About
At four or five, I walked to the library alone. Two or three kilometers through Schleswig, to bring books home.
The Long Version
I was born in 1966, the sixth of ten children in a working-class family. The things I needed most were rarely waiting for me at home. I had to go and get them. That has not changed; only the books are now called repos and papers.
At school I was average, sometimes worse than average, until my math teacher told me about something new: computer science. I had never seen a computer. I knew no one who owned one. But something lit up. I went from shaky promotion candidate to top of the class, finished high school at the technical gymnasium in Schleswig, served fifteen months in the army, then studied computer science in Kiel.
University was too dry. Luckily there was a notice on the university board from North Data, a small software company in Kiel. The notice had been there for three months. I was the only applicant. Mainframes first, then Unix, real systems, real responsibility. In the early 1990s I sometimes earned between 10,000 and 20,000 Deutsche Mark per month as a student. In 1996 I received my diploma, went to WestLB in Düsseldorf, and quickly learned that stable can also mean dead.
Then PwC brought me back north to Hamburg. A decade in a suitcase followed: PwC, then IBM after the 2002 acquisition. System software architecture across England, South Africa, Japan, Houston, St. Petersburg, Frankfurt, and five years in Zurich on a project called Vista. With 27 I had Lufthansa Senator status. It was intense, expensive, useful, and eventually enough.
In 2015 I became an independent software developer. The Corona years were financially absurd, with monthly peaks around 50,000 euros. But by 2023 I no longer wanted to trade time for money. I wanted to build.
I founded Moinsen with Malte in 2021. Today I run it solo: SME consulting, product building, AI for humans, and my own product lab. I work on several projects in parallel, maintain 400+ repositories, and use agentic coding every day.
At 59, the late ADHD diagnosis made many things click: speed, openness, context switching, intensity. Since my mid-fifties I have felt a productivity surge I do not want to lose. Tiredness is not a category I use much. Impossible is not a useful answer.
Three sentences I live by: A man of his word. I do not lie, too complicated. Software is used by humans, not by models.
What Drives Me
1. Curiosity and Learning
The walk to the library is still the pattern. If I want to understand something, I go and get it.
2. Building and Making
When I see a problem, I want to solve it. The repos are not a hobby; they are the natural consequence of that wiring.
3. Independence and Meaning
I do not want someone else to tell me what to do. But what I build has to matter. AI helps helpers is the business version of that sentence.
4. Coding as Sport, Ikigai as Life
Coding is my sport, not just my job. Ikigai is not inspiration for me; it is the operating model.
Career
| Period | Role | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 to today | Indie Builder, agentic coding, AI trading | independent, Moinsen |
| 2015 to 2024 | Freelance software developer | independent, first major client Fielmann |
| 2009 to 2014 | System software architect, Zurich | IBM, five-year Vista project |
| 2002 to 2009 | International system software architect | IBM, after PwC acquisition |
| 1999 to 2002 | Senior Consultant | PricewaterhouseCoopers, Hamburg |
| 1996 to 1999 | System developer | WestLB, Düsseldorf |
| 1991 to 1996 | Student developer / junior dev | North Data, Management Systems |
| 1989/90 to 1996 | Computer science diploma | University of Kiel |
Skills
Active today: Dart/Flutter, Python, TypeScript, Domain-Driven Design, agentic coding, Claude Code, Codex, Kimi, OpenCode, GPT-5.
Across three decades: mainframes, Unix systems, enterprise banking, international systems architecture.
