About

I am a front-end engineer located in Cologne, Germany. I have eight years of experience in developing scalable web-applications based on cutting edge technologies including – but not limited to – HTML5 APIs, CSS3 features and object-oriented JavaScript.
I am passioned about writing modular and expressive code for clean, performant and accessible software.
Apart from that I love developing teams in the agile spectrum. I am a Certified Scrum Master.

Open Source & Community Engagement

Core developer of HTML5 Boilerplate: Ongoing maintenance of HTML5 Boilerplate, a solid front-end template to start projects with, as a member of the core team.

Creation of INIT: INIT is an extension to HTML5 Boilerpalte with more structure for SCSS files and JavaScript, built upon Grunt.js, Bower and Karma helping developers to start a project more quickly.

Co-host of Working Draft: Strong influence on the German-speaking community while being member of the weekly web-development and web-news podcast Working Draft.

Contributions to TYPO3 CMS: Contributions to the core of the enterprise content management system TYPO3 CMS, improving the overall user experience of the backend design.

Blog about Web-Technology: Researching and sharing latest technologies and learnings in a dedicated blog as well as maintaining a shared blog with friends and colleagues.

Other contributions to projects such as Bootstrap, HTML5 Please, and Grunt.js.

Speaking

I am very happy to be invited to any conference in our scene and beyond.

• SoCoded 2015; Munich, Germany — Workflow: Frontend Tooling – "Tool with it!"
• SoCoded 2013; Hamburg, Germany — Starting Front-End Projects – Video
• Frontend Conference 2013; Zürich, Switzerland — Be Friends With You Designer And Style Guides – Updated • Video
• Beyond Tellerrand Side Stage 2013; Düsseldorf, Germany — Component Based Development
• Front-Trends 2013; Warsaw, Poland — Be Friends With You Designer And Style Guides • Video
• UX Munich 2013; Munich, Germany — Be Friends With You Designer And Style Guides • Video
• TakeOff Conference 2013; Lille, France — Writing Awesome Code – Extended Version • Video
• Fronteers 2012 Jam Session; Amsterdam, Netherlands — Writing Awesome Code • Vimeo

Writings

I wrote some articles on the interwebz and offline. Here is a list. Hopefully more to come.

• CSS Naming Conventions: Less Rules, more Fun on Medium.com
• A counter statement: Putting the CSS in the head on Medium.com
• Shared Grunt Configuration for The Nitty Gritty
• Reducing Boilerplate Code in Front-End Projects for The Nitty Gritty
• Decoupling CSS from HTML with reusable modules for The Nitty Gritty
• [de] SCREENGUIDE – issue 15 – Neues für Webseitendrucker - Extended Version in English
• [de] SCREENGUIDE – issue 14 – Boilerplates – So starten Sie Ihre Projekte schneller und effizienter
• .net Magazine – issue 224 – .net HTML5 site of the month – Project: Haufe iDesk²
• [de] Box-Sizing – CSS3 Adventskalender on maddesigns’ blog
• [de] Apple’s Navigation mit Flexbox – CSS3 Adventskalender in maddesigns’ blog

Please send me a mail if you want me to write for you.

Other

• Nomination as Young Developer Of The Year / .net-Awards 2013.
• Certified Scrum Master
• Co-Organizer of NightlyBuild.io - a Web-developer conference in Cologne.
• Former Co-Organizer of DevsMeetup in Freiburg, Germany - a monthly Developer Usergroup.

Work

In the past I worked on projects for clients such as Vaillant Group Business Services, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Unfallchirurgie, publisher Haufe-Lexware, AppMeister, Gruner + Jahr and others.

Freelance Front-End Developer and Architect

June 2008 – present

• Consulting for middle and large-scale web projects in the front-end section
• Analyses and improvement of new and existing software architectures
• Workshops for agencies to educate thier developers and designers
• Working on client projects using, configuring and developing front-end for FirstSpirit, TYPO3 CMS, WordPress and Magento

Lead Front-end Developer at /gebrüderheitz

April 2010 – April 2013

• Developed technical company stategies
  • Introduced Scrum and development structure using GitHub throughout the whole company
  • Successfully introduced new technology such as Sass and Grunt.js
  • Developed and established coding guidelines to improve maintainability of projects
  • Developed stategies for deployment using unit tests and continuous integration with a significant time reduction for the team
• Consultant for mobile web applications improving the understanding of modern technology with clients and partner agencies
• Focused on developing HTML, CSS and JavaScript using Open Source Software

Software Developer and Co-Founder at colored.by

November 2011 – present

• Leading a technical team of three
  • Connecting internal and external developers
  • Working with and testing latest technology
• Product development as a co-founder with the management team

Core Skills

As a Front-End developer you work on a lot of things over the years. Here are some skills I consider myself good at.

• Tooling and workflow
  • Git: Git Flow, GitHub Flow
  • Grunt: extensive configuration and workflow optimization experience
  • Modules: package management (npm, Bower), RequireJS
  • Testing: unit testing with Karma and Jasmine, regression testing, user testing
  • Automation: Continuous Integration; Jenkins and alike
• Architecture
  • Coding conventions and guidelines: HTML & CSS (BEM, OOCSS), JS (Idiomatic JS)
  • Component based development
  • Working with and optimizing for performance budgets
• Development
  • JS: React.js, Backbone, RequireJS, jQuery, Vanilla
  • HTML and CSS (which includes "HTML5" and "CSS3")
  • Responsive { webdesign | development | images | UX }
  • Preprocessors: excellent Sass knowledge, LESS, Stylus
  • Accessibility and "SEO" (whatever that means)
• Working agile: Scrum, great teams, communication