My history
A master in business studies, an entrepreneur (3x times co-founder and 1x founder), technology enthusiast and software developer and teacher. These are the passions that I combine with my work.
Digital Nomad
Since a long time I dreamt of working remotely. And finally in 2016 I made this dream come true, since then there is no way back. You can read more about my journey here.
Teaching & Consulting
Teaching, or consulting, is part of my nature. I enjoy helping others and brainstorm about figuring out the most fitting solution for my clients. I also teach programming to students or I mentor young talent.
Creative
Programming is often seen as analytical, but I believe it’s more creative. As Einstein would put it “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. So we need different solutions to current problems.
My skills
Due to my background and eagerness to learn, I’ve
made considerable advancements in different fields of expertise.
Javascript
I’ve worked on projects with various frameworks, such as VueJS, ReactJS and AngularJS. 5 years+ experience.
Ruby
One of my favourite languages. Especially combined with the Rails framework. 5+ years experience.
PHP
PHP. Web applications, Micro applications, custom plugins for WordPress. 7 years+ experience.
Server Admin / Devops
Managing Ubuntu/Linux server environments, as well as DNS management, Mail servers and general IT management. 5 years+ experience.
WordPress
I know it inside out, custom plugins, custom themes, modifying existing plugins or building platforms out of your wordpress website. 8 years+ experience.
Woocommerce
E-commerce with WordPress. I’ve set online more than 8 custom online shops in the last 3 years. Requires a lot of PHP and Javascript skills. 3 years+ experience.
SEO
I know the basics of SEO and especially technical SEO. I’ve worked on several well ranked and content heavy websites with many technical challenges. From that point of view I can support any project.
Google Tag Manager
I’ve specialised in setting up diverse and advanced tracking with Tag Manager in conjunction with FB, Linkedin, Google Analytics, Beacons or any other integration (Cookies). 3 years+ experience.
Space for learning and
delivering high quality solutions.
Technical solutions are usually not for the short-term if you would like
it to be. The reason for that is every technical project has a step-in barrier.
Someone needs to dive into it. Delivering good quality solutions lowers this barrier. This in the end makes projects fun to work on and easier to work on. A solid foundation builds trust in the technology and in the people.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do clients often ask me?
And my answers to that.
Can we have this by tomorrow?
Oftentimes, you are in hurry, and you might have made promises to stakeholders. I understand this completely, but consider this. Rash decision making in technology settings leads to an increased failure rate of projects in the long run. Legacy code that cannot be maintained increases future costs and delays new functionality and maintenance. Technology always bites back if you don’t invest in it properly. We can think about what you really need and what solutions will provide that. But that simply takes time.
Is wordpress a secure solution for building websites?
Security is not dependent on the technology necessarily. It can help with solving security related issues, but the reality is that security is a mindset. This means, that when developing applications or websites, security needs to be in foundation of what you are building. WordPress, on its own is a safe solution, it’s the developer that makes it insecure if the wrong decisions are made. Generally, WordPress, as an open-source platform allows anyone to build solutions for it, and anyone can use these on their site. With a critical mindset I investigate and test which of these solutions are safe to use and it requires learning to understand which solutions will remain safe in the future.
Do you need mockups or designs to build a website or application?
Generally, yes, I prefer working with given designs. This is because it’s easier to communicate during review. If we agree on a certain design, we can easily spot differences and work our way towards a goal. Without a design, the process is loose and we end up going back and forth while progress is slow. Also, I cannot make promises about delivery schedules, since things are very fluid that way. If there is no designer available or you want to safe budget, we can come up with a rough skeleton and if there is a corporate identity available, I can fill in the gaps. If you like me to design your solution, I am also happy to do that. I am highly experienced in UX/UI Design, so we can work something together on this aspect as well.
Do you need the final texts for the website already? Or better, we design the website first and then write the text?
This is a very good question, because oftentimes it leads to problems when the designer hasn’t incorporated the actual texts. Design and content are very strongly related, and not following this process Content > Design > Programming, leads to unexpected issues and extreme delays in deliverability. Designers place content blocks based on the length of expected texts and availability of images. Simply put, some E-Commerce stores require a lot of information about their product, if this is not incorporated in the design as an example, the design will look clean and minimal as wanted, but once the website is developed and the texts are added, the site will looks full and occupied. This will result in the loss of the intended brand image. Oftentimes, the designer needs to be back into the process to come up with a solution for this, requiring certain blocks to be repositioned and in the end losing a lot of the programmers effort.
For our communication, should we have regular stand-ups? Or how do you prefer?
Generally, yes, I prefer having regular set times to have discussions or progress presentations. Ad-hoc meetings and calls seriously affect the process. This is because programming is tedious job, requiring a lot of attention and silence. Regular interval meetings help expectations and resolve problems in the future. Ideally, a weekly or bi-weekly update call during the development phase will keep progress steady and enhance the quality of the project.
Why can’t I see the changes on the website?
Generally, browsers as well as servers are caching certain data that can be considered static. This can be images, text but also code. Sometimes javascript, css and even server side languages such as PHP can be cached. Caching means that the user is presented with “old” data, showing that the page looks if it hasn’t changed even though it has. Sometimes it helps to visit a private window of your browser. Or it is possible to empty the cache for the page. You can always do that by pressing “right mouse on website > inspect element > hold refresh sign, and press hard reload and refresh caches. Note that it works different for each browser. If this still didn’t solve the caching problem, the server might need to empty it’s cache. Then, I will make sure this happens.