Sebastian Thees
Software Engineer / Cloud Engineer
Experience
Jan 2020 - Feb 2022
2 years 2 months Cologne, Germany
HybridSoftware Engineer / Cloud Engineer
fulfillmenttools (OC Fulfillment GmbH)
- Cloud native SaaS Platform for omnichannel fulfillment clients in e-commerce.
- "Hybrid" role as the first software engineer in the company to bootstrap the organization. A mix of laying out the technical foundation as well as advising management on how to build the company from organizational aspects.
- Initially set up the SaaS platform in almost all technical aspects e.g. guide the software and infrastructure architecture, selection of languages and tools, design of the process to deliver value to the customer quickly and reliable.
- Responsible for design and implementation of the build and continuous deployment pipeline leveraging a multi-tenant approach (separate environment per customer) enabling extreme scaling the SaaS platform.
- Established the initial ITSM / support processes and provided supportive monitoring and alarming. Took also part in the rolling oncall team.
- Reflected regularly about problems and subsequently proposed new approaches on how to scale the platform and build the backend interfaces mitigating bugs and communication overhead.
- Mentored new employees to help them to get started and served as a trustful team member and lateral leader.
- Conducted most interviews of applicants for technical roles.
- Used Technologies: Typescript, Node.js, bash, Google Cloud Platform / serverless technologies (App Engine, Cloud Run, Cloud Functions, Google Endpoints, Firebase), GitHub Actions, Docker, Terraform, Firebase, MongoDB, REST APIs, GraphQL.
Jul 2019 - Dec 2020
6 months Cologne, Germany
Research Engineer / Senior Software Engineer
REWE digital
- Research Engineer in Artificial Intelligence / Computer Vision for image classification.
Mar 2017 - Aug 2017
6 months Durham, United States
Senior Software Engineer
commercetools
- Part of 'commercetools labs' team located in Durham, NC, USA.
- Developed the first proof-of-concept of an integrated app-store like integration service to the commercetools frontend called 'merchant center' by which customers could enhance their feature set by booking feature-apps that got installed and configured automatically in the Google Cloud.
- Originally started as a small task, the proof-of-concept led to 'commercetools labs' within the company to experiment with innovative ideas.
- Used Technologies: NodeJs, Docker, Kubernetes, Google Cloud, JavaScript, React.js, Redux.
Nov 2015 - Jun 2019
3 years 8 months Cologne, Germany
Senior Software Engineer
REWE digital
- Part of the e-commerce checkout tribe in the team responsible for shopping carts and product updates.
- Led (lateral leadership) as a member of a 3-6 person cross-functional team for the conception, implementation and maintenance of shopping cart microservices (REST API and UI).
- Consulted product owners and architects in business and technical questions.
- Coordinated teams about common features, architecture and collaboration.
- Conducted applicant interviews, helped to shape the process and assessed candidates.
- Counselled management on collaboration and organizational issues in the context of technology.
- Used Technologies: Java, Kotlin, groovy, Typescript, Docker, Kubernetes, Google Cloud, Ansible, Tomcat, Postgres, React.js, Apache Kafka, Redis, microservices architecture, Spring Boot, REST API, ELK stack, Jenkins, Bamboo, Debian Linux.
Feb 2012 - Nov 2015
3 years 10 months Bonn, Germany
IT-Consultant / Software Engineer
T-Mobile Deutschland GmbH / T-Systems International GmbH
- Part of the Designtime Team of SOA Backplane with Deutsche Telekom AG.
- Designed and implemented the SOA Backplane service repository which held business services for T-Mobile and T-Home.
- Enhanced model driven software approach (MDA) to generate database layer, entities, rich-client GUI (Eclipse RCP) and web GUI, thus enabled rapid changes of the whole SOA repository by just changing the UML model.
- Coordinated feature development between SOA repository and SOA runtime team which led to a better joint understanding of features, improved the quality and reduced customer complaints.
- Analyzed, raised and estimated business requirements, realized and documented features, supported and trained testing departments from India and Russia about the software.
- Advised the operations department during go-live and production incidents yielded in minimal downtime of the application.
- Counseled the release management and supported in the release roadmap process concluded in an optimized delivery for customers.
- Used Technologies: Java, UML, Hibernate, Eclipse RCP, Oracle DB, JBoss, OS: Solaris, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
Apr 2008 - Feb 2012
3 years 11 months Bonn, Germany
IT-Consultant / Software Engineer
Deutsche Telekom
- Part of the Runtime Team of SOA Backplane with Deutsche Telekom AG.
- Developed the national and international central SOA infrastructure runtime component "CAL" (serving HTTP and JMS) to fulfill the business needs of T-Mobile and T-Home BSS.
- Optimized the application to near real time performance resulting in low latency communication for the clients.
- Established a new agile development process using SCRUM within the team which dramatically improved lead and cycle time.
- Introduced continuous integration to the project with end-to-end testing the built components that ensured high quality results and fewer bugs.
- Responsible for operation and third level support of the legacy SOA infrastructure.
- Responsible for the migration of the legacy SOA bus to the newer "SOA Backplane".
- Supported customers in the transition phase that rendered an earlier shutdown of the legacy SOA than originally planned.
- Used Technologies: Java, JMS (Tibco EMS, IBM MQ and ActiveMQ), HTTP(S), Web Services, Tomcat, Weblogic Application Server, Teamcity.
Summary
Cloud Engineer / Software Engineer for 15+ years in various positions. Committed to lean agile organizations & future leadership principles. Highly empathic team player. Ambitious fast learner with passion to solve problems and to communicate. Keen to work with other experts in an effective team based organization. Always supportive, never intrusive. Looking for projects with team spirit and people with a positive attitude who are eager to learn as I am and who want to build great products for their clients.
Languages
German
Native
English
Advanced
Education
Oct 2005 - Jun 2007
Bonn-Rhein Sieg University of Applied Sciences
Master of Science · Computer Science · Sankt Augustin, Germany · 3.9/4.0
Oct 2002 - Jun 2005
Bonn-Rhein Sieg University of Applied Sciences
Bachelor of Science · Computer Science · Sankt Augustin, Germany · 3.5/4.0
Certifications & licenses
IREB® Certified Professional for Requirements Engineering - Foundation Level
IREB GmbH
ISAQB® Certified Professional for Software Architecture
iSAQB® – International Software Architecture Qualification Board
ITIL Foundation
APMG International
Prince2 Foundation
APM Group
Professional Scrum Master (PSM I)
scrum.org
Professional Scrum Product Owner I (PSPO I)
scrum.org
Sun Certified Java Programmer, Java 6, SCJP 6
Sun Microsystems
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