Jan 2018 – Present · 8 yrs 2 mos · Germany / EU · Remote

• Over 8 years, I've coached 80+ CTOs and engineering leaders across Europe and worldwide through the messy, real challenges they face daily.
• THE PROBLEMS I SOLVE:
• Scaling chaos: too many direct reports, you're the bottleneck, everything needs your approval
• Velocity stalled at 40-150 engineers: dependencies everywhere, alignment meetings crushing productivity
• Founder/CTO conflicts: speed vs quality, roadmap whiplash, "just ship it" vs "this will bite us"
• Technical debt crushing the team and blocking innovation
• AI transformation without clear strategy, governance, or ROI
• Team problems you can't solve: underperforming seniors, hiring stalled, retention issues
• Incident spiral & production reliability debt: late-night pages, postmortems that don't change anything
• Reorgs after funding/layoffs that broke ownership and morale
• Remote/hybrid drift: context tribal, decisions in DMs, meetings multiplying
• Board/exec storytelling: facts sound like excuses, confidence eroding
• First-time CTO transitions: promoted for engineering skills, now leading humans without a manual
• Leadership isolation: can't share doubts with CEO, team looks to you for certainty
• HOW I HELP - The Amazing CTO Program:
• 1:1 sessions every 1-2 weeks focused entirely on YOUR unique situation. We start with friendly due diligence, then tackle your biggest challenges head-on.
• WHAT MAKES IT UNIQUE:
• Problem-first approach: fix what's blocking you, then build lasting capacity
• Deep technical credibility: I code daily (40+ years), understand the nitty-gritty
• Comprehensive experience: startups to eBay scale, 5 to 500+ engineers, 3x founder
• European expertise with global reach: understand EU ecosystem, timezone, culture
• Real experience: I've walked the walk through explosive growth, team crises, layoffs, M&As
• Specialized in fast-growing startups and scaleups (5-80 developers) across all industries: adtech, fintech, healthtech, retail, software.
• Author of "Amazing CTO"

Jan 2016 – Jun 2019 · 3 yrs 5 mos · Berlin

• Led product and technology at eventsofa (event management SaaS platform) from early stage through successful acquisition, building the complete technical foundation and team.
• KEY ACHIEVEMENTS:
• Scaled product and technology organization to drive successful exit and acquisition
• Built comprehensive event management platform including lead generation, RFP automation, and invoicing systems
• Scaled SEO strategy that drove major organic traffic growth and customer acquisition
• Successfully navigated technical due diligence process during M&A, demonstrating platform quality and scalability
• Founded and scaled "Sofatalk" event series for employer branding and customer outreach
• Balanced technical debt management with aggressive feature roadmap requirements
• Worked closely with CEO on product strategy and business development
• This startup experience taught me invaluable lessons about balancing speed with quality, building for exit, and managing the intense pressures of scaling - insights I now share with CTOs in similar situations.

Jan 2009 – Dec 2014 · 5 yrs 11 mos · Berlin

• Led technology and interim product at Germany's leading flash-sales e-commerce platform through hyper-growth, platform stabilization, M&A integration into eBay, and enterprise-scale operations.
• KEY ACHIEVEMENTS:
• Stabilized breaking platform under extreme load: eliminated downtime during flash sales, rebuilt core systems for scale
• Grew engineering team 5x while maintaining quality and culture
• Built DevOps organization from scratch: introduced continuous deployment, monitoring, incident management
• Built mobile development team and launched iOS/Android apps that became primary revenue drivers
• Scaled data warehouse infrastructure and increased data cube performance for real-time business intelligence
• Led multiple M&As from technology side: technical due diligence, integration planning, execution
• Successfully integrated brands4friends into eBay's technology ecosystem post-acquisition
• Created "eBay Tech Talks" employer branding initiative that became company-wide standard
• Managed complex stakeholder relationships across eBay's global engineering organization (security, compliance)
• Led BCDR at brands4friends for eBay Inc.
• Introduced SOX compliancy for brands4friends technology department
• Stepped into interim Head of Product role during leadership transition, bridging tech and business
• This role taught me everything about scaling through chaos, managing explosive growth, navigating enterprise politics, and leading through M&A - experiences that directly inform my coaching today.

Jan 2007 – Jan 2009 · 2 yrs

• Led professional agent team at Germany's largest real estate platform, driving organizational transformation and technical excellence.
• KEY ACHIEVEMENTS:
• Championed and helped execute Scrum migration from the inside, transforming how IS24 built software
• Built new professional agent team from ground up
• Optimized interviewing and hiring process, improving quality of hire and candidate experience
• Introduced risk management practices to IS24 development process, reducing time overruns and cost overruns
• Led company critical feature projects and initiatives in technology
• This experience shaped my understanding of organizational change, bottom-up transformation, and building high-performing teams - all critical for the CTOs I coach today.

Jan 2000 – Jan 2002 · 2 yrs

• Founded and led technology for neotis, building an innovative knowledge management platform as CTO and co-founder.
• KEY ACHIEVEMENTS:
• Created neotis knowledge management platform from concept to production
• Designed and built platform architecture based on Java and XML technologies (cutting-edge at the time)
• Developed technology strategy and made critical stack selection decisions as founding CTO
• Worked directly with investors on funding rounds and strategic direction
• Learned invaluable lessons about product-market fit, founder dynamics, and startup challenges
• This founding experience gave me deep empathy for the challenges first-time CTOs and technical founders face - insights I bring to coaching conversations daily.

Jan 1997 – Jan 1999 · 2 yrs

• Led software development and research initiatives, pioneering search technology before modern search engines existed.
• KEY ACHIEVEMENTS:
• Started and built search engine technology before Lucene existed (early search innovation)
• Explored cutting-edge information retrieval and search algorithms
• This early research and development experience taught me the importance of balancing innovation with business needs - a tension every CTO faces.