About

Learn more about me

I am a...

  • Cloud Engineer
  • DevOps Consultant
  • Project Manager
  • Agile Coach
  • Linux Enthusiast
  • Theoretical Physicist

After working some years as researcher and lecturer in the field of theoretical physics and high-performance computing, I chose to leave academia and specialize in infrastructure engineering with a strong focus on the architecture, deployment and automation of highly available cloud-native systems using state-of-the-art technologies from the CNCF ecosystem.

My technical know-how is complemented by solid experience in agile team collaboration and project management.

Languages

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German
(native)

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great britain flag

English
(fluent)

outline china
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Mandarin
(basic)

Certifications

CKAD Badge
CKA Badge
CKS Badge
ICA Badge

Expertise

AWS

K8s / OpenShift

GitOps

Atlassian

Azure

Observability

CI/CD

SCRUM / SAFe

Resume

Check My Vita

Education

PhD Theoretical Physics

2016 - 2021

Technical University Freiberg, Germany

In my PhD years, I worked on combining electrodynamics in media with quantum field theory to obtain a microscopic description of matter based on fundamental microscopic field theories. Eventually, I was able to provide a proof-of-concept for the "Functional Approach" for the free electron gas.

Besides writing thousands of lines scientific code to support my research, I also tought numerous courses (from simple quantum theory to advanced density functional theory) and was heavily involved in university administration and project planning.

PhD Thesis (4.1 MB pdf)   •   Presentation (html)

M. Sc. Applied Natural Science

2014 - 2016

Technical University Freiberg, Germany

While keeping theoretical solid-state physics as subject, I added high-performance computing and code parallelization to my focus areas. By then it was only reasonable to completely take over the institute's IT administration including our self-hosted HPC clusters.

As valedictorian, I was awarded the "Georgius-Agricola Medal" for outstanding performance 🎖️.

B. Sc. Applied Natural Science

2010 - 2014

Technical University Freiberg, Germany

During my Bachelor studies, I already decided to strive for theoretical and computational solid-state physics as main subject while taking additional courses in other fields to gain a broad mathematical and scientific training.
On top, I gradually took over some of the institute's IT administration and started giving tutor lessons.

Professional Experience

Cloud Platform Engineer

2025 - now

inovex GmbH, Pforzheim/Berlin, Germany

Cloud/Systems Engineer  -&-  DevOps Consultant

2021 - 2024

Scandio GmbH, Munich/Berlin, Germany

  • Leading German semiconductor manufacturer
    Migrated a 50k+ user Confluence instance to Openshift. Set up CI/CD pipelines and observability stack. Lead a team of 4 Devs.
  • Prominent European home appliances manufacturer
    Maintained the Internal Developer Platform for 50+ teams (3M end users), incl. self-service DBs, message broker, storage, observability, backups.
  • Major player in the automotive sector
    Operated the Atlassian-based agile toolchain (130k+ users). Spearheaded Datadog as enterprise observability platform.
  • Scandio in-house
    Trained juniors in DevSecOps / GitOps methodology and agile workflows. Moderated retros and kick-offs. Helped establishing the Berlin office. Supported sales and recruiting. Organized meetups and gave tech talks.

Researcher  -&-  HPCC Operator

2016 - 2021

Technical University Freiberg, Germany

  • High-Performance Computing
    Built a new HPC Cluster from scratch, including hardware installation in a Lampertz IT security room, automated provisioning of compute nodes, job queueing system, user management and storage.
  • Scientific Software Development
    Created various Shell and Python scripts and UI tools to transform, analyze and visualize numerical data. Enhanced C, Fortran and Python code bases to run massively parallel on hybrid systems using MPI, openMP and CUDA.

Physics

Make Theory Great Again

Here I provide comprehensive learning resources for some of the university courses I've taught in the past.

All documents are licensed via CC BY-SA 4.0 , so feel free to use the material for your own courses or simply as (additional) study material.

Applied Group Theory

# Topic Sheets
1 Definitions and Cayley tables tasks
answers
2 Euclidean group and its subgroups tasks
answers
3 Projectors, reflections, rotations tasks
answers
4 Point groups, representation, character n.a.

Solid State Theory

# Topic Sheets
1 Real and reciprocal space tasks
answers
2 Bloch model, SEQ in reciprocal space tasks
answers
3 Pseudo potentials tasks
answers

Computational Solid State Physics

# Topic Sheets
1 Crystal visualization tasks
answers
2 Crystal creation, Introduction to ASE tasks
answers
3 Ground state calculations with GPAW, density plot tasks
answers
4 Convergence tests tasks
answers
5 Energy-volume curves and EOS tasks
answers
6 Bandstructure calculation tasks
answers
7 Density of states (DOS) tasks
answers
8 DOS and thermodynamics tasks
answers
9 DOS and magnetism n.a.

Density Functional Theory

# Topic Theory Assignment
A)   Empirical Pseudo Potentials (EPP)
1 Theory + Fourier grid sheet
answers		 task
solution
2 Primitive Cells & energy cut-off sheet
answers		 task
solution
3 Bandstructure sheet
answers		 task
solution
B)   Density Functional Theory (DFT) - Part I
4 Radial Schrödinger equation sheet
answers		 task
solution
5 Hartree potential sheet
answers		 task
solution
C)   Density Functional Theory (DFT) - Part II
6 Essential concepts sheet
answers		 task
solution
7 Exchange and correlation, LDA sheet
answers		 task
solution
D)   Density Functional Theory (DFT) - Part III
8 LAPW approach for periodic bulks n.a. n.a.