2019

Lots of things have changed for me in 2019. So let’s look back.

In 2019, the biggest project I was ever involved in and responsible for went live. Nothing happened at launch day and everything started to work smoothly. We worked the whole of 2018 with up to 10 teams on this project. That was a very cool experience. Thanks to everybody who was involved. It would not have been possible without all of you.

Another interesting aspect or process was the integration of our company back to the DPDHL Group. Taking care of people and their thoughts what is about to happen is very important. Transparency in communication is hard, defining purpose and goal of the company and communicating that to everybody is key. I learned so many valuable lessons during that time. It was hard but i will not miss it.

Perhaps the biggest change is switching my job. I started over seven years ago in an (more or less) independent company of the DPDHL Group. We were small, and we could build many new things. We were the first ones in the group to have DevOps and agile Development. We did several hundred deployments a year and developed our microservice architecture. I wore many hats, from Principal Engineer to Head of Architecture and some titles in between. I learned so much and I’m very grateful for the experience. I met some really smart, awesome and astonishing people and made new friends. As we got more and more integrated back to the group, I felt it was the right time to move on. After about 6 months of interviews and offers I joined the (comparable) small startup Polyteia in November.

At Polyteia we built the smart governance platform for cities and towns. We want to help mayors, department heads and treasurers to make smart decisions with data. This is something I think is really needed in Germany and Europe. In the first two months I learned so much: new technology, new business, a new team, new responsibilities. It is amazing. I’m looking forward to 2020 to grow the business, the team and the impact we have.