Hi, I am
Christoph!
I'm a Senior Software Engineer and Consultant. I design and build advanced software systems with a strong AI focus.
If you'd like to connect, I am happy to receive emails at christoph@burnicki.net
If you'd like to connect, I am happy to receive emails at christoph@burnicki.net
What I do
I help you to
- define an MVP to validate your business case efficiently, whether it's a classic product or AI-powered solution.
- select an architecture that's lean, scalable, and suitable for AI-driven systems.
- integrate AI agents or LLMs where they create real value and enhance workflows.
- identify the right features and build them on time.
What I offer
Experience
Experience
- AI-Native Workflow: These days, AI writes most of the code in our projects. I bring the experience to guide, supervise, and integrate it — ensuring quality, speed, and strategic value.
- Big And Small: I've worked on both startup and enterprise systems. I'll help lead your team to make smart architectural decisions — including for AI-based solutions.
- Fast And Solid: I'll help shape an MVP that's focused, on time, and extendible — ready for evolving AI features if needed.
- Startup Successes: Every app I've helped build launched on time, made it to the app stores, and required little maintenance.
- Business First: With a background in top consulting, I align tech decisions with your business goals — whether you're building a traditional platform or exploring AI systems.
More than 80% of the code I deliver today is written by AI systems. My focus is on guiding, supervising, and integrating these systems to build products faster — without compromising quality.
I design architectures where AI agents play an active role — in workflows, user interactions, and automation — whether it's embedding LLMs into existing systems or building entirely AI-first applications.
With AI, you're always experimenting — but that doesn't mean flying blind. I help structure that experimentation so it's reliable, measurable, and aligned with your product goals.
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, implemented, and improved dozens of backend systems of varying size and complexity.
My focus has often been on distributed systems and asynchronous communication in enterprise environments. But I’ve also built systems in startups with very limited resources — starting out with monoliths is often the right call.
The key is knowing how to make fast progress early, and how to evolve the architecture once the organization starts to grow.
On the frontend side, I’ve supported many server-rendered and SPA projects, often building cross-platform apps with Ionic, React, Angular, and Capacitor or NextJS.
I’ve designed frontend architectures for teams of all sizes — from tight two-person builds to micro-frontend setups across multiple 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!
Project Portfolio
Design and implementation of an agentic AI coachbot for an education startup
AI | Python | NextJS | AWS | AWS Bedrock
The task was to design and implement an agentic AI coachbot for an education startup. The coachbot will auto-adjust to the user's needs and select the best possible coaching path.
Systems Modernization for a Leading Global Airline Group
Angular | Spring | OpenShift
The task is to modernize and redesign several core backend systems and to implement a multi-tenant Angular application. This also includes the move to a new OpenShift cluster.
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.net
- Connect on LinkedIn