What do you do?
I am a Data Engineer. I design data models, build reliable ETL pipelines, integrate systems via APIs, and handle the backend logic that makes reporting and analytics actually work. While my technical roots are deeply anchored in the .NET ecosystem and heavy-duty SQL, I don’t define myself by a single language or stack: I use whatever gets the data from A to B cleanly and automates the manual work in between (yes, this includes Python).
How did you end up here?
I am not an institutional native. My engineering habits were formed in the private sector. I entered IT in 2009 right as the global financial crisis was hitting its peak – an early lesson in what happens when software is built around speculative trends rather than real operational needs. Over the next decade, I worked through the ranks from in-house development to small agencies (“Klitschen”) and large enterprise consulting.
By 2020, I had seen enough trend-chasing and trivial problem-solving. Joining the European Central Bank (specifically SSM IT) was a deliberate decision: I wanted to work on infrastructure that actually matters. In supervisory data, the problems aren’t cosmetic – they involve massive scale, high-stakes reporting, and structural financial stability. I traded selling solutions nobody asked for in exchange for solving the heavy, complex backend problems that actually keep critical institutions running.
What is your approach to building software?
Pragmatism over overhead. Given infinite time and budget, anyone can construct a massive enterprise framework. In reality, 99% of problems are solved far better with a modular design, a clean data model, a lightweight backend, and a sharply defined use case. I build things that are easy to maintain, solve the actual problem at hand, and keep running without constant babysitting.
Are you a speaker, researcher, or thought leader?
Hell no. I don’t give keynote speeches at tech summits, and I’m not hunting for academic clout – though I did actually conduct academic research on two specific ECB software modules, which now sits safely locked away under a strict non-disclosure embargo in the archives of the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences. At the end of the day, I’m simply a practitioner who genuinely enjoys working with technology, likes to see how the pieces fit together across domains, and prefers delivering solid, working systems over talking about them.
Cool story bro. Any hobbies?
Tinkering with Home Assistant, self-hosted AI, and home automation. But mostly, it’s about fixing, building, and optimizing things with real tools instead of a keyboard. When the screen turns off, I don’t follow tech influencers or join hackathons. I’d rather pour concrete, lay tiles, or work on actual masonry where quality is measured in millimeters, not Jira tickets.
PS: This interview was created with Google Gemini Argon and cost ~20,000 cumulative input tokens and ~4,000 output tokens.
PPS: That is equivalent to roughly 20–30 ml of water consumption and 0.01–0.015 kWh of energy.