD

Project skills: Java 25, Spring Boot, Spring Security, Spring Modulith, Hibernate, JPA, REST API, PostgreSQL, Maven, Liquibase, React, TypeScript, React Router, Vite, Node.js, Prisma, Zod, Docker, Docker Compose, GitLab CI/CD, Shopify CLI, Shopify App Bridge, Polaris, weclapp, i18next, Lombok, Vitest

• Leadership, management, and further development of an accounting team with nine employees
• Responsibility for the preparation, analysis, and quality assurance of monthly and annual financial statements according to HGB
• Ensuring structured intercompany reconciliation and minimizing reconciliation risks using LucaNet
• Coordination of annual closing work and audit preparation while meeting CFO deadlines
• Optimization of accounting processes in the SAP S/4HANA environment in close

• IT consulting
• Power Platform & Databricks
• AI software development (custom software)
• Commercial responsibility for the company

• Instructor for applied AI in the courses "AI Implementation Architect" and "AI Business Innovator"
• Running remote training sessions to qualify participants as "AI Implementation Architect" and "AI Business Innovator"
• Building n8n-based automations for the Digital Institut des Mittelstands

• Lead generation for S2 Software in 10 European countries
• Google Ads (& Bing) and funnel optimization (A/B testing, copywriting, etc.)
• Increased leads by 250% between October and April (the company has been on the market for 10+ years)
• Responsible for the performance of 8 lead-gen websites and 2 online shops

SEO optimization of a coaching website based on WordPress, with a focus on keyword research, on-page optimization, and lead generation.

Responsibilities:

• Development of an SEO strategy based on keyword research
• Creation and optimization of landing pages
• Optimization of site structure, internal linking, and on-page factors
• Optimization of the Google Business Profile to improve local visibility
• Consulting and prioritization of further SEO measures

Re-platforming an e-commerce shop to a microservice architecture

• Goal: Replace an outdated Shopware system with a scalable, future-proof solution based on microservices and a headless architecture.
• Led a full architecture consulting process and defined the microservice boundaries based on a headless architecture with commercetools as PIM/OMS and Next.js as the frontend solution.
• Developed and integrated several decentralized services (e.g. internationalization, personalization).
• Took over the configuration of central third-party systems such as Contentstack and Algolia.
• Built a stable cloud infrastructure on Google Cloud with monitoring via Grafana.

Technologies: commercetools, Next.js, Contentstack, Algolia, Google Cloud, Grafana, TypeScript, Shopware

Development of an international e-commerce platform

• Goal: Build a high-performance, user-friendly and international e-commerce platform.
• Defined a scalable, high-performance and maintainable software architecture that served as the foundation for the platform's international expansion.
• Selected a best-of-breed technology stack that enabled the development of an industry-leading shop and reduced development effort for new features by 30%.
• Ensured seamless integration of critical third-party systems (PIM, CRM, ERP) to guarantee end-to-end business processes and a consistent data foundation.
• Implemented comprehensive tracking and analytics tools for continuous performance monitoring and optimization of the customer journey.

Technologies: React.js, Next.js, commerceTools, Algolia, Salesforce, Heroku, CI/CD, PHP, Google Analytics

AI-powered personalization and customer data platform in e-commerce

• Goal: Replace static content with a dynamic, AI-based personalization strategy to increase user relevance and automate marketing processes.
• Designed and built a customer data platform to aggregate and combine customer and analytics data from distributed sources.
• Implemented automated categorization of customer profiles as the basis for delivering personalized content and product recommendations in the Shopware frontend.
• Developed a semantic similarity algorithm based on Python and OpenAI to calculate product and content similarity from user profiles.
• Built the technical connection to retail media platforms to control external ad placements along the customer journey.

Technologies: Shopware 6, Python 3, OpenAI, Elasticsearch, PHP, Symfony, Twig

Shopware tracking & consent architecture (GDPR) for 4 online shops

• Goal: Build a unified, GDPR-compliant tracking infrastructure across multiple shops with central consent management across several Shopware instances.
• Defined a comprehensive tracking guide and developed a modular architecture compatible across multiple Shopware versions.
• GDPR-compliant integration of Usercentrics and Adobe Launch through a central tag manager.
• Full tracking setup (page, order, product, user) incl. partner-specific tracking (Emarsys, Channelpilot, etc.).
• Detailed event and error tracking to proactively identify technical drop-offs.

Technologies: Shopware, Adobe Analytics, Usercentrics, Tag Manager, PHP, MySQL, GDPR

AI/LLM search engine with RAG and hybrid search (Python, Elasticsearch)

• Goal: Build an AI-powered search engine with RAG architecture and hybrid search to accurately match service providers from over 500,000 company records.
• Developed an automated data pipeline (web scraping + LLM) that continuously crawls company data and converts it into structured formats using LLMs.
• Implemented a RAG workflow incl. vectorization for semantic search to increase search accuracy and relevance.
• Configured and fine-tuned Elasticsearch for hybrid search (vector + keyword search).
• End-to-end development of backend API, frontend and deployment on live servers.

Technologies: Python, FastAPI, Elasticsearch, LLM, RAG, React, Docker, Web Scraping

AI/computer vision system (Python, ML) – object detection under difficult conditions

• Goal: Develop an AI-powered recognition system with reliable performance even in rain, fog, snow and darkness.
• Built and annotated a large training dataset incl. difficult conditions.
• Trained a YOLO-based object detection model; carried out systematic error analysis and improved data quality and preprocessing.
• Coordinated with stakeholders through regular status updates.

Technologies: Python, Machine Learning, TensorFlow, PyTorch, YOLO, OpenCV