Chief Software Architect

I'm a highly motivated and dedicated IT specialist with 15 years of work experience in the general field of information systems. My first work experience was acquired during university as a trainee and contractor for various companies. After graduation (with distinction) I joined Bloomberg in London to work in the financial sector followed by an engagement in encryption and privacy at Mils Eletronic/Austria. At GE in Jenbach, I have grown from a lead developer to chief architect with focus on IoT and analytics writing software running in the cloud as well as on the edge. Technology wise I am profound in Java, .Net and C++ for client/desktop applications as well as server and web-services. My passion is about designing robust, scalable and user friendly applications.

Software Technologies

• Java, Scala - 4 years cloud applications using Spring, Vertx and Akka
• C#, WCF, WPF - 6 years client/server development
• C++, STL - 3 years in-depth knowledge
• Javascript, HTML5, Phonegap, mobile apps - Side Channel Messenger
• PHP - criSMS.net
• multi-threading, inter-process communication
• design patterns
• enterprise service bus, Spring, Active MQ, ZeroMQ, Redis, in-memory DB, Cassandra
• encryption algorithms
• VoIP and Video conferencing codecs, Speex, Theora, VP8
• multi-platform development and micro service architecture using Kubernetes/Cloudfoundry on AWS
• others: Python, UML, XML, CVS, HTML, mySQL

General

• Master's thesis was published in book form and is available at Amazon.
• 2nd place in the "Jugend Innovativ" contest for the project "Intelligent Road and Park Pricing", Vienna, 1998
• European Contest for Young Scientists, Porto/Portugal, 1998
• Open source projects demonstrating VoIP and video conferencing technologies:
  http://nspeex.codeplex.com
  http://ntheora.codeplex.com
  http://nvpx.codeplex.com
• Private projects on secure communication:
  https://www.sidechannel.im

Applications

• Microsoft Visual Studio
• Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA - used as IDE for several projects
• Rational Purify Suite
• MS Office

Certifications

• iSAQB® Certified Professional for Software Architecture, Foundation Level, 07/2011
• PMI - Managing Projects in Energy Engineering, 09/2011
• Agile Projectmanagement with SCRUM, 11/2008

Languages

• English - fluent
• German - mother tongue

01/2015 - present

GE Jenbacher, Jenbach, Austria
Principal Software Engineer/Chief Software Architect

End of 2014, I got promoted to Principal Engineer for software and finally Chief Software Architect within the Distributed Power business at GE having sole responsibility for software in engineering. This change allowed me to build a global team by hiring (permanent as well as contractors) at Indian, Polish and Austrian locations followed by an intense period of building a team spirit along with a common understanding of technologies and development/release process for software. Technically, I was fully focused on refactoring the RM&D platform architecting to a cloud-based platform using state-of-the art technologies like SpringXD, colum-oriented and in-memory databases, micro-service architecture which was able to deal with a constant load of 8k updates/sec peaking at > 100k updates/sec. At the same time there was a commercial focus to sell the platform so the availability and responsivness of the platform where key. A new release process was introduced which allows us to ship new releases every 2 weeks plus 4 major releases per year.

Key Contributions:

• Refactored existing RM&D system to a more robust and scalable cloud solution (AWS)
• Introduced a release process to have a constant stream of releases at highest quality
• Technical responsibility for a global software team of size 15

01/2011 - 12/2014

GE Jenbacher, Jenbach, Austria
Lead Software Engineer/Software Architect

When I joined General Electric in 2011, I was able to leverage my experience to transfer the development of the new HMI platform back in-house. At the same time I executed an in-depth risk analysis of the current software deliveries and forming a global team (India and Austria) by defining rhythm of operation (based on SCRUM), enforcing strong development guidelines (automated unit testing, automatic code analysis during check-in) and also doing training session of team members. The outcome of the risk analysis showed a 30% increase in the product backlog which resulted in a major refactoring of basically all parts of the system. This refactoring and the new architecture was defined and communicated by me. As the technical team lead for the local software group I was establishing a forum where each team member can bring in his own knowledge and share it with rest of the team members. Further, I supported various projects ranging from an RM&D solution to internal productivity tools (technical range was Java EE, Javascript HTML5, Oracle, ASP.net, MS SQL) as technical lead, bringing in new technologies, hiring the right people and assessing current solutions with focus on what to improve and how.

Key Contributions:

• Refactor system architecture to be able to live up to product requirements, drive development by enforcing code quality standards
• Forming global development team after taking project back in-house, establishing agile development process (SCRUM), development guidelines and rhythm of operation
• Technical team lead for local group by focusing on knowledge sharing and supporting 4 projects in form of technical guidance

08/2013 - present

Side Channel, St. Johann in Tirol, Austria
Founder and Developer

One day on a nearby lake, I wanted to send a picture of my daughter Paula but I did not want to share my personal life with data-driven companies like Google, WhatsApp, Facebook, etc.. This is where the idea of starting my own secure messaging platform called Side Channel was born. Soon after that I started development focusing on keeping the message data secure by using end-to-end public key encryption. Soon after starting my work, the topic of privacy got much more focus from the public due to espionage affairs and data leaks. Finally, in January 2014 I was able to release the first version of the Side Channel Messenger to the app stores. At the moment Side Channel is running on Google Android, Apple iOS, Blackberry and Windows Phone 8 with plans to bring Side Channel Messenger also to the desktop.

