About

Hi, my name is Tobi, and I am a skilled software craftsperson from northern Germany born in 1990.

TL;DR

I am an experienced consultant, coach, and mentor for leadership at all levels. I was the driving force behind the developer experience team at BRYTER, leading the successful transition to continuous deployment. Currently, I am dedicated to helping SaaS companies build high-performing engineering organisations, leveraging his expertise in (technical) leadership and developer productivity. With an inherent passion for software craft, I am committed to enabling companies and individuals to create software with excellence and joy.

With my program unblocked.engineering I offer coaching and consulting services for companies and teams that want to reach the next level of engineering excellence and improve their developer productivity.

The Backstory

At the young age of six, I developed a passion for computers and technology. I taught myself programming and web technologies at the age of 10 and started my own IT support, web design, and web development company two years later. As software systems became increasingly complex, I became interested in learning how to manage this complexity. This led me to pursue a degree in computer science and software systems architecture. Through my studies and various team projects, I discovered my fascination for sociotechnical systems, the combination of social and technical systems.

I was able to nurture and apply this fascination in my subsequent engagements and I graduated with a master’s degree in computer science with a focus on software systems engineering in 2015 from Lübeck.

During my first employment at Dräger, I played a key role in developing application software, promoting the use of distributed version control systems and automated tests, implementing continuous integration pipelines across multiple teams, and educating software engineers on new tools and methodologies until June 2018.

Afterwards, I joined PAYONE as the first Senior Software Engineer in their inaugural remote team. I played a key role in building the team, implementing architecture refactorings, extracting services from monolithic backend systems, developing new features in Java and Kotlin, and streamlining the development and deployment process.

From April 2021 until January 2023, I have worked as a Senior Software Engineer and Tech Lead for BRYTER in a fully remote capacity. My team and I were responsible for delivering an exceptional developer experience for other teams, and we were able to achieve this by introducing continuous deployment processes, which resulted in a roughly 90% reduction in pipeline times. Additionally, we were assisting other teams in adopting new processes, methods and tools to help them achieve their goals more efficiently and effectively. Our efforts had a significant impact on the way teams work at BRYTER.

In 2022, I founded unblocked.engineering, a program designed to assist small and medium-sized SaaS companies in establishing a high-performing engineering team by leveraging my expertise in technical leadership and developer productivity.

In addition to my other responsibilities, I am currently overseeing the system architecture and leading the development and launch of Weels, a video tool designed to improve conversion rates on websites, currently available in German only. Furthermore, I am one of the organizers of the SoCraTes Germany (Un)conference.

In addition to my passion for software craft and solving complex problems, I also have a love for the ocean. In my free time, I explore the hidden world beneath the surface while diving. I also enjoy being out on the water, sailing, windsurfing, and kiting.

I enjoy learning new programming languages and technologies and using them to develop software. Additionally, I am interested in reading books about leadership and psychology that challenge my thinking.

You can find some but not all of my projects on my GitLab or Github account. If you want to know more about my skills, my interests, or my history, or if you wish to connect with me, feel free to take a look at my LinkedIn or follow me on Twitter.

Make sure to check out the unblocked.engineering blog, where I am writing about technical leadership and some other topics I am thinking about.