Clients

Work in Progress Alert! 👋 This list is just a highlight reel of some notable clients I’ve had the pleasure to work with throughout my career. Each engagement presented unique challenges and opportunities where I contributed my technical expertise. Over the years, I’ve collaborated with many more clients—some not featured here due to smaller engagements or confidentiality agreements. Stay tuned, as I’ll continue expanding this overview of my professional journey!

Matchday

Matchday, founded in 2022 in San Francisco and backed by $21M seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz, envisions blockchain-based football trading cards that can be shared across multiple games. The startup grew to nearly 50 employees within its first year.

As Tech Lead for the new Barcelona Game Studio, I established the engineering team and development practices while building a versatile game backend designed for multiple future titles. Our first deliverable—the official companion web game for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup—launched successfully despite tight deadlines and budget constraints, exceeding initial expectations.

Though the technical challenges proved engaging, the constant focus on football ultimately led me to seek different opportunities—demonstrating how personal fit matters as much as technical success.

Stellar Entertainment

Stellar Entertainment, founded in 2017 in the UK, specializes in remasters and co-development of AAA titles. The studio established itself through delivering high-quality games while maintaining healthy development practices.

As Technical Director for the Need For Speed Hot Pursuit Remaster, I guided the team through global pandemic challenges to deliver ahead of schedule with features beyond scope. This success led to work on the Horizon Zero Dawn Remaster, where close collaboration with business leadership enabled a completely crunch-free environment and improved talent retention.

My role expanded to building an engineering team for an unannounced AAA Arcade Racing game, working with the design team to secure publisher funding. These responsibilities culminated in appointment as CTO, where standardizing technology practices across projects demonstrated how sustainable development practices can deliver exceptional results without the traditional burnout.

Microsoft

Microsoft, founded in 1975, expanded beyond its Windows and Office foundations into diverse technology areas. Following the HoloLens release, the Mixed Reality division pursued cutting-edge augmented and virtual reality experiences.

As first technical hire and Technical Director for Microsoft's new Mixed Reality Studio in Berlin, I established the technical foundation for this ambitious venture. Building the right team culture and recruiting top engineering talent proved crucial for creating development processes that ensured consistent quality across projects.

Leading the Tools & Libraries team across multiple studios and continents demonstrated how standardized components could significantly reduce development time while maintaining quality. The experience highlighted the delicate balance between enterprise-scale engineering rigor and the creative agility needed in emerging technology fields.

Social Point, founded in 2008 in Barcelona and later acquired by Take-Two Interactive in 2017, specializes in free-to-play mobile games with social features. Their titles Dragon City and Monster Legends have reached hundreds of millions of players worldwide.

Initially joining as Tech Lead on the architecture team, I was promoted to Technical Director for Dragon City within three months. Managing a live game with millions of daily users presented unique challenges—particularly balancing critical live operations with systematic improvement of an organically grown codebase.

The experience reinforced key lessons about evolving legacy systems: careful technical improvements can be made without disrupting the player experience, while simultaneously building team capability through coaching and strategic reorganization.

PlayRaven

PlayRaven, founded in 2013 in Helsinki by veterans from Remedy Entertainment, Digital Chocolate, and Bugbear, focused on innovative mobile strategy games before being acquired by Rovio Entertainment in 2018.

Initially joining as lead backend developer, I designed a scalable platform supporting multiple games while maintaining startup cost efficiency. After promotion to Head of Backend Development, I established the Operations team, implementing comprehensive monitoring systems and documentation that enabled stable game operations with minimal downtime.

The Finnish approach to software development—emphasizing efficiency, work-life balance, and pragmatic problem-solving—provided valuable lessons in building sustainable technical operations that I've applied throughout my career.

MagicInternet

MagicInternet, a Berlin-based technology company later acquired by Seven One Media, operated MyVideo—one of Germany's largest video platforms, combining user-generated content with ProSieben's professional catalog.

During the acquisition integration phase, I served as CTO, focusing on preserving the innovative culture while introducing necessary corporate processes. By involving engineering teams in rebuilding the platform architecture, we maintained system stability and service quality throughout the transition.

The transformation succeeded in reducing operational costs while improving infrastructure efficiency—demonstrating how careful change management and technical leadership can align startup agility with corporate requirements.