Key Contributions:

• Founding and running a private project completely in my spare time at home
• Launching a production ready messaging application on all major mobile platforms
• Using latest mobile technology based on Phonegap, Javascript, HTML5 and REST based web-services

02/2012 - present

WIFI Tirol, Innsbruck, Austria
Trainer/Teacher on Software Development

Through one of the interns who invited me to do a teaching session on the WIFI about WPF, I found interest in teaching software development. Since then I'm holding lectures in the domain of software development which makes great fun and rewards when you see students picking up and getting into programming.

10/2008 - 01/2011

Mils Electronic, Mils bei Hall, Austria
Senior Software Engineer/Software Architect

After 2 and a half years in London I moved back to Austria and joined Mils Electronic near Innsbruck, Austria to work in the field of privacy and encryption for governmental and military bodies. We are developing a unified communication system (messaging, VoIP, video conferencing) where the information is protected with the strongest possible encryption technology. As the main person responsible for the software architecture I also motivate and help other team members with my drive and enthusiasm for a "neat" system and software development in general. Development is done in an agile environment using .Net with C# and WCF as the underlying communication framework. On the client side we use WPF for the user interface. During iteration planing, together with the project manager, I use my overall knowledge of information system to design new features and plan the right refactoring targets if needed.

Key Contributions:

• Design a robust multi-process server architecture
• Research into WCF and enhancing it with our high-end encryption technology for communication
• Applying design patterns and communicate the "architectural system idea" to my colleagues

04/2006 - 08/2008

Bloomberg LP, London, UK
Financial Software Developer

After graduation I started to work at Bloomberg as an entry level software developer. Soon after joining the B-Pipe team, I took over responsibilities for the client-facing API (SDK) where I became lead developer. Development was done under C++ with main focus on performance, robustness and scalability. The whole product utilised a component based framework with XML for configuration purposes and ACE for multi-platform development which was developed in-house. Although my main focus was lying on the API side I was actively involved in major development projects (design, implementation, testing and roll-out) for all parts of the system. I also worked on enhancements and bug fixes to the framework. After each development cycle I used profiling tools like Rational Purify/Quantiy, Valgrind and Insure++ to guarantee a memory leak free and well performing system. Additionally to C++ we used Java (J2EE using JBoss application server) for the service management system which allowed us to monitor and configure the product. For this service I was the main developer and contact person in London. Apart from software development, I was managing several projects with focus on performance optimisation on the client and server side.

Key Contributions:

• Introducing multi-threading into the product by starting with the API followed by server side applications
• Enhance the service management system with the ability to monitor and detect latency and performance problems on the client side
• Consulting clients to implement in an efficient way against the SDK as the main contact person for technical questions from clients and vendors.

01/2004 - present

criSMS.net, Graz, Austria
Founder and Developer
Because of interests in mobile applications, I started a SMS service with a global coverage during my Study Abroad Program in Helsinki/Finland. Beside advertising and accounting, my focus lies on putting new trends and technologies in the field of Web-applications into practical use. Since its start, criSMS.net has become a well known and accepted member in the SMS community with more than 80.000 SMS delivered in the first year.

Key Contributions:

• Founded and operated criSMS.net;
• Utilisation of cutting-edge web-technologies like the Smarty template engine and Ajax.

1999 - 2005
(part time beside my study)

sd&m AG, Munich, Germany
Andritz AG, Graz, Austria
M-Tech GmbH, Klagenfurt, Austria
Unruhe Privatstiftung, Vienna/Graz, Austria
Trainee, Software Engineer 
Beside my study I worked for various companies as trainee or contractor where I gained fundamental knowledge and industrial work experience in software development. Projects where related to web-development, office software and mechanical device controlling.

EDUCATION

01/2002 - 12/2005

University of Technology Graz, Master program in Telematics
Graduated with distinction
Major: Information Systems
Minors: Biomedical Engineering, Software Technologies
Master's Thesis: "Adaptive E-Learning Systems - User Modelling and User Profiling"; development of a user modelling system based on Service-oriented Architecture
2003/2004 - Study Abroad Program (ERASMUS) on the University of Helsinki / Finland

10/1999 - 12/2002

University of Technology Graz, Bachelor program in Telematics
Graduated with distinction

06/1998

HTL Klagenfurt, Technical High School - Communication Engineering
HTL (Höhere Technische Lehranstalt) is a secondary education school that permits students to acquire the university entry qualification and professional training at the same time.