SEOlytics GmbH

Hamburg

Head of Development at SEOlytics

Head of Development

May 2015 - March 2016

11 months

Full-time

Product work

Hamburg

Relevance

Why this case matters

This framing makes the decision signal explicit: impact, proof, fit, and AI / delivery relevance for hiring or collaboration.

System impact

Led the development organization, microservices architecture, and internal engineering systems such as Jira, Wiki, Jenkins, Git, Quay.io, and Nexus closer to product delivery.

AI / delivery relevance

AI-native systems craft needs clear technical direction and teams that connect architecture, product, and execution. This case shows that leadership work before today's AI hype.

Head of DevelopmentMicroservicesDevOpsDelivery systemPlatform operationsTeam BuildingProduct DevelopmentSelenium

Proof

Internal + external

Developers led

Microservices

Architecture shift

Hiring

Team building

Toolchain

Engineering enablement

Especially relevant for

For companies that do not want to separate technical leadership from product and delivery responsibility.
For teams that need to evolve existing systems without disconnecting delivery.

Case context

Overview

SEOlytics was moving an existing software system toward microservices while the development organization also needed clearer leadership. I took professional and disciplinary responsibility for internal and external developers and connected technical direction with product development.

The transformation connected microservice architecture, team building, employee development, internal engineering systems, and operational steerability. Jira, Wiki, SVN, Jenkins, Git, Quay.io, and Nexus were not just tools, but part of whether developers could reliably find, build, test, deploy, and understand work.

Responsibility

Activities

Team Leadership: Professional and disciplinary leadership of internal/external software developers
Architecture Transformation: Microservices architecture, system restructuring, scalable software architecture
Product Development: Technical responsibility for product development, maintenance, and enhancement
Team Building: Team restructuring, job postings, interviews, employee development
Strategic IT: Resource planning, strategic IT alignment, internal software and tool development
Engineering enablement: Shared responsibility for Jira, Wiki, SVN, Jenkins, Git, Quay.io, and Nexus as internal development infrastructure
Delivery and operations capability: Moved build, test, deployment, and feedback paths closer to product and team decisions
Quality Assurance: Timeline and quality standards, Selenium-based UI/regression tests, lean development, code review

Operating mode

Methodology

Servant Leadership: Team Empowerment, Shared Ownership, Collaborative Decision Making
Delivery system: Use Scrum and lean development to improve transparency, feedback, and decision speed
Technical quality: Pair programming, code review, refactoring, and quality standards as shared team responsibility
Cloud Computing: Scalable Architecture, Modern Infrastructure, DevOps Practices

Technical context

Technology stack

The tools are not the point by themselves. What matters is which system layers had to work together.

5Areas

22Technologies

JavaMicroservices

Cloud ComputingDockerGitDevOpsPlatform Operations

JenkinsCI/CD PipelineNexusQuay.io

SeleniumJiraConfluence

Project ManagementTeam CollaborationSCRUMDelivery SystemLean DevelopmentAgile CoachingDocumentationProcess Tracking

Next step

If you want to explore similar leverage for hiring, collaboration, or a concrete transformation, this is the right starting point.

Send a short note about the situation you are trying to assess. I reply personally and will be direct about fit.

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