Keen Games / Keen Flare

Keen Games, founded in 2005 in Frankfurt, Germany, is an independent game development studio known for creating original IPs and working with major publishers on established franchises. Keen Flare was later established as a separate entity focused on mobile game development.

As backend lead for "Star Trek: Infinite Space," I architected infrastructure for a browser-based space MMORPG with action elements, pushing the boundaries of what browser technology could deliver for real-time gameplay.

The mobile gaming initiative brought different challenges. For "Royal Revolt," I worked as both gameplay and engine programmer, adapting Keen's technology for iOS while maintaining cross-platform flexibility. Simultaneously, I contributed to "Sacred 3" by developing the user interface architecture.

Working across these diverse projects strengthened my ability to transfer technical solutions between different contexts and platforms. The studio's approach of balancing creative freedom with technical discipline resonated with my own development philosophy.

Gameforge Productions

Gameforge, founded in 2003 in Karlsruhe, Germany, pioneered the free-to-play model in European markets and became one of the largest publishers of browser and client-based online games. The company specializes in MMOs and strategy games, with a portfolio reaching hundreds of millions of registered users worldwide.

The initial project focused on foundation work: developing a J2EE framework for a new generation of browser-based games. This demanded careful consideration of scalability, as architecture decisions would affect multiple future titles and potentially millions of users.

Later, on the "Warpfire" space-based MMO project, we faced an interesting challenge: identifying and fixing critical bottlenecks without disrupting the existing codebase or development timeline. This required finding a delicate balance between pragmatic solutions and clean code practices—effectively executing what I like to call "last minute hacks done right."

These experiences shaped my understanding of large-scale online systems and the unique challenges of supporting massive multiplayer environments—knowledge that would prove invaluable throughout my career in game development.

ProSiebenSat.1 Media

ProSiebenSat.1 Media is one of Europe's largest media companies, operating numerous television channels including the popular German networks ProSieben, SAT.1, and the news channel N24 (now known as WELT). During the mid-2000s, these networks were expanding their digital presence significantly as online communities became increasingly important to audience engagement.

As technical consultant for SkyTec AG, I contributed to reimagining their community websites. The existing platforms struggled with growing user numbers and performance issues. Through careful architecture planning and implementation, the new system handled ten times the previous user load while reducing server infrastructure by half.

This project was particularly satisfying as it demonstrated how thoughtful technical architecture can simultaneously improve user experience, system performance, and operational efficiency—proving these goals need not be in conflict when approached systematically.

Sony Computer Entertainment America

Sony Computer Entertainment America (now Sony Interactive Entertainment), founded in 1994, was responsible for the PlayStation brand and business operations in North and South America. During the early 2000s, the company was expanding its online gaming infrastructure in preparation for the increased network capabilities of future PlayStation consoles.

The gaming server infrastructure in San Diego faced significant utilization challenges, with usage spikes during evenings and weekends contrasting with idle capacity during off-peak periods. Through innovative workload management and virtualization techniques, we increased average server utilization from 30% to 90%, significantly improving capacity while reducing operational costs.

This collaboration demonstrated the value of combining enterprise-level systems expertise with gaming-specific requirements. The project provided crucial insights into scaling gaming infrastructure efficiently, while maintaining performance during peak usage periods.

Infrastructure & Distributed Computing

IBM Research and Development Böblingen

IBM, founded in 1911, is one of the world's leading technology companies, pioneering numerous computing innovations throughout its history. The German research facility played a crucial role in IBM's global research and development efforts.

The BB Grid project revolutionized IBM's internal computing capabilities by harnessing idle desktop resources for distributed computing tasks. Starting as a lab initiative, it grew to encompass more than 50,000 desktops worldwide, creating one of the company's largest internal grid computing networks.

The Cell Broadband Engine architecture, a joint development between IBM, Sony, and Toshiba, represented a breakthrough in processor design. As one of the first developers working with CellBE-based systems, my focus was on Linux kernel development, collaborating with firmware teams to establish clean interfaces, developing the compiler toolchain, and creating interfaces for the Synergistic Processing Units (SPUs).

Working at IBM instilled fundamental principles of technical excellence and innovation that continue to influence my approach to technology leadership. The experience provided an invaluable foundation in large-scale technical leadership, complex systems architecture, and collaborative development across global teams.