Head of Engineering - Midnight

• Aug 2023 - Present

Engineering Advisor

• Jun 2022 - Present

Advising startups on building new engineering teams and organizations, helping them to facilitate web3 and blockchain technologies and Rust based frameworks like Substrate. Advising startups on building new engineering teams and organizations, helping them to facilitate web3 and blockchain technologies and Rust based frameworks like Substrate.

VP

• Jan 2021 - Jul 2022

Managing parity's Substrate (Rust based blockchain framework) engineering organisation. Managing parity's Substrate (Rust based blockchain framework) engineering organisation.

Senior Consultant

• Jul 2020 - Dec 2020

Managing a Red Hat Open Shift cluster install. Managing a Red Hat Open Shift cluster install.

Head of IT Operations epayments / Mercedes pay

• May 2018 - Feb 2020

- Building up a new SRE / DevOps team with assisting teams such as back-office and customer support across two locations (Stuttgart & Berlin). - Migration of the application from in-house to AWS and ensuring PCI-DSS Level 1 compliance of the infrastructure. - Defining strategy and budget for the IT operations of the epayment system. - Responsible for the operation of the application and all related processes. - Budget responsibility as well as steering of external suppliers and crisis communication. - Part of the leadership team defining the overall strategy and direction of the epayment project. Show less

Staff Systems Engineer

• May 2013 - Feb 2018

- Substitute and temporary team manager for the EMEA (Amsterdam \& London) teams. - Architecting the cloud infrastructure, including typical infrastructure services as well as the internal automation systems, global backup systems and strategy and bootstrapping of new datacenters. - Architecting the cloud systems \& infrastructure and helping the SRE team during the roll-out of new features. - Writing automation code. One of the few globally with git merge rights to the production puppet tree. - Assisting Operational teams such as SRE with difficult operational issues. - Presenting and discussing all new designs in the Architectural committee. - Migrating an AWS based product from an acquired company into internal infrastructure. - Last (4th) support tier for databases (we run 10000s of MySQL instances) and system issues. - Developing ways to use (partial-)virtualization techniques like Docker or VMware in SNC's cloud. - Working in an Agile/Scrum way (SCM). Infrastructure as code environment. ITIL based processes. Show less

Integration Engineer

• Jul 2011 - May 2013

- Installing and maintaining trading systems used by the options market making group. - Dealing with exchange related issues (most European exchanges). - Working with the development and trading teams to resolve issues and drive new features. - Writing scripts for configuration and maintenance tasks. - Development of the globally used database (MySQL & mongoDB) backup procedure. - Installing and maintaining trading systems used by the options market making group. - Dealing with exchange related issues (most European exchanges). - Working with the development and trading teams to resolve issues and drive new features. - Writing scripts for configuration and maintenance tasks. - Development of the globally used database (MySQL & mongoDB) backup procedure.

Head of IT Systems & Infrastructure

• Jun 2009 - Jun 2011

- Responsible for FMI’s IT infrastructure, including all Windows and UNIX systems, consisting of a mix of Linux, Windows, Solaris and AIX systems across 3 data centers. - Hiring and managing of junior sysadmin. - Coordination with external consultants for windows and network devices. - Presenting all current planning and status of FMI’s Infrastructure to the next level (“IT committee”). - Design, planning and upgrade of FMI’s internal storage (mirrored across 2 data centers) running ZFS on Sun Solaris 10. - Operation and maintenance of FMI’s internal storage systems running on samfs/qfs with 100s of TB storage (3 Sun StorageTek arrays of cache, 1 VTL and 2 Spectra Logic Tape Libraries). - Supervision and maintenance of the institutes backup system (Symantec Netbackup). - Dealing with daily issues on Linux/UNIX/ESX systems as well as escalated tickets from the help desk team. - Administration of all storage arrays and the FC based SAN. Show less

Senior Systems Engineer

• Aug 2008 - Mar 2009

- Building up a new Linux/JBoss computing cluster (30 systems) - Develop and deploy of a scalable build-system (via kickstart), software deployment and automated system configuration (puppet) - Design new storage system, based on 2 AoE (ATA over Ethernet) arrays mirrored via drbd, exported via iSCSI - Setup of the cluster file system (ocfs2) - Develop of a database clustering solution (postgres) - Building a monitoring and control solution for the cluster (nagios based) - Building up a new Linux/JBoss computing cluster (30 systems) - Develop and deploy of a scalable build-system (via kickstart), software deployment and automated system configuration (puppet) - Design new storage system, based on 2 AoE (ATA over Ethernet) arrays mirrored via drbd, exported via iSCSI - Setup of the cluster file system (ocfs2) - Develop of a database clustering solution (postgres) - Building a monitoring and control solution for the cluster (nagios based)

EMEA Production Support Team Leader

• Jun 2004 - Jul 2008

- Managing the EMEA enterprise support team for the EMEA region (11 members) - Coordination with sales, consulting, sales engineering and administration - Escalation point for customers - Working with team leaders from other (NA/APAC) regions on defining global processes within the support department - Reporting statistics and metrics to director / vice president level - Hiring and coaching of new members (most team members were hired by me) - Planning vacation schedules of the team members - From 12/2007 on: building up a new level 1 structure within the EMEA support department Show less

Software Engineer with team lead function

• Oct 2001 - Feb 2004

- Lead programmer responsible for planing and executing web based database applications. - Designing network security solutions based on Cisco PIX VPN, Nortel and Linux IPSec - Project manager for internal and external software development - Developing database applications in Perl/PHP/C++ - Writing a patient management system for a hospital, for storage of medical data used across reception and sterile operation room - Responsible for all in-house and customer-hosted UNIX based servers - Handled all customer contacts - Training and assistance of trainees Show less