Solaris Experts in Germany

• Operation and further development of the network and security infrastructure.

• Monitoring, analysis and resolution of network and security incidents.

• Cross-departmental collaboration with other teams on operations and further development, and reporting.

• Firewall vulnerability analysis.

• Firewall access requests.

• Troubleshooting IP communication issues on network and firewall infrastructure.

• Security-critical IT infrastructure, processing of personal data, compliance with legal requirements.

• Products: Palo Alto Networks Firewalls, Cisco ACI, Checkpoint Firewalls, F5

• Technologies: SDN, SDWAN, Cisco EPIC, Cisco ACI

• Focus on optimizing and further developing the internal customer EBICS application
• Functional and technical consulting for Aareal First Financial Solutions AG on EBICS standard products and applications in the areas of operations and further development, as well as project-related communication with external development partners and the product manufacturer to implement the corresponding technical optimizations
• As the functional coordinator, providing advice on content-related and regulatory requirements as well as technical prerequisites and requirements, and bringing these together at the functional level
• Consulting on the use of EBICS formats
• Reviewing the current EBICS standard for optimization and further development potential
• Analyzing the current state to identify development potential and deriving appropriate recommendations for action while considering regulatory requirements
• Conducting EBICS tests throughout the project
• Functional responsibility for requirements management and, in this context, recording and documenting requirements for such tests
• Designing a functional and sustainable test management system
• Conducting and evaluating tests
• Consulting on sustainable quality assurance and audits
• Project language: German and English
• Tools/Methods: MS Project, MS Office, MS Visio, TestRail, Confluence, Jira, Business Logics Bankkrecher, Business Logics Test Data Generator, Business Logics Banking Tool, Business Logics Test System, DBEAVER, Squirrel, Unix Virtual Machines, WinSCP, Kitty, Putty, various Aareal Bank products, Online Banking Portal, Aareal Sign, core banking system, SAP Blue Eagle, SAP RE-FX, Aareon Wodis Sigma, Haufe Real Estate Wowinex, GAP Group Immotion, UTS Karthago, SAP IS-U/Waste, SIV kVASy, various EBICS clients

• 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)

Planning and updating the entire environment to Windows Server 2022 and 2025

• Hardening of DCs and servers, setup of event log forwarding
• Migration of all existing Windows 2019 servers (including Active Directory DCs, DNS and CA) to Windows Server 2022 and 2025
• Automation of security patches for the Hyper-V clusters via PowerShell (CAU)
• Network administration
• Continuous operation and support of the MS Hyper-V environments

• 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

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

I continuously expand my expertise in AI and automation. I work with ChatGPT, OpenAI, Manus, Gemini, MS CoPilot, APIs, LangChain, Hugging Face, Manus, TensorFlow, and Auto-GPT, as well as Python-based ML frameworks and MLOps tools, to intelligently transform traditional software development, analysis, and testing processes.

• Architected and deployed private cloud data platform on VMware vSphere, integrating Greenplum MPP, Apache Kafka, Kubernetes, and Apache Solr, and developed real-time ingestion pipelines with Kafka Connect and Schema Registry.
• Led Oracle Exadata to Greenplum migration, rearchitected data models, optimized storage, implemented RabbitMQ with Debezium for CDC, and deployed VectorDB for Generative AI.
• Designed and executed multi-cloud migration PoC across AWS, Azure, and GCP, defined KPIs for throughput, latency, and cost efficiency, executed bulk data transfers, validated analytics and streaming workloads, and delivered full-scale architecture recommendations.
• Assessed legacy on-premises infrastructure and designed modern cloud-native data platforms using Greenplum and containerized microservices, advising on scalability, disaster recovery, and high-availability.

• 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, preparing 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, preparing business requirements and coordinating the 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 leadership 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 leads with regard to cross-project goals and requirements; reporting to internal and external committees and stakeholders; coordination with dependent projects and programs

• Project management/PMO: Interim project management, deputizing for project leads, resource planning, budget and cost management, general PMO activities

• Introduction of 5 different process applications for different teams

• Release planning: scope and time management

• Resource/capacity planning

• Conducting Sprint Planning / retrospectives

• Increment planning (several sprints)

• Preparation of Steering Committee meetings / reporting to the Board

• Coordination / alignment with external suppliers / deliveries

• Resource planning for multiple projects

• Coordination with business department and development team

• Identification of best practices with IBM BAW

• Cost control and planning for the project team and external service providers

• Collection of KPIs using LogScale

• Analysis of application errors with LogScale / Queries

• User Story definitions / coordination of requirements with the business department and development team

• Testing and defect tracking

• UI/UX design of applications

• Preparation and moderation of Brown-Paper workshops

• Test concept, test data, test organization, test execution

• Collection of team velocity / metrics

• Test execution

• Script for automated testing

• Test organization with business department and IT

• Recording and prioritization of defects

• Establishment and operation of the application

• Establishment of application monitoring with LogScale Dashboards

• Checking health endpoints with PowerShell

• Post Mortem analysis

• Establishment of Incident Management

• Establishment of Problem Management

• Analysis of errors using LogScale Queries and Dashboard

• Pre-processing of data for AI

• Evaluation using AI language models (Meta Llama 3.3 LLM and deepset Haystack) and RAG

• Installation of runtime environments for LLMs (Large Language Model)

• Evaluation of various LLMs

• Installation of RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) and integration with LLM

• Extraction of unstructured data with LLM and RAG

• Project based on IBM BAW (Business Automation Workflow), Websphere Liberty, Domea, d.3, REST, LogScale (formerly Humio), Swagger, Powershell, JIRA, Confluence, Lucom Interaction Platform (LIP), Mattermost, Jabber

• 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.

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

• Management of IT with 10 employees, including budget and personnel responsibility.
• Harmonization of the Navision systems in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
• Connection of the ERP systems in Switzerland, Austria and Italy to the central Microsoft Power BI systems in Germany.
• Rollout of a new firewall at 10 locations in D, CH and A.
• Evaluation of a new DMS.
• Migration to Windows 10 / 11.
• Transformation of 9 countries into ONE Europe.
• Start of NIS2 implementation in 5 European countries.

Oracle Project Management and Automation

As part of the project, the operation of an Oracle infrastructure was automated by developing and enhancing Puppet modules and migrating existing Bash scripts to a standardized configuration management solution.

The aim of the project was to standardize and automate administrative processes, improve the maintainability of the Oracle platform, and increase the efficiency and traceability of infrastructure management through the use of Infrastructure as Code.

• Analysis and migration of existing Bash shell scripts to a Puppet-based automation solution
• Development and enhancement of Puppet modules for Oracle environments
• Automation of installation, configuration and operational processes using Infrastructure as Code
• Standardization and optimization of configuration management for Oracle systems
• Creation and maintenance of technical and operational documentation
• Planning, coordination and professional support during project implementation
• Operation and automation of Oracle systems on x86-based Linux server platforms
• Testing and quality assurance of the developed Puppet modules
• Analysis and resolution of technical errors as part of the automation and migration
• Close coordination with specialist departments and infrastructure teams to implement automation requirements

Technologies used: Puppet 7/8, SLES 15, Oracle 19, Oracle Grid, SVN, Windows Server, Confluence, VS Code, Ruby, Bash, Pass