Sebastian S. - Group Product Manager – Digital Platform Discovery

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Berlin, Germany

Experience

Nov 2024 - Jun 2025

8 months

Berlin, Germany

Group Product Manager – Digital Platform Discovery

SPREAD.AI

Developed and implemented organization-wide discovery framework based on Ulwick’s Outcome-Driven Innovation; enabled 7 Product Owners to systematically identify and quantify unrealized value through shared outcome language and opportunity scoring methodology
Transformed Product Owner role from backlog clerks to strategic experimenters; established dedicated time budget for autonomous hypothesis testing and discovery activities
Rebuilt customer journey maps to start at actual user need (tool selection phase) instead of platform entry point; eliminated manual data aggregation work previously done by project teams
Implemented OKR framework across 4 product teams; defined quarterly objectives with measurable key results (e.g., 40% reduction in manual integration effort, self-service adoption increase)
Unified 3 separate platform roadmaps through cross-team dependency mapping and shared service agreements
Supported enterprise sales cycle with ROI modeling and technical due diligence for automotive and defense customers
Tools & Methods: Jira, Confluence, Miro, OKRs, Outcome-Driven Innovation, Continuous Discovery, Jobs-to-be-Done, User Story Mapping, Dual-Track Agile, DevOps culture transformation

Apr 2024 - Nov 2024

8 months

Berlin, Germany

Senior Product Owner – Data & AI

SPREAD.AI

Eliminated support ticket bottleneck by migrating local data mapping tool chain to cloud-based solution; removed scope waste through rigorous unrealized-value analysis before scaling
Engineered 80% faster data mapping through ETL optimization (Rust, WebAssembly, JavaScript); integrated heterogeneous sources (ERP, CRM, Siemens proprietary systems) via unified data model
Executed complete database migration from ArangoDB to Neo4j mid-quarter; conducted technical spike evaluating 8 graph databases to resolve query performance degradation
Defended decision against CEO pressure to defer migration by quantifying tech debt cost; ruthlessly descoped other initiatives to accommodate migration, discovery, and stakeholder alignment in a single quarter
Crisis-managed AI product launch; wrote technical documentation and sales enablement materials for agentic AI capabilities (LLM, RAG, Mistral Nemo, DINO vision, multi-agent orchestration)
Conducted “eat your own dog food” experiment using sensitive sales data to demonstrate internal platform adoption feasibility
Tools & Tech Stack: Jira, Confluence, Miro, Neo4j, ArangoDB, Rust, WebAssembly, GCP, AWS, Kubernetes, Helm, ArgoCD, Mistral Nemo, RAG architecture, Value Stream Mapping, User Story Mapping

Nov 2020 - Mar 2024

3 years 5 months

Bamberg, Germany

Product Manager – Maintenance Manager Team

Docufy

Built and scaled zero-trust maintenance planning platform for multi-stakeholder machine lifecycle in pay-per-use business models; supported regulatory compliance and IoT integration
Executed POC-to-Pilot strategy with 100% conversion; expanded platform from printing machinery into rail and industrial sectors
Delivered multi-language SaaS B2B2B rollout across 5 continents (+5k users); reached break-even within 2 years despite customer over-commitment on machine volume
Achieved 2x/week deployment frequency, reduced MTTR from 3 days to 2 hours, enabled zero-downtime releases via blue-green deployment and feature flags
Engineered multi-tenant architecture with per-customer database and pod isolation; implemented GitOps and DevSecOps to prevent offshore contractor access to production data
Built GDPR-compliant RBAC system with Active Directory integration and right-to-be-forgotten workflows
Introduced Selenium-based E2E test automation and DORA metrics tracking; implemented HA architecture to reduce incidents to service degradation
Designed edge data storage for offline workforce capability with zero data loss; provided contextual technical documentation across 5 languages
Integrated DINO ML model for visual damage detection (MVP); architected state-based task triggering for predictive maintenance workflows
Led team evolution from 8 to 4 in maintenance mode while maintaining service quality; coached sales on complex multi-stakeholder value proposition
Established observability stack (Prometheus, Grafana, Azure Monitor) with defined SLIs/SLOs for data-driven incident response and capacity planning

Jan 2019 - Nov 2020

1 year 11 months

Frankfurt, Germany

Senior Client Solution Lead – Solutions Team

Embold

Led pre-sales technical consulting and implementation delivery for SAST platform with ML-based PR risk analysis and branch-agnostic code quality scoring
Managed 4-person solution team (Germany, India) serving 20+ EMEA enterprise customers generating 50% of company revenue
Delivered value consulting engagements across banking, automotive (Tier 2), pharma, and tech; created executive presentations to secure budget and drive tool adoption
Doubled project capacity through process systematization: built Jira-based funnel with phase tracking, VSM board for cycle time analysis, eliminated email-based communication
Built PowerBI executive dashboards combining telemetry and temporal analytics; dashboard success led to API domain ownership
Embedded as Consulting PO 2 days/week at customer site; led external supplier teams, resolved 8-month timeline gap through story breakdown and requirements translation
Scaled offshore program from 2 to 8 developers through demonstrated delivery value and stakeholder management

Mar 2017 - Dec 2018

1 year 10 months

Berlin, Germany

Project Executive & Customer Value Consultant

Seerene

Led technical pre-sales and pilot delivery for engineering intelligence platform analyzing code complexity, organizational dynamics, and delivery inefficiencies
Executed 53 pilot projects (35 EMEA, 15 Asia, 3 US) with 2-4 week delivery cycles; achieved first successful international pilot conversion (Hargreaves Lansdown, UK)
Analyzed development workflows to identify agile delivery deviations and provided targeted refactoring recommendations based on bug density, nesting levels, and complexity trends
Identified knowledge monopolies via commit analysis; flagged single-developer dependencies for risk mitigation
Engineered custom scan integrations for incompatible version control systems; implemented CI/CD hooks for continuous analysis
Trained Hong Kong consulting team on findings presentation and technical integration, enabling autonomous local delivery

Aug 2015 - Sep 2016

1 year 2 months

Nuremberg, Germany

ERP Project Executive

Konica Minolta IT Solutions

Managed NAV projects up to €400,000 with teams of 2–12 people; developed C/AL as required

Dec 2013 - Aug 2015

1 year 9 months

Marburg, Germany

IT Consultant – Freelancer

Analyzed and optimized processes, reducing offer creation time from 4 hours to under 3 minutes by introducing and adapting PHP-based open source ERP system

Summary

Product Manager with 8+ years driving operational excellence through DevOps culture, platform economics, and evidence-based delivery optimization. Specialized in transforming organizations from project-driven execution to product-led thinking with measurable impact on DORA metrics and SCRUM EBM framework (ability to innovate, time-to-market, current value, unrealized value).

Proven track record scaling SaaS platforms globally (+5k users, 5 continents), managing offshore teams (India), and navigating regulated industries (Automotive ISO 26262, Rail, Pharma GxP, Defense). Expert in platform products, DevSecOps toolchains, and multi-tenant B2B/B2B2B architectures.

Core Expertise: Outcome-Driven Innovation (Ulwick ODI), Platform Strategy, Value Stream Mapping, DORA Metrics, Multi-Tenant SaaS, CI/CD Optimization, Stakeholder Management (C-Level, Technical Teams), Offshore Program Management

I build products and platforms that enable teams to deliver high-quality outcomes faster and more reliably.

I'm passionate about DevOps culture, platform thinking, data-heavy products, and helping cross-functional teams reduce friction, increase automation, and scale efficiently.

My goal is to foster alignment across business and tech by integrating user value, operational excellence, and modern engineering practices like CI/CD, IaC, and observability.