Two decades of code, one lesson from it
I started as a web developer when AI was still a research topic. What has changed since is the tool. What stayed the same: good software comes from judgement, not from speed.
My path runs from PHP shop systems of the 2000s to LLM-orchestrated platforms running in production today. The most important insight from that stretch is uncomfortable: most expensive mistakes do not happen in the code, but in the half hour before it — when nobody asks whether the problem has already been solved.
As a consultant I bring together what the industry likes to separate: architecture decisions that hold for 24 months. AI assistance that makes a team faster without making it careless. And compliance that is part of the design from the start — not an extension bought expensively later.
I deliberately keep working on my own products. Not out of nostalgia, but because a consultant who ships nothing to production eventually only knows slides. What I recommend, I have run myself first.
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- TrueCode · Leitivo · SME engagements
From shop developer to AI architect
- 2024 – present
Enterprise AI Consultant
Advising companies on AI-assisted development. Building LLM-orchestrated platforms, architecture reviews, compliance under EU AI Act and GDPR. Own products as a proving ground.
- 2016 – 2024
Senior Fullstack Developer & technical advisor
Python/FastAPI, TypeScript, PostgreSQL. From a single feature to platform architecture. Focus: systems that grow without maintenance eating them alive.
- 2007 – 2016
E-commerce & web development
Magento, Shopware, PHP. Shop systems, integrations, performance work. The years in which I learned what a bad database cut costs five years later.
- from 2003
First lines, first lessons
Web development, small tools, a lot of trying things out. Clients and stations including work in the orbit of Axel Springer and Die Zeit.
A project that needs to hold?
Whether a concrete project, an architecture question, or the idea of bringing AI sensibly into development — a first conversation costs nothing but half an hour.