Hi, I am
Christoph!
I'm a senior software developer and former senior consultant at INNOQ with 15+ years of experience.
If you'd like to connect, I am happy to receive emails at christoph.burnicki@gmail.com
What I do
I will help you to
- define an MVP to test your business case with as little resources as possible.
- find a tech stack and architecture that is easy enough for you to get your idea to market quickly but sophisticated enough to last and scale in the future.
- select the right features and build them on time.
What I offer
Experience
Experience
- Big And Small: I've worked on startup and enterprise codebases. I'll help lead your team to make the right architecture choices along the way.
- Fast And Solid: I'll help make sure your MVP will have the right scope to be on time and extendible in the future.
- Beyond Coding: I don't just write code; I add value. I'll be with you in making smart decisions for your app.
- Startup Successes: Every app I've crafted made it to the app stores. They were released on time and required little maintenance.
- Business First: Having worked in top consulting, I look beyond engineering. I think about your business case and how to make it work.
Engineering excellence is not always about writing perfect code. In startups it is often about pace:
Don't build a mine before you struck gold 🏔️⛏️
Startups and large businesses have very different goals and resources and therefore equally different requirements when it comes to software architecture and engineering.
Having worked in both environments, I know how to make the right calls for your business.
It's almost a platitude in our business:
“If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late.”
Reid Hoffmann's words describe what we all know, at least in theory: Your MVP should be minimalistic. To spend more time on a feature than it takes to verify it, often means you wasted that time. And yet, we see this happening again and again.
It takes time and experience to think from a purely MVP-centered perspective, put back own desires and say no to everything that is unnecessary.
Over the years, I have designed and implemented and improved dozens of backend systems of varying size and complexity.
For a long time, the main focus was on independent, distributed systems and asynchronous communication in enterprise environments. However, my work for startups taught me how to build systems with very few development resources, even if that means to start out with a classic monolith.
The key is to understand how to get away with it once the organization starts to scale.
I supported frontend teams in many server-side rendering and SPA projects. I have most experience in developing cross-platform apps with Ionic, Angular and Capacitor, although I have done work in multiple VueJS and NextJS / React projects.
I've designed software architectures for multiple Ionic based apps, from two person teams to micro-frontend environments spanning a handful of mid-sized teams.
Publications
Whenever I have time and motivation, I write about the things I learned along the way. Here are a few examples.
More of my content
Our latest app
Häpps: Invite people to happenings and events
In häpps you can create happenings: a party, a barbecue, a concert visit or whatever you like. Your friends can answer your invitation and help plan the happening in the chat. In häpps, groups are organized around events instead of groups of people to bundle necessary information and to avoid awkwardly muting or using WhatsApp groups.
It's a cross platform app for Android and iOS with a modern distributed backend system. The app was built by my brother Stefan and myself.
What we've learned
When it became clear that the app was not gaining the necessary momentum and that even more intensive engagement was not compatible with our personal life plans, we finally decided to stop working on the app in January 2023.
Even if it turned out that either the idea didn't work or our marketing skills weren't sufficient, we learned a tremendous amount about app and product development during the development period. Technically it was a complete success. We launched a minimal version in the planned time, on which we validated features and then adapted, deleted or expanded them.
We put our knowledge into good practice
We decided to take everything we learned and help other founders launch their products. We started our Appventure Time Blog and help our clients to launch their products successfully.
We know we can help with a successful product launch - we've done it multiple times!
Past Projects
Implementation of a Micro-Frontend Architecture using Ionic
Ionic | Capacitor | WebComponents | Micro-Frontends
Our task is to roll out an existing internal application as a mobile app. In order to give the individual teams maximum independence in terms of development speed, choice of technology and deployment, an Android app consisting of micro front ends will be built first. In addition to the usual challenges, such as avoiding cross-team version dependencies, special challenges arise with a mobile app compared to a web app, since only one app bundle is deployed.
Design, Development and Rollout of a Social Networking App (häpps)
Ionic/Angular | NodeJS/TypeScript | Flask/Python | MongoDB | Redis | RabbitMQ
The app is a social network that allows you to create and share events (happenings). The mobile app was developed cross-platform with Ionic for Android and IOS and rolled out, and includes a multitude of features such as wizards, friends lists, profile pages, searches, event creation, push notifications and chatrooms. The system is a complex distributed system interconnected by HTTP interfaces and message brokers.
Concept, Development and Rollout of an Event App
Ionic/Angular | NodeJS/TypeScript | Java | Python | Machine Learning
The app shows a live map with various events in selected cities. The development of the Android/IOS apps was done cross-platform with Ionic. Various backend services have searched the Internet for events and extracted, categorized and prepared information using machine learning to centrally display it in the app.
Optimization and Further Development of a Telemedicine App
NodeJS/Typescript | RabbitMQ | Redis | MongoDB
Assistance in the development of a telemedicine app for a startup. The app enabled doctors to communicate remotely and with emergency personnel on site, to record patient data and to prescribe medication. Challenges included the high requirements for data security, connection stability, and logging and traceability of internal processes.
Education
Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics
Technische Universität Berlin
Mainly theoretical and computational physics. Although I love physics, it became clear to me that engineering was what I enjoyed most doing on a day to day basis. I eventually decided to drop out of the master's degree to work on a startup project.
Physics (B. Sc.)
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
After discovering what a powerful tool math is in economics studies, I decided to follow my childhood dream and study physics.
Economics (B. Sc.)
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
I was fascinated by the complexity of economic systems. Studying economics awoke my interest in mathematics. I later discovered that many statistical methods could not only be applied to data science but also to machine learning.
Political Science and Government, Economics
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
After school I was deeply interested in philosophy, politics and the rules and contracts that constitute our democratic societies. The 2008 economic crisis eventually shifted my focus towards economics.
Get In Touch
What’s your story? Get in touch
I'm always keen to hear about new ideas and to work on exciting projects. Feel free to write me an email!
- I work remotely from Timezones in Europe and the Americas
- christoph.burnicki@gmail.com
- Connect on LinkedIn